Possible motherboard issue

[lrwynn]

After Broni's series of attempts to help me in THIS THREAD, he suggested that I may have a video chip or motherboard issue.

NOTE: I am on a Chromebook now, and am trying to clean my fiance's laptop. He just got it back from a local tech shop on 1/20 (windows 7 reinstall - he downloaded some nasty viruses (via email attachments, we believe! BAD BAD BOY!), and I tried to reinstall windows on my own 6 times, but the acer discs would not complete the reinstall so we took it to the shop). By 1/21 he'd managed to get reinfected, but I don't know if it was residual from the previous infection.

My latest thread to him, following his instructions to go into System Recovery mode, was:

After some Googling re: not being able to start the Acer, the only way I could figure out how to get past the screen with several vertical lines comprised of the little horizontal lines, like my earlier video shows (let's call it my HVLinePattern for shorthand), was to:

1. take out battery for over 10 minutes (while unplugged the whole time)
2. press down power for 30 seconds,
3. plug back in,
4. reboot ... and I could F2 and F12, but NOT F8

At some point, I got a single set of 7 short beeps

• cpu failure? wild guess per http://www.fixya.com/support/t11858072-acer_aspire_5253_laptop_problems_booting
• I cannot seem to reproduce these 7 beeps, tho.

I tried to let the laptop start up in regular mode, and kept looping the acer logo with options to F2 or F12 at the bottom vs. a brief flash of black screen until I powered it down with the power button.

I rebooted, tried to F8 and got what I interpret to be:

• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• the HVLinePattern screen

I powered down and rebooted, then,

1. hit F12, chose boot by disc (took a screenshot, but it's in video format ... oops, can add later if necessary),
2. hit F2 and changed to boot order (screenshot on my google drive -bit.ly/1foRTDf),
3. put my windows install disc in the drive (recovery disc 1 of 3)
4. crossed my fingers
5. rebooted
6. got what I interpret to be:

• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• the HVLinePattern screen

I then

1. took out battery for over 10 minutes (while unplugged the whole time)
2. pressed down power for 30 seconds,
3. plugged back in,
4. rebooted ... and ...

• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beeps immediately followed by
• 3 long, 2 short beepsimmediately followed by
• the HVLinePattern screen

I rebooted a few times, and shot a little video (LINK ON YOUTUBE) while I observed the same pattern of beeping. Riveting stuff.

As I expressed to Broni, I'm not terribly optimistic, we've already began the process of shopping for a replacement. Now that I know the beeps have a significance, I'm a bit agitated that the tech shop ignored the HVLinePattern screen and the beeps they likely also heard. (Oh well.)

At any rate, if you have any insights, I'd be so very appreciative. If not, I truly understand that my fiance managed to do too much damage by not getting help quickly enough and/or by clicking on an especially malicious piece of malware. We just hope we can take steps to avoid it again in the future.

Thank you!

 

[lrwynn]

Sorry! must've been half asleep when I posted this under MOBILE COMPUTING ... meant to put it in PROCESSORS AND MOTHERBOARDS and just did so. If there's a way I can delete my original post above, let me know so I can learn the RIGHT WAY to take advantage of this valuable resource.

Moderator note: Irwynn, I moved your post here to a more appropriate subject forum IMO.

 

[Tmagic650]

It does sound like a motherboard failure... The video chip is most likely soldered to the motherboard

 

[lrwynn]

Ok. I get that. We're going to give up on this laptop. You can consider this thread closed, and I thank you for your time.

 

[Tmagic650]

Okay, thanks for coming by