Aspire 5542G no hard drive no memory.

brainfart

this ladies laptop she bought wouldn't turn on, no little flashing lights, no fans, nothing. i checked out the battery, it's fine. power supply is fine, i flipped it over and checked the hard drive thinking maybe the kids dropped it. not the problem. there was no hard drive and no memory. is it worth fixing a model 5542g. the tiny plastic piece that holds the keyboard ribbon in was floating under the keyboard and i haven't figured out how to reattach it.

StevenGen

brainfart said:

this ladies laptop she bought wouldn't turn on, no little flashing lights, no fans, nothing. i checked out the battery, it's fine. power supply is fine, i flipped it over and checked the hard drive thinking maybe the kids dropped it. not the problem. there was no hard drive and no memory. is it worth fixing a model 5542g. the tiny plastic piece that holds the keyboard ribbon in was floating under the keyboard and i haven't figured out how to reattach it.

“brainfart” funny ID ...fixing anything is up to the individual and that lady? As these older laptops are good old lower end workhorses. I refurbish older laptops all the time and I even use them, I would say that this Aspire 5542G with either its highest either AMD Turion M620 or its highest Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 CPU's that it came with and its dedicated NVIDIA GeForce G105M GPU is worth fixing as its got potential and basic specs, its not a world beater but it can function as a very basic laptop.

You can even upgrade to the following:

1. Upgrade its OEM CPU's of either the highest fitted AMD Turion M620 to the higher spec Socket S1 (S1g3)  Turion II Ultra Dual-Core M660 - 2 core, 2 threads, 2.7 GHz, L2 2MB cache and 35W TDP or its highest OEM spec Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 to the higher Intel Core 2 Duo T9900.
2. 4GB total memory at 2x 2GB DDR3-1333MHz modules into its 2x slots
3. Change its OEM WiFi 2.4G only card to a WiFi 2.4G/5G and BT combo card
4. And if you want to go overboard then put a 2.5" SSD drive and run Win-10 and use the DVD slot with a caddy for its OEM spinner HDD and use it as a slave drive.

But, to get it to fire up you have to do a few things first, you don’t need the HDD but you need the RAM, this thing takes either DDR3 or DDR2 240-pin soDIMM type DDR3-800/1066 MHz or DDR2-667/800 MHz its max size total is 4GB for 64bit OS (with two 2GB SODIMM in each memory slot). Also run it from the adaptor and the mains plugged in first without the battery and try to fire it up and see if it does? If not, see the attached PDF doc below of how to check power issue and the suggested Acer power diagnoses guide for this laptop to fire up.

With the keyboard issue and ribbon, just plug it into the mobo if it’s not ripped off from the bottom of the keyboard? Check if this keyboard ribbon connects ok first? If that ribbon is faulty then the keyboard won’t work but, don’t worry about the keyboard, try an external USB keyboard and mouse and see if the thing fires up? If it does then also update the BIOS to the last BIOS vesion 1.09 dated 2010/06/23 titled "Updates ATI M92 VBIOS (50TR8M92.002)" from the Acer support site. Good luck and hope this helps you out, cheers.

JackE

>>> is it worth fixing a model 5542g. the tiny plastic piece that holds the keyboard ribbon in was floating under the keyboard and i haven't figured out how to reattach it. >>>

Doubtful even if only the HDD & RAM are missing and you could get these missing parts for next to nothing. Better check for a missing cpu too since the machine  was probably scavenged for all removable replaceable parts. The KB ribbon contacts can be affixed to the corresponding mainboard contacts with scotch tape and/or a jury rigged wedge made from a credit card. Then there's the time involved in getting all the missing hardware in place, running & installing some kind of operating system to  be semi-useful --- this last item is a toughest one.