Acer Aspire 4520 dead

Amigorick

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Feb 8, 2010
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I have an Acer Aspire 4520. I loaded Windows 7 on it and it worked great for two days.
Now when I push the power button, the ring around the power button lights up and a
couple of lights flash then turn right back off.
I pulled the hard drive and tried to turn it on. Switched the ram around and did a hard
reset with no success. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Replaced the motherboard battery with no luck. Nothing on the screen. All of the lights come
on then go right back off. I have tried two sticks of ram, tried with and without the hard drive.
With the battery and with power supply each together and separate. I am baffled.
 
I do not think it has anything to do with Windows, as if it were an issue with Windows, it would at least post. My guess is that it is a hardware issue, i.e. the motherboard. Acer's have a tendency to run hot, which in turn can damage the internals pretty quickly. However, have you tried starting it without the battery and just AC power to rule out a battery issue?
 
G

Guest

Guest
I think its Nvidia Graphics card issue, I have the same computer, perfectly same problem one fine day. The guy who repared it said he gets loads such laptops. Either get the motherboard replaced or get some other techie repaire the Nvidia card for you.
 

paulmarty_gk

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Sep 20, 2010
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i have the same problem..buwish pls help me..

my laptop is turning on but after a few minutes it turns off automatically..and sometimes its hard to turn it on..my email is paulmarty_gk@yahoo.com.ph..pls help
 

cres

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May 21, 2011
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I bought 2 4520's. One started playing up by intermittently not starting up, and only the green led around the power button illuminated, could hear the HDD, but not much else

I tried swapping the batteries between the good and intermittent laptops - no success

I tried variables of having no battery, just AC, then just battery-No AC; but there did not appear to be any consistency

I travelled with it and asked myself whether it had copped a bump. What i did notice was the display casing appears to be a black lid which clips into the grey-cream shroud around the actual display. One pressure clip along the RH side appeared to be not clicked in properly. I pressed it together, and always had that element of doubt

It got to a stage where it just would not turn on, so i put it under the bed, and literally wrote it off as a bad joke

It was a good 2-3 months later, I saw it under the bed and pulled it out and switched it on, and it came on

It went through the process of downloading all the various updates (Windows, Adobe, AVG.....) when I did notice I received a prompt ( I believe) to download a NVidea update; which i did

To date, the machine has never got to the state it did end up in - just won't turn on

However, one of my kids does not follow my requests to turn the pc totally off upon finishing on it, and just presses the power button (or closes the lid??)

It is when he does this that I get problems staring correctly; but usually just depressing the power button down for 5-10secs will effect turn off, and it will usually restart no problems (even if in safe mode...)

I feel there were-are 2 issues with this unit which ultimately displayed similar symptoms, namely trouble starting

I feel the NVidea download resolved my main one of intermittently not starting; and that my sleep state-restart from sleep problem is still there.

If I now shut the unit down fully-correctly, I don't experience any power up problems. I bought the unit in Sep08, went thru the worst in the 1st 6mths, and since then, have been using the unit pretty well problem free for nearly 2yrs (apart from having to "start in safe mode" if my young fella puts it into sleep)

I rarely now take the laptop when in transit; it has been predominantly running on AC; and if anything, I am not routinely running the battery down totally to allow complete recharges.....
 

TechDan

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Feb 7, 2012
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It's definitely the Graphics/Video chip. When the computer heats up it melts the solder joints and you will get a black screen or shut down. It's an not so easy fix for a Good Tech. I have repaired many of these in the last 12 months. The mother board has to be taken completely out and the Navida chip has to be repaired/re-soldered.......
Contact me at dancor2u@netzero.net for more info.
 

TechDan

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Feb 7, 2012
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It's definitely the Graphics/Video chip. When the computer heats up it melts the solder joints and you will get a black screen or shut down. It's an not so easy fix for a Good Tech. I have repaired many of these in the last 12 months. The mother board has to be taken completely out and the Navida chip has to be repaired/re-soldered.......
Contact me at dancor2u@netzero.net for more info.