Aspire 4752 won't post...

Acer Aspire 4752-6449 - Model MS2347 - i5 2450M/6 GB DDR3/750 GB HDD

First off, I don't have a "screen or inverter issue" because the hard drive activity light isn't flashing therefore the hard drive isn't even in use when this laptop powers on, also this stupid thing won't post without the hard drive installed which means no hardware is being energized such as the keyboard, optical drive, screen, and et cetera. My good gosh, I see so many non-POSTing topics that it's frightening to think so many mobos are faulty. Alas, no topics for my specific model, so here I post. ;p 

So, the problem is when I turn on the laptop, it won't post, but if I start/restart this thing, I can get it to fire up. I've updated the BIOS which did nothing to alleviate the problem. The initial symptoms are roughly a few seconds of activity from the HDD and optical drive, then nothingness. The fan is running and the power button is still illuminated, but everything else is off asides from the optical drive which seems fully functional as it sounds like it's reading discs and so forth. No post = no HDD kicking in.

I've tried unseating/reseating memory, HDD, optical drive, and power (battery and AC) to no avail. I also made sure that the HDD had first priority in the BIOS boot.

I thought last time I got this laptop to start up, I'd use the hibernation in order to bypass a boot, but it wouldn't come out of it anyways. I had to keep restarting and forcing shutdowns on it until it finally came back to life. Sometimes, I'd get to the BIOS on POST, "Save and Exit" and it will do the ol' Black Screen Of Death!

To get the ram out of the equation, I'm currently running a Memtest86. I've tested the hard drive on another laptop and it was okay. In reverse, I used a known good drive into this Aspire and it would also wouldn't POST, so I know it's not specifically a drive issue. I suppose I could swap sticks in from my good laptop to this one, but I'd rather test what's in it as it is.

I bought this laptop from the original owner (guessing he had it on sleep mode to hide the spontaneous non-POST problem) to give to my mother who is a senior. I'd give her my working laptop, but it's too big and bulky for her. I desperately seek help after countless hours wasted on the web looking at mostly Aspire-One fixes which obviously aren't for me.

Thank you so much in advance.

... Memory checks out fine.

....Black Screen Of Death all night tonight. Funny thing is that the hard drive light shows no activity, but apparently the hard drive spins up (not fast, but still enough to put wear on the drive). Hmmmm. No disk writing, so there's an obvious issue with the data tunnel. Then again, this ***** happens with no HDD, so likely the infamous mysterious mobo issue for petesbloodysake! Do I get a VIP card for the growing ranks of BSOD members? Non-transferable warranty sucks. Time to part out this POS and recoup what I can. Uggggh.