ACER Alpha Switch will NOT turn on

Shanniebabie

Hello!

My alpha switch 12 will not turn on; it has no blue or orange light lit up on the power switch.  I have tried holding down the power switch with both the volume UP and volume DOWN for 30 seconds and nothing.  I’ve tried it with the keyboard attached and without it attached.  I’ve tried it with the power source plugged in and without it plugged in.  On these models, there is no external battery reset pinhole.

HELP!

billsey

First step is to hold the power button without either of the volume keys. That forces a hard shutdown which will fix a stuck sleep mode. What it sounds like is more likely to be a dead battery. Are you sure your charger is working? With the charger disconnected and the computer turned off your power button should show no light. When you plug the charger in the power button should show an amber light until the battery reaches a full charge, at that point the light should turn blue. The light also turns blue when you turn the computer on, which take a press and hold on the power button for five seconds or so.

rodrimf

I have exactly the same symptoms as @Shanniebabie. I shutdown my laptop last night, no problem. This morning I tried to turn it on and it didn't. I plugged the adapter and no amber or blue light came. I used a voltmeter and the adapter has an output of 19.2V, so I think the adapter is fine. However following all the steps above it still looks like if fully dead. 

any other steps? IS there a way to reset it?
 

billsey

Visually check your power socket to make sure the center wire is still there, if it's bent to the side or missing it will not charge. Try plugging the charger in and hold the plug with a bit of side force, if the amber light comes on it's likely a physical issue with the charging port. If the light still doesn't come on it's more likely to be in the charging circuit and would require time with a tech for repair. The SA12 isn't the easiest tablet to disassemble...

rodrimf

Thanks @billsey, I see the socket in perfect condition with the pin in the centre. It was one of  the first things I checked when I saw no blue or amber light coming. It is weird, it simply dies overnight while it was off, lying on a desk.  

billsey

OK, likely the next step is going to take a technician, getting into the machine is tougher than average with the SA12 due to the extra stuff they did in order to make the fanless cooling work well. There is a little daughter card that holds the power jack with a cable going to the motherboard the elsewhere on the motherboard there is a cable going to the battery. I've got this image of the power jack card:

rodrimf

Thanks, I opened it and the 19V DC from the charger are actually coming in to the soldered side of that connector to the board; I measured when plugged but still no signs of life. I also checked the batteries and both are delivering around 4.8 V. I tried unplugging and plugging again several connectors, including the battery board (I assume is the actual charger) to the motherboard, but no luck so far, still dead. 
I think I am out of luck. Thanks for the picture and the hint. :-)

billsey

Yeah, if you can measure the 19V on the input side and measure voltage off the battery then the only thing that can be wrong is the middle... And the middle is the motherboard.

I'm assuming you are no longer in warranty, though if you bought yours from Costco don't forget they extend the warranty to two years. Acer provides a repair service for units out of warranty for a flat rate, so that might be a cost effective way to move forward. The SSD in the SA12 is removable, so you can potentially recover the data. Be aware that if you send it in for repair there's a real good chance the drive will be reimaged with the original build so your data won't be there any longer.

rodrimf

Thanks a lot. Yes out of luck on the Costco warranty too, I bought the SA12 on Sept 2016, so it passed the 2 year mark by 2 months, I called Costco but sadly the extended warranty also expired, that is why I ventured to open it. 
Good to know that the SSD is removable, I didn't realize that when I opened the SA12. I will look for it, maybe I can save some of my data. 

rodrimf

Hope this helps others. 
After reviewing other posts in this site and other sites, I came across couple of answers in thich people went to local repair shops and they removed the battery cable and reset it again. Initially I thought it was the cable shown in @billsey picture above, so I tried it and no luck. Then I was about to give up, when I reopened my SA12 again to see if I could recover something from the SSD. At that point I realized that the battery does not have actual cables but metal plates that go to small PCB (probably a circuit that monitors/charges/regulates the battery?) and then there is a cable from that PCB to the motherboard.I unplugged that cable from the mother board end, left it for a couple of minutes just to ensure that all circuits lost any remaining energy. Then I plugged it again and tried to turn it on... Surprise, blue light came on!!! Then the screen and my SA12 booted. So it seems it went to a weird state that did not respond to anything, but fully resetting the motherboard brought it back to life. 
I adventured to open it and do all this because both my regular ACER and my extended Costco warranties expired and I assume it would require a motherboard replacement or something costly.  Also I have to clarify I this not have the right tools, so after removing the 2 screes that hold the fron t from the back, you have to carefully unlock each one of the plastic latches that hold the back cover. By doing this the 2nd time, I applied more force than I should had, at one of the middle bottom ones, and cracked the glass of the screen, resulting on an unusable touch screen, so I bave most of my SA12 back, but I had to disable touch screen because of the cracks I caused in the glass. 

So recommendations:
1- if you still have warranty, use it
2- Don't do it yourself if you do not have the right tools or knowledge, if your warranty expired, send it to Acer or a local authorized shop. 
3- If your SA12 seems to be fully dead (no blue light at all, or no amber light when plugged to charge), don't throw it away, it might be this same issue. 
 

billsey

Great find! I warned you it wasn't easy to get in there, but it sounds like you almost made it. I had to take mine apart after it went through a nasty auto crash with me, the case was dented quite a bit so I ended up ordering a replacement part as the case back. It's really amazing how well it has held up, I've got a couple of those tabs broken off so my screen wants to bow out on the left edge. The accident was a head on collision where I was doing 55 and the other driver was doing 100, so having it work at all was amazing...

krish222

Thanks @rodrimf , the above steps helped once but my SA went back to the same state.

Has anyone found a permanent fix? Why is ACER quiet about this?

Meow95

I had the same issue, on 29 nov, my switch alpha 12 updated the windows overnight, it was working fine, until it crash when I'm using it (during wireless printing).
Symptom it shows : 1. The blue light on power turn on a few seconds, i tried all the keys combos nothing worked. 2. If I'm holding the power button for 12 seconds, it shut down again, no chance to boot into recovery mood. 3.pretty sure it caused by the latest windows update some drivers are not working, but i can't resolved the issue with acer support since my warranty already expired

billsey

With newer designs it looks like the manufacturers are starting to put battery cut off reset switch behind small holes. That allows you to do a battery disconnect/reconnect with just a paperclip instead of the whole tear it apart and unplug thing. Unfortunately they SA12 is an old enough design it's not there. When you attempt the repair that @rodrimf outlines be sure to press and hold the power button for a few seconds after disconnecting the battery, then let everything sit disconnected for a few minutes before starting to put it back together. That allows all residual electricity to fully bleed off and seems to help get you back to a fully working system.