[JB Compute]

Hi

Has anyone ever came across this problem?

Acer laptop won't start up.

I have tried taking out the battery, holding down the power button for 20 sec, then connecting the A/C adapter and turning on and no joy.

The green light on the power adapter is solid green but as soon as I connect it to the laptop then green light starts to flicker constantly, which makes me think it is a problem with the pin that the power connects to.

Any help is most appreciated

Thanks

[TriplexDread]

At a guess, Leaking capacitors. How old is PSU?

[floppybootstomp]

Most likely a failed battery.

The only way to find out if that is the problem is by buying a new one, unfortunately.

[TriplexDread]

not to sound condescending toward flopps or anything however,

"check PSU....."

Reason I say is fluctuating LEDS usually indicates a problems with smoothing capacitors, sort of dampening any noise being emitted from the PSU before it gets to the laptop

One way of finding out for sure is see if you can find a multi voltage PSU with minimum amps of that of the one that runs laptop

summat like

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=43515

they are more common than you may think. ask around. i alone have 3 here i think used for various things

Please note the output though and also the polarity before you turn it on
and of course it may depend on original psu aswell. some plugs at the end have a feedback pin as well which means 3 connections in total (outer, inner, center)

i recently had to change all caps in the PSU for my lcd screen which wouldnt power when connected. as soon as it was all LEDS flickered. the caps had all leaked within the casing. monitor is 4 years old now and PSU left plugged in naughty i know

similar problems happen to mother boards when caps around a CPU start to buckle and leak too

[floppybootstomp]

Originally Posted by TriplexDread

not to sound condescending toward flopps or anything however,

No probs, only reason I mentioned it is that I've recently had two people come to me with laptops showing identical symptoms to those described in the first post and in each case a new battery has sorted the problem. It's a common thing with laptops.

So I believe it was worth a mention. All the reasons you list I will agree could also be the cause and if the average user is familiar with using bench PSU's then that's also a good idea.

I have two bench PSU's myself, I have two so I can use split rail supplies. Used one yesterday to test a timer relay circuit I'd put together for a customer.

[TriplexDread]

I could do with one but I don't have room and only do little things really so not worth expense

They do come in handy though