Acer Aspire Z3 Portable AIO turning on and off

Mc0268

I have a 2017 model of the Acer Aspire Z3 Portable AIO. A few days ago, it started turning on by itself, but won't go past the Acer screen. Pushing the power button does nothing. I have held it down for over a minute and still nothing. I have unplugged everything and tried holding down the power. I have tried catching it on the Acer screen and doing ALT and F10. Nothing works. Suggestions?

a_happy_laptop_user

It sounds like your Acer Aspire Z3 AIO is encountering a startup issue. Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can try:

1. Hard Reset: Disconnect the power supply and any external devices connected to the AIO. Hold the power button for about 30 seconds. Then reconnect the power cable and try turning it on again.
2. BIOS Reset: Some AIOs have a small pinhole on the back or bottom. Insert a paperclip or pin into this hole for a few seconds to reset the BIOS. This can sometimes resolve boot issues.
3. Check Hardware: Check if any peripherals, such as USB drives, are connected. Remove them and try starting the AIO again.
4. Boot into Safe Mode: If it gets past the Acer screen, try repeatedly pressing the F8 key (or another designated key for your model) during startup to access the Advanced Boot Options. From there, try to boot into Safe Mode to diagnose potential software-related issues.
5. Diagnostic Tests: Sometimes hardware issues can cause boot problems. If your AIO came with any diagnostics tools, try running them to check the hardware health.
6. Recovery or Reinstall: If you have a Windows recovery or installation disk, you might try booting from it and attempting to repair or reinstall the operating system.
7. Professional Support: If these steps don’t resolve the issue, especially if it's a hardware problem, consider contacting Acer's customer support or taking it to a professional technician for further diagnosis and repair.

Since your model seems to have trouble booting past the Acer screen, it might be encountering an issue at the BIOS or hardware level. However, these steps may help resolve the issue. If the problem persists, it’s advisable to seek professional assistance to diagnose and repair the AIO.

billsey

Ain't AI wonderful? You can post seemingly erudite instructions without actually knowing anything. :)

Your power button doesn't sound like it's working. There is a circuit that forces a power off when the button is held down for longer than a few seconds. That circuit isn't working, so the motherboard hasn't been initialized to the point where that circuit is enabled.

When the Acer splash screen is being displayed, the motherboard is going through POST (Power On Self Test). During POST if any errors show up the system should give you a pattern of beeps to say which test fails. If you get no beeps then it's not getting far enough into POST to run the first test. We know it's getting far enough to initialize the video, or else the logo wouldn't display, but not far enough to test the memory, since the memory test would generate a long beep if it were to fail.

There are a couple of reasons why you might be seeing this, the motherboard might have failed or the BIOS might be corrupted enough that it doesn't quite run, but doesn't quite crash fully (if it were to crash you would see a reboot). If it's an issue with the BIOS, which would be the best thing, you might be able to reflash it using a crisis disk. Which Z3 model do you have? There have been a bunch of them over the years. Your full model number is usually on the same sticker as your serial number, it should look something like Z3-xxx-xxxx.