Laptop problem

fozzy · 25 Sep 2007 at 22:09

Recently i was given a non-working Acer Aspire 1802 wsmi. It was minus the hardrive and the power supply is a bit battered, but apart from that it seems ok. It would switch on and post up until the point of trying to load the operating system. Obviously without the hardrive it fails to boot.

The machine has been sat doing nothing for a couple of weeks whilst i got around to sorting out a hardrive. The drive arrived this morning but before i put the drive in, i thought i would go into the bios and change the boot sequence. Got as far as the bios screen and was prompted for a password, of which i don't have :/

I turn around to my desktop to Google the default password for a phoenix bios, find a couple that may work, turn back to the laptop and it has shut down. I try the power button again and the machine attempts to power up but dies within around 4-5 seconds. This happens every time, with or without the charger plugged in.

At first i thought maybe the charger was knackered, i don't think it's that because the charge light appears on the laptop. So now, I'm at a loss as to what to attempt next. What do you reckon? Throw it in the bin?

Any help appreciated.

xirokx · 25 Sep 2007 at 23:27

so your laptop although you can see the charging sign on the display is not charging....

triple check the power lead...ensure battery is secure?

Mattitude · 26 Sep 2007 at 12:06

from experience this is a battery problem, ebay a new one

Roland0 · 26 Sep 2007 at 12:49

fozzy said:
Throw it in the bin?

fozzy · 26 Sep 2007 at 15:23

Mattitude said:
from experience this is a battery problem, ebay a new one

But surely the laptop should draw power from the power pack itself? If i use my laptop (the one I'm on now) and plug it into the mains, i can take the battery off the machine all together, but it will still work.

The reason i mentioned the battery charge light working on the laptop, was to show that power is getting from the power pack, to the machine. Looking like I'm gonna strip it and bay it

UKDTweak · 26 Sep 2007 at 15:28

Sounds like the charging circuit is failing, this controls the use of mains or battery power and if it dies, no battery or mains will power the machine.
I used to work for Acer a few years ago, this was not an uncommon fault.

However; it could be the power socket is damaged inside, had similar fault on a Tosh last week, opened it up and found the back of the socket was broken.

fozzy · 26 Sep 2007 at 15:51

Thanks for that Tweak, this sounds more feasible, i guess it's going in the bin.

Tee Hee Johnson · 26 Sep 2007 at 17:16

fozzy said:
But surely the laptop should draw power from the power pack itself? If i use my laptop (the one I'm on now) and plug it into the mains, i can take the battery off the machine all together, but it will still work.

The reason i mentioned the battery charge light working on the laptop, was to show that power is getting from the power pack, to the machine. Looking like I'm gonna strip it and bay it

Most still require a working battery...