Acer Aspire 6530G - won't boot, only power button flashing

[Dr.Colossos]

Hi,

okay, this is a little weird, I know, but maybe someone can do me a favour and has knowledge about this ... e.g. Aspire 6530G owners ...

Thing is, I want to upgrade my laptop with a new gfx card - ATI 4650 MXM II would be nice.

They sell pretty high, 200€ or so, and I don't manage to find any cheap one on ebay at all.

So I have "Plan B" - get a broken laptop and remove it from that one, and resell the broken laptop. Should be cheaper, I hope.

So I found this laptop on ebay. All I know is, that it does not boot, and that the power button is flashing.

I had some Acer 7520Gs with the same behaviour (reboot loop), having a motherboard failure. Of course, if I would buy this laptop, the worst that could happen is, that the graphic card is broken.

So, does anybody have an idea what's wrong with that Acer 6530G? I didn't find anything on the web regarding this - for the 7520G the web is full with this kind of error.

Maybe someone can comment on this.

Thanks in advance!
Cheers

[Dr.Colossos]

No one willing to comment?

More a motherboard thing or a video card thing - or how high are the chances that this behaviour is video card related?

I am also happy for wild guesses and dirty lies - just tell me to buy that god damn thing, hehe.

Thanks in advance!

[downloads]

OK. If it was a GPU thing it would try to boot and either succeed in the background or give a BIOS error beep code and stop.
What you've described looks like a mobo failure or some kind of electrical failure- the latter could have affected the GPU but is quite unlikely.

So if the price is right it seems it's worth taking the risk.

[Dr.Colossos]

Thanks for the reply!

A great - now I have a reference to point to in case my girlfriend is giving me the bird again for buying trash, hehe.

The reason why I asked this kinda strange question is that, as stated above, many other Acer Aspire models (mainly 5520, 5920, 7520) have similar problems, stemming from mainbaord failures.

So I thought maybe its also common for the 6530 series.

I would also tip on a mainboard, battery/power cord/power jack problem, which of course could also affect the VGA adapter.

I'll see if I buy it, thanks again!

Any more opinions?

Cheers

[Dr.Colossos]

Okay, bought it, got it, removed 4650, "works" - I just shuffed it in my FL90, had a bit of trouble with "incompatible" mounting brackets, and the heat sink would need modifications - but I saw it POSTing, and turned it off.

Anyway, I checked then on the Acer 6530G. I put in an ATI 3470, just to have VGA card in there.

The problem now looks like this.

Without power, it does nothing, altough battery is in (it could be dry/dead).

As soon as I plug in the power supply, the power button starts flashing - quite fast, multiple times per second.

Even if I unplug the power from the wall socket but leave it in the laptop, the power button keeps on flashing on the same pace as before - fast (is that a hint for someone - looks "fishy" to me).

It only stops once the light of the adapter of the power supply goes off.

The light of the power supply looks normal - it goes on once I plug it into the wall socket and stays on when I plug it into the laptop - when I unplug it form the wall socket it takes a while untuil it dimms.

I can't relly test with another power supply, as I do not have one that outputs 3,42A, only 4.74 (I shouldn't try with these, I guess?)

I have a multimeter here to check voltages ... it's in its orignal wrapping, hehe, I never used it ...

Any tips how I could tackle that one ...

Guesses are on power supply, power jack of laptop, or mainboard failure/short - what are your guesses?

Any help would be great!

Cheers

[Dr.Colossos]

Okay, I am thru with the multimeter tutorial and manual, so I gave it a try.

The adapter brings 19.something volts, which is okay, but when meassuring current, the readings were "strange".

It was no constant reading, but everything from 0.something, 1.something, even 2.something once, but never 3.42, esp. not constantly.

Now, as you might have learned, I am not the multimeter guru, but that's awkward, right?

Any pointer would be great!

Thanks!

[Dr.Colossos]

No ideas? Anyone?

I also checked another working power adapter, and the multimeter also showed non-constant readings, so I guess the above "problem" is no problem really.

Any other ideas/guesses ..?

Cheers

[Dr.Colossos]

Really no one ..?

Thanks in advance!

[cashwo]

My 5720 stopped working from the mains a couple of days ago, when I plug in the power cable with a battery installed the power light/battery light both flash roughly 2 times/sec, doesn`t stop untill the power cable is unplugged. Laptop runs fine on battery so probably something on the motherboard has blown (not looked yet) Do you have another battery you could try in your 6530G? same battery in loads of Acers.
May be a long shot but taking the laptop apart completely may be worth a try too, bought 2 dead (no lights) 6530g`s about 3months ago and both worked after stripping and rebuilding. Using one of them now since my 5720 is sick.

[Dr.Colossos]

Hey, thanks for the reply.

I had several 7520G's at home, but sold them all just recently. But a new, i.e. defective, 7520G is coming to me right from ebay, hehe.

I will try exactly what you suggested, as I had the same in mind - first try the battery of the 7520G, then dis-/reassemble the 6530G.

I already began to disassemble a bit, may I continue that before trying the battery (7520G won't come before next week) - I removed some parts and connection, and also a battery (not CMOS battery, I guess) between VGA card and WLAN card - after removing that, the blue light did not come on at all, but I could hear a very light buzzing sound when plugging power back in. Reinstalling the battery again made the blue light come on again, blinking like wild.

Not sure if that's relevant, but perhaps it is ...

Anyway, thanks a lot for you reply ... and any upcoming!

Cheers

EDIT: a pic of the battery, the dark red thing between VGA card and WLAN card, lower right corner - no idea what this one is for ... (picture not taken by me, hence, not showing my 6530G, found it online)
http://i44.tinypic.com/2112x5t.jpg

Edit: sorry about that large picture!