Graphics problem - Acer 5024

[origdav]

Hi Guys,

I've had my Acer 5024 for 15months and it's started to playup... I decided I'd reimage it using the recovery disks although it hasn't fixed the problem.

Sometimes I see artefacts on the BIOS screen or the chkdsk screen, other times it's fine. I've had 1 blue screen detailing an infinite loop with one of the ATI driver files. I've also had the laptop just go to a black screen but not lock up i.e. responds to caps lock key being pressed. I've also had complete screen corruption e.g. 6 vertical lines of two tone blue.

Other times the PC will work fine and shut down fine.

So far I've used compressed air on it, ran memtest86 for 3 hours and checked the harddrive with SeaTools (it's a Seagate drive).

Based on this I've got the following suspicions - faulty motherboard, faulty gpu, faulty psu or possibly memory (maybe need to run memtest86 for more than just 3 hours).

Any advice or suggestions as to what I should do next?

Cheers

David

 

[Minstadave]

BIOS artifacts are bad, usually means the GPU core or mem is dying. If you're feeling handy, see if the GPU cooling is working (if your laptop has a dedicated GPU cooling system) a few I've seen have a heatpipe system which may not be making proper contact.

Welcome to the foums

 

[origdav]

Just rang Acer Support and they said if it was the Motherboard then the part alone would cost £826!?!

Part number: lb.a4601.001

Any ideas where I could search for it and buy it myself online?

Thanks

 

[antc]

Just rang Acer Support and they said if it was the Motherboard then the part alone would cost £826!?!

Part number: lb.a4601.001

Any ideas where I could search for it and buy it myself online?

Thanks

probably not without naming competitors mate

 

[ChrisJSY]

Just rang Acer Support and they said if it was the Motherboard then the part alone would cost £826!?!

Part number: lb.a4601.001

Any ideas where I could search for it and buy it myself online?

Thanks

Whoever told you that in acer needs to get fired pronto.

 

[origdav]

Why? He was pretty confident that was the correct amount for the make and model of mine, double checked the amount of video memory as the two motherboards were different prices, the other 64mb was 100quid less.

How much should I be expecting to pay??

 

[Mr Footlong]

Whoever told you that in acer needs to get fired pronto.

It doesn't surprise me at all as most of the tech people in Acer UK are completely clueless. Being an Acer-only (by force.....) business reseller for at least 11+ years I have more than a few horror stories lol.

 

[origdav]

Any ideas how much I should be expecting to pay then?

Do you guys reckon a new MoBo would fix the above detailed problem?

Cheers

 

[Rroff]

£826 for a motherboard... even on a laptop... you gotta be kidding me... you could buy a new fairly decent spec laptop for that...

 

[Things change I've changed]

,for £826 you could by a intel Core 2 Duo laptop that will leave your currunt one standing, my advice, sell your currunt laptop as 'sold as seen' on the bay and put in the extra for C2D laptop.

 

[Mr Footlong]

If it has a heatpipe cooling solution on the graphics as mentioned early on in the thread then I wouldn't write off the possibility of the actual heatpipe seperating from the gpu core sink. We have had to replace 4 or 5 of the assemblies over the last few years (but on the CPU's, none had dedicated gpu cooling).