Acer predator triton 500 PT515-52-70ZR not booting

AcePred · October 11

So I have an predator triton 500 PT515-52-70ZR and it is not booting up anymore. I did not use it for a while and I lost the charger so I bought a new one directly from acer using the compatibility search on the website. I charged the laptop and it booted up and worked just fine exept for the trackpad not working nor did it register in the system, but that turned out to be a loose ribbon cable. But to get to the ribbon cable I had to take the battery out and disconect it. Then it worked just fine for an entire evening. I then booted it down the usual way trough the windows meny and went to bed. Booted it back up the day after and it worked just fine until it randomly shut down while I was downloading a game. I had noticed that after fixing the trackpad it was some kind of click sound each time I plugged in the charger and when I booted the pc up but I plugged the charger in and out over the whole day about ten times until I plugged it in while I was downloading the game and it shut completely down after about 2 minutes.

So now over to the problem. I have searched up multiple discussions about similar problems and some that seem just like this, so I have tried using a pin and pressing the reset on the back for 30 seconds but each time it just gets a white light on the turbo button for a second then a white light for about 5 seconds and the fans turn slightly on before the pc shuts down. The charging indication lights up orange and the lightbulb symbol lights up blue until the pc shuts down.
i have to so far tried the reset as mentioned, tried plugging the battery and the CMOS battery then waiting a while before putting it together, but just gives the same result as the reset button.
i then decided to just open up the pc to look for a place where there cpuld be a short since thats what I think the clicking sound was since I remember the sound from when my psu on another stationary pc gave out and shorted. I took the pc apart and found some corroding and something looking like dirt on the side of the motherboard with the heatsink so I cleaned that up with isopropyl alcohol and also placed new thermal paste and cleaned the fans and heatsink of dust and hair. I then put the pc together again not missing any cables or screws. Sadly the pc still has the exact same issue so it does not seem to be the corroding as far as I can see.
I read that maybe the psu might have said goodnight in this situation?

The pc also gives no sign of life when the charger is not connected and only gives the lights and slight fan as mentioned before but no lights in the keyboard or the screen

I feel like it is most likely a short since the pc shuts down as the fans try to spin up on boot and that might be the threshold for when the short happens.

Might you guys be able to se what could be wrong? Feel free to ask more questions.

[Edited the thread to add model number to the title]

AcePred · October 12

SOLUTION FOUND. I looked back at it again today to see maybe there is something that I missed, so I thoroughly went through the laptop again this time. I went to see if maybe the ssd was preventing a boot and tried booting up without the sdd and other parts like the CMOS battery and such but no luck. But here is what I really believe is the SOLUTION: I had missed some small parts of corrosion under some tape and the big tape piece on the motherboard there was small amounts of corrosion here and there so I went all around the board with a flashlight and a magnifying glass looking at the components and if I found some dirt or corrosion I cleaned it up with isopropyl alcohol and a soft toothbrush. I found some small amount corrosion between two of the pins on the battery connector on the motherboard as well as other places. So when I got all this cleaned up the pc booted with the help of the charger being plugged in even though it struggled the first boot but now flawlessly boots everytime with or without the charger.

it did not seem to be any sign of damage or corrosion aroundt the area you pointed towards in the picture so I think im good for now, but thanks for the help and luckily I did not need to buy a new motherboard worth 3 times the price of the laptop.

So the solution in short was to look over the board and clean every spot of corrosion or dirt on the board with isopropyl alcohol and a new clean soft toothbrush and be THOROUGH (especially around the power curcuits)

AcePred · October 11

This is the corrosion as previously mentioned, this was the wordt of it. There was a tad bit more to the left of this image but kot much and most of it went away after the cleaning

StevenGen · October 11

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1302638#Comment_1302638

The symptoms that you are describing seem like a problem with the main power rail circuitries like either a mosfet that are situated just after the DC_IN port or other mosfet and capacitor (if you are lucky) through the mainboard power rail that don't affect and/or protect the cou or gpu that have shorted out and if replaced the laptop will boot properly and you will have no further problems.

But, in these gaming laptops there is a high chance that if and the power rail has a short the mosfet that protects either the cpu or Nvidia gpu has failed and fried and has allowed a high 19V voltage into either the cpu which means a new mobo or if you are lucky, the gpu and you can use the Intel cpu graphics to further be able to use your laptop.

My suggestion to you is this, take the laptop to an experienced technician so that they can amylase the laptops main power rail and check if the cpu or gpu are fried as that is what I think has happened and that is why you are not getting the laptop to boot. Good luck.

Btw, be prepared if your cpu is fried and you need a new mobo, that you will be up for some ridiculous repair and/or replacement parts costs for your Acer Predator Triton laptop, as a new mobo for the Predator Triton 500 PT515-52 which is the high end RTX2080 gpu the “MAINBOARD PT515-52 CI710875H N18EG3R (RTX2080 SUPER) 8GB W/RTC BATTERY” Acer part #: NB.Q6W11.002from Acer Canada which is a ridiculous price of $5,474.18 CAD (USD $3,977.54) who are the only ones advertising the Triton PT515-52 mobo.

Below is the Predator Triton PT515-52 mainboard position of possible mosfet short and cause of the power boot problem that needs to be checked first and followed all the way up the power mainboard rail.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

AcePred · October 12

SOLUTION FOUND. I looked back at it again today to see maybe there is something that I missed, so I thoroughly went through the laptop again this time. I went to see if maybe the ssd was preventing a boot and tried booting up without the sdd and other parts like the CMOS battery and such but no luck. But here is what I really believe is the SOLUTION: I had missed some small parts of corrosion under some tape and the big tape piece on the motherboard there was small amounts of corrosion here and there so I went all around the board with a flashlight and a magnifying glass looking at the components and if I found some dirt or corrosion I cleaned it up with isopropyl alcohol and a soft toothbrush. I found some small amount corrosion between two of the pins on the battery connector on the motherboard as well as other places. So when I got all this cleaned up the pc booted with the help of the charger being plugged in even though it struggled the first boot but now flawlessly boots everytime with or without the charger.

it did not seem to be any sign of damage or corrosion aroundt the area you pointed towards in the picture so I think im good for now, but thanks for the help and luckily I did not need to buy a new motherboard worth 3 times the price of the laptop.

So the solution in short was to look over the board and clean every spot of corrosion or dirt on the board with isopropyl alcohol and a new clean soft toothbrush and be THOROUGH (especially around the power curcuits)

StevenGen · October 13

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1302798#Comment_1302798

Glad that you have fixed the problem yourself so easily, as on these Predator Triton laptops the parts are ridiculously expensive and if a mobo fries its much better to buy a new laptop. Great work and thanks for passing your knowledge onto community members as its very helpful to have alternative and easy fixes for these very expensive laptops for community members to know👍

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

AcePred · October 13

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1302866#Comment_1302866

it seems that the problem wasnt fixed so easily however I do seem to have found something else. I got the problem again when I tried to boot up the pc today so I went back and checked with bootin the pc without certain cables attached like the trackpad and such. When I booted up the pc without the keyboard cable attached it bootrd ut slowly again, now it also boots with the keyboard cable attached so it might seem that maybe the power button is stuck in some cases or something else is faulty with the keyboard.

But my question is, how fixable is the keyboard or do I maybe need to buy a replacement key or keyboard?

AcePred · October 13

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1302932#Comment_1302932

Just got a message that was something along with «what would you like the power button to do?» with some obtions right before the pc shut down, so it is most likely a stuck powerbutton in my eyes. So I would modt likely just like to disconnect the keyboard all together if it cannot be fixed

I could use an external keyboard but I would need to bypass the power button, is there a way to do that on the motherboard?

StevenGen · October 13

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1302939#Comment_1302939

Disconnect the keyboard and use a circuitry board cleaner spray to clean your existing keyboard keys mechanisms especially the power key, try that and see if it loosens the power key and it makes a difference, as your PT515-52 is a 4 years old laptop and it’s a possibility that the keyboard power button mechanism is fried. Good luck and hope I’ve helped you out in some way.

Here is the part number for the oem Acer PT515-52 Upper Case and Keyboard US International if that is the language that you have, also check the Keyboard FFC cable and see if that is faulty and/or replace it, but with the Upper Case and keyboard, first check and see the part number of the old part to get the exact replacement parts for your laptop, here are all the parts and their Acer part numbers: