Hello,

Many of you know me from somewhere (#tcpa, #omnimaga, more recently #cemetech...), but enough intro-stuff.

So, I have this old laptop. I used it for about a year and a half, maybe 2 years. It was pretty cheap ($300 or so), and I have bad laptop habits. So, I used it on my bed, pretty much every day, for around one and a half years. It overheated and shut off a lot, and the temperature was often near 100 degrees celsius, on either side. Yeah, I know I shouldn't do that, but I have nowhere else to use laptops, and after years of doing it, well, it's unlikely I'll want to stop. Anyway, it is an Acer Aspire 5735Z. Dual booted arch linux/windows 7 if it matters. So, one day, it started overheating more easily, and shutting off. Then, it wouldn't turn back on for an hour or two (This is when I decided to order a new laptop, which arrived the day this one died). Pressing the power button results in it flicking off in a couple seconds. The monitor doesn't turn on, either. However, I just tried it to check this behavior, and it actually turned on! Booted in the the OS, everything worked fine. However, upon restarting it, the flicking on and off came back, just as I had predicted. This makes me believe that most of the components are okay. I'm thinking the issue would be with the ventilation/cooling system. I believe it is malfunctioning, and that tells the laptop to shut off to prevent damage, or something along those lines.

So basically, I'd like you guys to perhaps help me figure out what exactly is wrong. I can provide more information or pictures of the machine itself upon request, as well.

Right now I'm going to open it up and see if there is dust and stuff, and clean it out a bit. Any suggestions as to what would be wrong/what to do would be appreciated.

Welcome.

Why not get a laptop table thing? Like one of these dealios?


So I suspect one or a combination of the following factors:

1) Dust and hair clogging the vents
2) Dried heatsink compound preventing the heatpipe to the fan grille from properly contacting the processor die

It could be a jammed or disconnected fan. That can prevent the computer from booting.

Yeah, I thought about that too, but he said that it booted the first time he turned it on after a long time, which made me think it's an issue of a steep upward heat gradient and a much much shallower downward gradient, indicative of present but far insufficient cooling. If the fan was disconnected, it might not have booted in the first place.

Hmm, I just opened it up, and it doesn't seem to be overly dusty or anything. However, I really don't know what I'm looking at, but maybe someone else does? Not sure if any problems would really be spottable from that picture, but it doesn't hurt to post it. Right now I'm going to look for some canned air, maybe there's some dust I can't see, or something.

1) Are the screws holding that piece of aluminum under the copper pipe firmly attached? They should be under tension and have springs on them.
2) Can you try turning it on while open? Does that fan spin freely, if at all?

1) They appear to be firmly attached, I just checked them. That is, assuming I'm checking the right ones; the screws holding that thing with the little peg-like things on it, yes?

2) The fan seems to be spinning fine (albeit not really even creating any wind at all; it's very faint). A second or two before the laptop itself flicks off, the fan stops rotating.

Yup, that's the one.

Did you check the grill with the very closely-space fins in front of the fan (closest to the bottom edge of the picture)? That gets clogged up very easily.

I just found some canned air (my sister said it didn't have anything left, but it worked for a bit), but no abnormal amount of dust or other particles really seemed to emerge. I didn't really notice a change in the fan; miniscule at best. Same behavior when trying to turn it on. Seems kind of off to me that it just turned on this morning, since that would imply that everything was working properly, but I don't really know what I'm looking at or anything. Also, I measured the temperature when it did come on, and it was a little over 50 degrees celsius, if that information may help diagnose anything.

For your next laptop, get one of those laptop cooler things that go under the laptop. What is probably happening is either the intake or exhaust is on the bottom of the laptop, and is unable to function.

For the problems you are experiencing, this is a case of too little too late. Heat damage has become permanent. It can't be with the cooling system if it happens on startup, because there is no way anything is overheating that quickly.

Next time you have a computer that overheats, FIX IT THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENS.

Actually, I did use a cooling pad with the old laptop :/. However, I have a hard time believing that there is nothing I can do, if I got it to turn on just this morning. At the very least, most of the components still work perfectly fine, so couldn't I replace whatever the problem is stemming from? Once again, I don't really know much, so perhaps not.

As Kllrnohj said, it's very possible that repeatedly running the machine under such harsh conditions caused permanent, irreversible damage, and that it's just a fluke that it managed to turn on once today. I used to have a tablet PC that for a month or two would turn on with a severe graphics corruption glitch roughly 29 out of 30 times. I would have to spend an hour turning it on and off, then try not to turn it off again for weeks.

Does this mean I should give up? I, for some reason, have a hard time believing that there isn't something I can do, I mean the problem has to exist on one specific component, and said component can be replaced, yes? I could be completely wrong, but I mean, it's not like all the components are bad, right?

Most likely the part that needs to be replaced isn't replaceable; so you should give up while you still have your sanity

Unfortunately, Ultimate Dev'r is likely right here. If it doesn't boot open and unobstructed, there's almost certainly something broken on the motherboard, and unless you could find a very cheap one on eBay, it's not worth it.

Can it be replaced? Sure. Will it be cheap to replace? Probably not. Can *YOU* replace it? Nope.

s/nope/not without extensive training, and probably weeks of component testing to find the faulty component(s)./