Acerkid

New here, so Hi

My Acer initallly would not start as follows;

When starting the 'Acer' Logo comes up on the screen, then the next screen says,

'NIVIDA BOOT AGENT
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting NIVIDA BOOT AGENT'

This keeps looping till power turned off.


Now another problem has come about;

When starting now, I hear the cooling fan run for a few secs then stop, the power and harddrive leds flash on for 3secs and off for 3secs. And the only way to stop this, is to disconnect the battery.

Any clues

TriggerFinger

I suggest you run diagnostics to check your HDD. Also check in BIOS settings if your HDD is still recognized.

Acerkid

Thanks

But at present I can't get to the Acer Logo and so on, as It will not start as above with the fan stopping and flashing led issue.

Acerkid

Thinking that the Hdd may be at fault I purchased a new drive.

I cannot still get the machine to start or turn off as described above, not the Logo or NVIDIA to show and I can't get to 'F2' to enter the BIOS. I put the old drive back its still the same.

Could there be a battery or Power adaptor fault, as its the same with battery removed and just the adaptor ??

Acerkid

Thanks for all the replies,

I've been doing some searching on the Net and it looks if I have the 'ON/OFF' syndrome with my Laptop.

Read: http://go.notebookreview.com/?id=525...going-off.html


Unless anyone can suggest otherwise.

If there is a fault on the Motherboard could it be repaired or replacement needed, as this machine is only some 17mths old and outside the warranty period.

Magic Monkey

Well a mobo isn't cheap I'm afraid... even a 2nd hand one on eBay might set you back £150 and then its a few hours work to strip the whole laptop down and replace the mobo. Plus if the mobo has a design fault then you might end up with a replacement mobo that behaves in exactly the same way. If it is a mobo fault then I'd take the hit and go for a new laptop myself.

That said, you might not need to be so drastic since many boot problems can be fixed. Firstly try reseting the BIOS configuration by unplugging / removing the CMOS battery for a few seconds before reattaching it. This'll reset the BIOS config to it's default factory setting and may help.

Acerkid

If I remove the CMOS Battery to reset back to default factory Bios settings, but the battery is soldered into the board unlike my Tower PC.

Is it just the case I unsolder one of the terminals using a small soldering iron used for IC work, do a hard reset with the power button with the main battery disconnected, then reconnect all and try and get into Bios (F2) when restarting.



thanks

Magic Monkey

Shame it's soldered (thanks Acer!) however I'd desolder both connections and remove the battery myself (but one desoldered connection may be all you need). Then resolder once the laptop's had the hard reset.

And yes make sure you've a soldering iron designed for circuitry that is electrostatic dischage proof.

Acerkid

Well I done the CMOS battery bit, left it disconnected for 1min. then did a hard reset for 1min. reconnected battery and main battery.

Restarted as before the network and hdd led lit, fan runs for a few secs. then stops and then the dreaded loop starts again.

Does this mean, its time to 'Find a man who can' repair it.

Would it be worth the effort to write to ACER stating that this machine is fairly young of 16mths and where there is common fault with these models, ask them to accept some responsibilty and carry out a repair.

Acerkid

Just been to this link :http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/no...300faq39.shtml

Just had a go,

When the ac power is just plugged in and mains switched on, no power indicator lit (green led).

But when power button pressed to start, power indicator lit (green led), and then back to normal loop on/off.

The link says the power indicator (green led) should be lit when just switched on at mains and plugged in. This is a new adaptor and the same happened with the old unit. ??

Acerkid

1) Can anyone confirm whether they have thier Acer repaired with the same problem. ?

2) Can anyone confirm whether this fault is the Motherboard or what. ?

thanks

night_shift

Is this an aspire or travelmate?

Remove HD and RAM modules. Start up. See what happens.
Put HD back in.
Put one stick of RAM in start up. See what happens.
Remove that stick of RAM and put it in the next RAM slot. See what happens.
Remove the Stick of RAM and repeat for the other stick.

What you are looking for is a bad RAM.

Acerkid

Thanks

Its a Aspire 7520 Gemstone.

I'll give that a try, thanks

TriggerFinger

Have you tried powering ON using AC only (laptop battery removed)?

Acerkid

Thanks,

Yes and still the same. ??

night_shift

Are you up for reflashing the bios to the latest version?

How old is the laptop and what version of Vista 32bit/64bit and service pack?

Acerkid

Thanks

But I can't get that far, to get to the bios or safe mode or anything else.

I cannot get to the stage now where the ACER logo comes up, the problem I have now is the latter part of my first post.

night_shift

You dont need to get that far.
The bios is flashed from an external drive at the moment the start button is initiated.

I have had a great deal of success of bringing dead machines back to life using a usb floppy disc drive, which you would have to borrow or get cheap from ebay.

The other method is from a flash drive/pen drive. I gave up with this method as it was not very successful.

You have tried all options up to now and by flashing the bios you have nothing to lose.

So, are you up for it? Give me as much info about your lappy as possible.


Look an example of a second hand one Buy now or best offer
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-USB-PORTAB...item2ea8d4c97d

Double the price for a new one!!!!

Acerkid

Had a thought about flashing the bios with USB Floppy.

The lappy does not load any drivers or anything at all, as it only runs for about 3 or 5 secs before shutting down the CPU Fan and starting starting its loop of switching on and off automatically till the battery or mains power is disconnected. It will not turn off by pressing the start button as it should.

Unless you know better about flashing. ??

thanks

night_shift

You may well still have a hardware problem, what I want to try is reflash and update your bios with the latest version. This may cure a corrupt bios or put a later version bios on that addresses known mobo problems.

The flashing process uses a series of programs that take control of the bios and update it, way before the computer has a clue to whats going on.

As you may or may not know the BIOS (basic input output system) has a very primitive driver set up that checks power supply and all hardware on your computer and determines if the system is healthy enough to allow the operating system to boot and take control. All this takes place in less than a second after you push the power button.

You may still have to prove if you have a faulty cpu or 1 or 2 sticks of dead RAM.