Laptop powers up but wont start !!??

Hey everyone ,

I recently posted a thread about getting a new laptop and after doing a couple hours of research I decided I was going to fix and upgrade the laptop I have right now.

Its an ACER aspire 1520 ... I got it around mid 2005ish ... It came with an AMD Athlon 64 CPU , 1.8ghz and 512mb RAM. It sat around not doing much for a couple years.

But - I've been using it as a general all purpose workhorse for the past 2 years or so leaving it on for days at a time downloading , ect ...

At some point it started to randomly shut down when doing CPU intensive tasks like playing video games or streaming videos off of the net like youtube and spankwire :o) lol ...

So I did some research and found that its more than likely overheating and seeing as my fan was still running it was most likely due to the thermal grease drying out and needing to be replaced.

So I bought some of the Artic cooling remover and also the artic 5 silver thermal grease compound. I applied it and sealed the computer back up.

Fired up the computer and all was well ... I decided to run M.U.G.E.N. (fighting game) seeing as this seems to crash my comp the quickest and it ran fine for a solid 40 or so minutes ... CPU was running at 100 percent pretty much the whole time but the comp didn't shut itself down cause the temp didn't rise high enough to do damage ... So I shut the game down and decide that i'm now going to REPLACE THE RAM.

I had bought 2 1gig crucial ram sticks to put in my comp , they're the right kind and compatible ... So I put in the 2 ram sticks , close it back up , flip over the laptop and hit the start button ...

The green light around the power button starts glowing ... The little lightbulb icon on the screen starts glowing but there is ABSOLUTELY NO SOUND or VIDEO SCREENS firing up ...

Its like its paralyzed and wants to run the power through the comp but nothing else is reacting ...

I replaced the ram with the Single 512 Ram stick I was using 3minutes prior and the same thing ... light around power button turns on but nothing else goes ... I have to hold the power button down for a good 3+ seconds before it'll the light will shut back off too ...

What do you think happened?

Take some pics of the ram that you took out, then the ram that you put in.

Try to get a decent enough picture of the labeling so we can see what type of ram you were using and the new ram you put in.

I had done a quick 45min research job to check and double check that the RAM was right so it should be working ... it looks a little bit different but the major numbers match up ...

OLD RAM is on the LEFT ... the samsung.

Also - I ended up attempting to run the computer with no ram in it at all and it did the same thing ... green light around the power button lights up and nothing else ...

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...L/IMG_1172.jpg

Hmm well you certainly were right about it being compatible - this problem has me stumped. I have put alot of computers together in my time but never have run into this problem.

Only thing i can think of is reseting the BIOS settings by locating the appropraite jumper on the mainboard - even then i am not sure if that would help.

Maybe there is someone else on the forum who can work out what i am overlooking.

Do you hear any beep codes after you turn the power on?

Trying system restore?

Worst comes to worst reinstall your os?


if neither of them work...you have a hardware problem.

maybe check to see if the fan inside is still workin.

Metaverse:

1. Take off the battery
2. Take off the RAM (Memory)
3. Turn on laptop (Without RAM)
4. Instert RAM back in. Turn laptop on
5. If laptop turns on without battery, shut it down.
6. Insert battery, and turn laptop on.

Is there clicking from the hard drive when you start it up?
Maybe coincidentally your screen crapped out after doing all that. What happens when you put just one stick of ram in? When you applied the thermal grease, did you put too much of it on? I'm not too familiar with this stuff but maybe that might lend itself to more ideas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Julio

Metaverse:

1. Take off the battery
2. Take off the RAM (Memory)
3. Turn on laptop (Without RAM)
4. Instert RAM back in. Turn laptop on
5. If laptop turns on without battery, shut it down.
6. Insert battery, and turn laptop on.

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after step 3, you should hear those beep codes i'm talking about.

if you don't hear them again after step 4, then it isn't a ram issue.

you try plugging in an external monitor? maybe something came loose from your lcd...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chilly

Do you hear any beep codes after you turn the power on?

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Completely forgot about the beep codes - they tell all !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BentoSan

Completely forgot about the beep codes - they tell all !

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SOMETIMES...people pass of the beep codes as nothing. They don't think they mean anything...it's just the computer booting...

Like I said...SOMETIMES...you never know, that's why I ask! :)

I know it is probably not going to help you at all, but my MBP would not boot with one of my External HDD's attached to it, it just stood there looking stupid. I also had the same problem with one of my USB Sticks. Probably cause there is some conflict of MBR or something, hell knows.

The system beeps tell you everything, and you can read in your manual what they mean.

One means no RAM, another sequence means some other failure. Often ONE beep (I think in ALL cases) means "Everything A OK". Some laptops have system beep off if everything is OK so that you dont hear that anoying sound (which is actually a very good hint to what is going on with your machine).

Hope you get your laptop fixed! :)

Nemo

Try only with your old ram, if it stards then its your new ram.i had the same proplem and my new ram was dead. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by -dIm-

Try only with your old ram, if it stards then its your new ram.i had the same proplem and my new ram was dead. ;)

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He said he tried his old ram - thats what was really weirding me out about this problem. I really dont think its bad ram. Unless on the very unlikely situation that he bought bad ram, and when he took his original ram out he damaged it, leaving him with nothing but bad ram - the chances of this happing is realllly slim though.

Bad motherboard?

Its happened to me, Drove me crazy for months

Guys:

On most laptops you will most likely not hear the beeps.
On many models, you need to remove the battery to work on the hardware.

Acer, Asus, Sony, Toshibas are prone to this... I know, since I work everyday with these... ;)

P.D - Did you ground yourself before working with the laptop?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BentoSan

He said he tried his old ram - thats what was really weirding me out about this problem. I really dont think its bad ram. Unless on the very unlikely situation that he bought bad ram, and when he took his original ram out he damaged it, leaving him with nothing but bad ram - the chances of this happing is realllly slim though.

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Static electricity. Unless you're properly grounded you ALWAYS run a chance of messing up your ram...or anything else with a circuit board.

Nemo:

The reason you MBP did not boot, was probably because it was trying to boot from your external hard drive... PCs also have this option, and usually come enable from factory along with LAN boot. You can easily disable this option...

No beep codes ...There's no clicking in the hard drive ... i'm going to try some of these other methods and get back to you ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chilly

Static electricity. Unless you're properly grounded you ALWAYS run a chance of messing up your ram...or anything else with a circuit board.

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Wouldn't you feel some type of shock though?

I didn't feel anything ... Stupid me I had the fucking wrist strap sitting next to me and said "i've done this plenty of times with no wrist strap , i'll be fine..."

I feel like a fucking moron right now ...

Someone had suggested Resetting the CMOS for the BIOS in order to get my RAM working again , think it might work ????

Quote:

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Originally Posted by metaverse

Wouldn't you feel some type of shock though?

I didn't feel anything ... Stupid me I had the fucking wrist strap sitting next to me and said "i've done this plenty of times with no wrist strap , i'll be fine..."

I feel like a fucking moron right now ...

Someone had suggested Resetting the CMOS for the BIOS in order to get my RAM working again , think it might work ????

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I don't know for sure, it was just another idea to help bro :)

I don't know if resetting the cmos battery will actually do anything to help with the ram.

what do computer places charge where you're at to look at it? $50? might be worth it...

Right ... thats the next step assuming monday i haven't got it running ...

The best place around me will run diagnostics for 60 on a laptop , 30 on a desktop ...

I think there is a possibility the CMOS will work , but at the same time I'm feeling like its a really slim one ...

Oh well ... lesson learned ... its easiest to remember a good lesson when you get stung hard.

metaverse, with this out of the way, you can at least now you can really think of getting that newer laptop you were asking suggestions for now :)

I know I should post this at all since its irrelevant but you guys new help with mac hardware and troubleshooting it, send me a pm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew Loay

metaverse, with this out of the way, you can at least now you can really think of getting that newer laptop you were asking suggestions for now :)

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Haha , you're right ...

We'll see what happens ... I ended up trying to run it solo with the Original ram in the other Ram socket ... no dice ...

I'm pretty sure I cooked something because the only thing thats making sense is that the motherboard or cpu shit the bed.

I'll keep you guys informed.