My Acer Aspire VA70 Won't turn on/charge

joetaw

Hello everybody. I have a feeling that my 2.5 year old laptop may be on it's last legs.

Some background:

 

For the last few months I noticed my laptop getting incredibly hot to touch, especially when gaming. So about a month ago I made my first trek into the innards of my laptop to clean out the fan. There were two especially big hairballs that I got out and I replaced the thermal paste which had almost been scorched. Everything was back to normal and it worked super great for a few weeks.

 

Now, last week I was playing System Shock 2 and drinking a bud light a friend left at my house. At one point in terror I sneezed so hard that my head flung itself forward into the bottle, spilling beer on one side of my keyboard. I panicked, set the laptop upside down to drain anything that went underneath the keys and dried it off.

It still worked, but was a little wonky. For example, the right bracket key no longer worked, but would occasionally pop up in my typing so]rt of lik]]]]]]]]]e this]. Which was *****, but I could live with it.

 

It was around this time that my laptop also began to get wonky with the turning-on mechanism. Occasionally it would refuse to turn on--or even stranger, the charging light would freeze in the on position even if it was unplugged and not on. But it seemed to work for the most part, usually if I just waited an hour or so it would come back to life.

It was also around this time that for some reason Boot Manager would start up whenever I turned on my laptop--which my friend said happened to his laptop around the time that his died.

 

Well anyway today it just refuses to turn on and the charging light won't turn on either. The power jack is pretty sensitive but no matter how I jangle it, it won't connect.

 

So I opened up my laptop again and didn't notice any beer anywhere. I continued taking it apart and cleaned out the keyboard which had gotten pretty gunky. As I was putting it back together I tried plugging it in and it worked! Praise Jesus, I said. I finished putting it back together and turned it on. It turned on for a second, not even long enough for the screen to come on, and shut off--most likely due to lack of charging. So I plugged it back in--and the charging light won't come on!! So I'm just at a loss as to what I should do.

 

Any suggestions?

 

In a reddit thread a user recommended holding down the power button for 60 seconds. This actually worked and it turned on--only twice. Now it refuses to turn on again or charge. Even stranger was that it did the thing where the charging light would be on, but it would still refuse to turn on. Now--nothing, no charging light, no power, nothing.

 

Specs (from what I can remember since I can't access details)

Windows 7

Intel i7

Acer Aspire VA70

64 bit

 

thanks for anything you can give me

 

[word filter avoidance]

philetus

Sounds like you have many factors leading up to this. Overheating the processor, spilling liquid and a loose powerjack.Possibly the first two aren't severe and the problem is the power jack.It would also be the cheapest.You're not supposed to have to "jangle" the power cord. I would replace the power jack (simple soldering job) and try it.

 

Greg37

I have similar problem. It will power on with battery but will not turn on with power supply or charge battery with power supply. But power supply is working and I'm getting the 19v on the motherboard. I think customer might of got some water on keyboard cause some keys don't work, but its only a guess cause i see no sign of water damage. Does anyone know what circuit turns on to charge battery and tel CPU when power supply is plugged in? Windows 8 shows its plugged in and charging but it slowly looses percentage or voltage until its dead. So something is telling CPU that its plugged in< just not actually triggering the circuit to let voltage through and charge battery or power unit through supply. I have to manually charge battery after it dies or else no way to power laptop on.

 

Any Ideas?

philetus

http://www.uofr.net/~greg/hardware/laptop_power_troubleshooting/