Multiple Issues Aspire S253-BZ849

So, I have this old Aspire S253-BZ849 that all of a sudden stopped working. Not a big deal, it's an older laptop and no longer my go-to device. But it does have some old pictures and documents on it that I want. So I tried to start it up, and nothing happened. The screen was black, and it wouldn't boot up. Because of that, I held down on the power key for about 30 seconds, unplugged everything (including the power adaptor), removed the battery for about 30 seconds, plugged the power back in, and successfully restarted it. One down, right? Not exactly

Once it powered up, I went to connect to my Wi-Fi, and that's when I realized that the keyboard wasn't working. No matter what keys I hit, nothing appeared on the screen. I tried a simple restart, but that made do difference. So I tried unplugging the power cord, removed the battery, put it back in, then the power, rebooted, but still no keyboard response. After this, I went into the device manager, uninstalled the keyboard drivers, restarted the device, the drivers then reinstalled, rebooted the machine again, tested again but still no response from the keyboard. I tried FN+ a number of different function keys, but that didn't work (not a giant surprise since I wasn't getting any response from it before). I cant even boot it up into bios since pressing F2 doesn't work.

I then plugged on keyboard I had lying around into it, the drivers installed, and then lo and behold that worked. At this point I had somewhere I had to be, so I turned off the computer and ran my errands. When I came home, I wanted to test the keyboard again, so I powered up the computer, with the extra keyboard still plugged in, and it wouldn't bootup again. Just a dash in the upper left hand corner. If I remove the keyboard, it'll boot up fine again.

Oh, and one last thing, in the lower right hand corner of the screen I'm getting an icon for "no battery detected" even though it is plugged in.

I'm looking for any ideas, or suggestions as to what else I can try to do to get it work properly. Thanks in advance.

Accepted answers

JackE

Your battery is toast. New replacements are less than $20 for this model. Just google the part number BT.00604.049 or your Aspire 5253 battery replacement for a vendor convenient to you. Your keyboard ribbon cable connector also needs to be reseated in the mainboard socket. If you want your pix & dox before you get it working properly again, simply remove the HDD, plug it in to a $6 HDD-2-USB adapter, and use another computer's USB port to pull the pix & dox off of the drive. Jack E/NJ

All comments

JackE

Your battery is toast. New replacements are less than $20 for this model. Just google the part number BT.00604.049 or your Aspire 5253 battery replacement for a vendor convenient to you. Your keyboard ribbon cable connector also needs to be reseated in the mainboard socket. If you want your pix & dox before you get it working properly again, simply remove the HDD, plug it in to a $6 HDD-2-USB adapter, and use another computer's USB port to pull the pix & dox off of the drive. Jack E/NJ

KnightLife

That’s pretty much what I figured. Thank you kindly.

KnightLife

Ok, slightly new problem. I took the thing apart, had to unplug a few cords/ribbons inside, remounted the keyboard, put it all back together, restarted and the keyboard worked. But the mouse/touchpad stopped working. Took it all apart again, realized I’d forgotten to plug that back in, did that, put it all back together, put the battery back and power cable back in, and nothing. Can’t get it to power up at all. Took it all sort again, checked and the cable looks like it’s supposed to, but I can’t get any juice. It’s always something with this thing.

JackE

Some of these mainboards have a normally off spring-loaded safety switch, usually located near the RAM module sockets, which cuts all power to the mainboard if the case cover is misaligned with or not fully depressing the switch into the on position. Jack E/NJ

KnightLife

Ok, can’t find anything like what you’re describing. But be even taken everything apart to look thinking maybe I’m missing something obvious. But at this point it’s just a giant paperweight. Thanks though. Really do appreciate the help.

JackE

I'm not sure what else to check other than try to re-trace your disassembly/assembly steps yet again. The ribbon cables are always prime suspects, not only because of potential conductor trace cracks that are hard to detect even with a 10x loupe, but also their wedge connectors are flimsy & easily damaged allowing the ribbon to escape. Scotch tape can often fix the ribbon connector issue. Jack E/NJ