My old aspire 5738 power on but there is no video

Jgxtremo · July 2023

My grandfather gave me his old aspire 5738 so i could fix it for him because it has some sentimental value for him (it was his first computer).

His battery dont work anymore and when i plug in the charger the notebook turns on by itself but there is no video on the screen. Nothing appears on thr screen, no logo, no text, nothing. I have already switched hard drive, tested multiple ram sticks and nothing worked. Can someone help me to make this pc work?

StevenGen · July 2023

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/689132/my-old-aspire-5738-power-on-but-there-is-no-video

Here is some information on the Aspire 5738 and its components from its SG that might help you out. You need to realize that this laptop is 14 years old, and its mainboard components/circuitries might have deteriorated beyond fixing and the only solution is to replace the mainboard and other components, so be aware of all this.

The first thing that you should do is check the power adaptor if its working and the battery has any charge, if they work then see if the CPU fan comes on or gets hot at all, if not then remove the mainboard and get to the RTC/BIOS battery (short the + & - pins to reset CMOS) or better still replace RTC/BIOS battery as its way too old (the battery is next to the Wi-Fi card), also check the CPU (the Aspire 5738 has an Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile Processor T6400 (2.0 GHz) also and if its paste is dry, replace that, also check the ram and take the ram modules out and if there are 2x DDR3-800MHz or 667MHz only insert one when you reboot the laptop and do that alternatively, as bad ram also stops the laptop powering on or booting up. This laptop can have 4GB max total at 2x 2GB DDR3-667MHz or 800Mhz type ram and its CPU can also be upgraded. Good luck and hope this helps you out.

If the adaptor/battery/ram and CPU are all working and the laptop doesn't boot, then do the "System Check Procedures" below as to find out what else could be wrong with this old laptop:

Aspire 5738 System Check Procedures.pdf