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(Help) Aspire One dead

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LAN_403

Conundrum

Sun Jan 03 2010, 11:46AM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

Hi all.
Have an Acer Aspire One similar to mine here.
Does not power up for reasons unknown, possibly BIOS related.

Has anyone here managed to recover one?
its supposed to be fairly simple requiring a pendrive with acer boot image but having never
resurrected one before its difficult to know where to start.

thanks in advance, -A

on a similar note, my machine won't boot unless you save the BIOS every time, any ideas?

Carbon_Rod

Thu Jan 07 2010, 02:10AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

Send the unit in for repair if it's still under warranty.

Otherwise:
1. Unplug power supply, and remove laptop battery
2. Remove all expansion/storage cards, replace battery, and >fully< charge the unit.
If the LEDs did not turn on... then check power supply, and motherboard fuses.
3. Plug-in an external monitor then use the hot-key combo the switch screens after the system boots to a black screen.
4. Repeat the last step, but check screen next to a bright light source to see if it was only the back light that died.

Some netbooks have their main battery maintain the CMOS memory.
Thus, the unit resets every power cycle if the battery no longer holds a charge.

ragnar

Thu Jan 07 2010, 11:13AM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

Reseat the RAM.

cjk2

Fri Jan 08 2010, 10:56AM

Registered Member #51 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:17AM
Location:
Posts: 263

I would do these things in this order:

1. Pull out the battery and unplug the computer, hold the power button for 10 seconds, plug in and test.
2. Take the computer apart and find the BIOS battery. Pull it out and leave it for 10 minutes while the computer is unplugged. If there is a BIOS reset jumper go ahead and set that to clear for a few minutes as well.
3. Is it charging? Is the power jack broken? See that it is actually getting power, pull the battery if needed.
4. If a BIOS reset does not work and it IS getting power, try reseating the RAM.
5. Try new RAM. Does the aspire one have on board RAM too? If it does, pull your add on stick.
5. Disconnect all hardware not essential to it POSTing. Pull the wireless card, blutooth, all usb devices, even the hard drive if you like.
6. Reseat the CPU.

If you have done all of these things and you are still getting nothing I would assume you have a board problem or a bad CPU. I suppose a corrupted BIOS could also cause this.

Greend88

Sun Feb 14 2010, 06:43PM

Registered Member #2684 Joined: Sun Feb 14 2010, 06:30PM
Location:
Posts: 2

If the Lights come on but the screen stays blank then I would bet it's the BIO's. I have actually done this to several Acer Apsire One's It is more common than you would think. But super easy to fix Acer even tells you how to do it on their support site. First you need to goto The Acer Support Site and Download the latest BIOS for your netbook, then follow the directions at this site: BlogSpot Acer Aspire ONe Bios Recovery Mine is a AOA150 yours might be different so you have to find the bios for your's. If it's a AOA150 or a AOA110 then here's the link to the bios: AOA110 AOA150 BIos Here's The ACER Driver page: Acer Driver Downloads

LithiumLord

Mon Feb 15 2010, 11:26AM

Registered Member #1739 Joined: Fri Oct 03 2008, 10:05AM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 261

[edit: oops, old news :( Someone kill this post :P]
woot I had the same thing :P The solution is as easy as it sounds, needs a USB flash dongle though.

Conundrum

Sat Mar 06 2010, 02:40PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

hey guys, thanks! i did the bios chip swap as i wanted to see if the 8 pin winbond was the issue (it was) then revived my machine using the usb dongle trick.

Shame it didn't fix the no boot from hdd issue (works if F2 pressed then exit) but it did rescue an otherwise trashed machine from the landfill.

On the flip side, it raises the possibility of dual BIOS's using a magnetic switch as an enable line, which is handy if you are into custom mods.

Oh, and in the process I also found that my board has the socket to install internal SATA hard disk, thereby bypassing the slowness of a 1.8" PATA.
now i just need to locate a fried board to harvest the connector off :)
-A
"Bother" said Pooh, as his 16GB SSD went Tango Uniform..

Conundrum

Sat Mar 13 2010, 08:53AM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

hmm...
i ran into this problem too.
the best bet is to locate a kingston micro usb transflash reader (the little keyfob size) and find a spare place in the casing to install it.

the internal webcam is a good place as it is standard usb, and can be switched using nothing more than a 5v fan's 4pin ic (latching magnetic sensor)

havent done this yet due to time issues but its on "The List" (tm)

Also this hack is useful if you want to implement dual BIOS, by lifting the _CE pin and connecting one output to each _CE

:)

EDIT:- its dead again :( GRRR! i haven't tried reflashing it yet but i suspect the BIOS chip itself is bad in some way, perhaps bad sectors? its a winbond so it may be possible to read it back and find out what broke.

-A

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