Please help: Problem with Laptop stuck on XP resume screen

[fuzzbuzz]

When trying to start my acer travelmate 4150 this morning it wouldn't boot. The fan whirred and then shut off like when the battery is low so I plugged it into the mains and still had the same problem.

I tried taking out each ram stick and powering on to check and on removing one of the sticks the laptop started to show the acer flash screen but freezes when the "resuming windows" text comes up.

I've tried pressing various keys to get into bios or cancel the resume but it didnt work.

Any ideas?

 

[JIM451]

Have You Tried Resetting Cmos By Removing The Lithium Battery And Shorting The Terminals.make Sure All Power Sources Are Disconnected Before You Do This.
-try plugging in another keyboard

 

[fuzzbuzz]

Is there no other way of fixing it without taking the whole laptop apart?

 

[JIM451]

RE:help please!!

The Lithium Battery Is Usually Located Under A Small Panel At The Bottom Of Most Laptops.I BELIEVE THE SOURCE(FORMORLY RADIO SHACK)DEALS IN ACER LAPTOPS.PERHAPS THEY CAN EXPLAIN HOW TO ACCESS THE LITHIUM CELL.

 

[fuzzbuzz]

There is a panel for the RAM, HDD and the main battery. Do mean on the motherboard? As I would have to dissasemble the whole laptop

 

[Anon_F]

There is a panel for the RAM, HDD and the main battery. Do mean on the motherboard? As I would have to dissasemble the whole laptop

Dont take the Laptop apart!
How old is the Laptop?
If you can get the pc to start up try pressing either F8 or F2 to get into Safe Mode.
Once in Safe Mode run the laptop to see if it will start & run OK.
If not post back here.

 

[fuzzbuzz]

Dont take the Laptop apart!
How old is the Laptop?
If you can get the pc to start up try pressing either F8 or F2 to get into Safe Mode.
Once in Safe Mode run the laptop to see if it will start & run OK.
If not post back here.

The laptop doesnt respond to f8 or f2 (or any other button ive tried eveything)
It just wont go into safe mode.
I tried to take out the hdd and start it but it only gets to the splash screen then i get a flashing cursor in the top left. Still doesnt respond to f2 or f8 either.

 

[Anon_F]

What had you been doing prior to the problem happening?
Have you dropped it??

 

[muckshifter]

be careful what you say ...

Have You Tried Resetting Cmos By Removing The Lithium Battery And Shorting The Terminals.make Sure All Power Sources Are Disconnected Before You Do This.
-try plugging in another keyboard

This is exceedingly BAD advice ... there should be no need to do anything to the CMOS unless that battery (the cmos) is failing.

be careful what you say ... you continue to offer bad advice

 

[JIM451]

RE:be careful what you say ...

Resetting Cmos To Factory Settings Will Not Harm Your Computer.i Have A Sony Laptop On My Kitchen Table That Was Tossed By A Fixit Shop And That,s All That Needed To Be Done With That One.
-LEAVE IT UP TO RADIO SHACK TO SELL A LAPTOP THAT HAS TO BE TOTALLY DISASEMBLED JUST TO CHANGE A BATTERY.

 

[fuzzbuzz]

What had you been doing prior to the problem happening?
Have you dropped it??

It had just been sat in its laptop bag, unless one of my family did but I dont think they'd drop it and lie about it ;-)

 

[muckshifter]

Resetting Cmos To Factory Settings Will Not Harm Your Computer.

I'm sorry, you are wrong ... you can do irreparable damage to some hardware if you do not know how to reset up the BIOS.


Re-setting the BIOS WILL set it to a default but will NOT set it to the same state as when you first bought the computer. The factory default, & a CMOS/BIOS reset are different.

The CMOS/BIOS between two or more manufacturers are also different.

Resetting the BIOS/CMOS is NOT recommended by me unless I say to do so ... and then I'll want the computer in front of me so I can re-set the BIOS back up correctly.

On some PCs, resetting the CMOS would result in a factory default password being set. Do you know what that is ?

 

[JIM451]

RE:I'm sorry, you are wrong

This Is Getting To A Point Where It Should Be In General Discusion.however It Is Very Difficult For Me To Believe That A Manufacturer Would Set This Up So If You Accidentally Shorted The Battery Terminals This Would Lock You Out Of Cmos.i Have Used This Procedure To Bypass Forgotten Password.maybe We Could Get A List Of Pc,s So We Will Know Which Ones To Avoid!

 

[muckshifter]

Shall I put it this way ...


At what point in fuzzbuzz's first post do you get the idea that the CMOS/BIOS needed resetting ... in the obvious absence of any warning boot messages that will/should appear if there was a CMOS/BIOS/ problem ... 'cos I see non that would point to that being the case.

Your initial reply was just not thought through ... and in my view wrong.

My initial thoughts are a power problem.



on the OT side of our discussion ...

Manufacturers set passwords to protect the CMOS/BIOS from being tampered with by unnecessary interference from the likes of a Virus. You will not "need" a program to "hack/break" these passwords.

 

[JIM451]

So To Verify Muckshifters Theory Take A Voltmeter And Set It On Dc.even If The Rechargable Battery Is Low It Should Read Slightly Higher Than The Voltage Rating Of The Battery I.e A 12 Volt Battery Should Read Approxamatly 12.44 Vdc.the Output Of The Ac Adapter Should Read A Few Volts Higher Than Specs Without A Load.

 

[muckshifter]

Huh! what "theory" of mine are you supposedly checking out ???


Are you just nuts, or plain stupid ??

I think fuzzbuzz has more sense than to follow your advice.



Carry on with this claptrap and you will find a Ban coming your way.