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Diagnostic help

P

project86

Limp Gawd
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Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
308
My son has an Acer Predator 300 (specific model N22C3 - 12700H, 32GB DDR5, 3070ti, dual 1TB SSD) that worked great until the other day. In the middle of a Battlefield game it just died. No warning, no shutdown process, just dead. I thought maybe he overheated it so we waited a bit, but it didn't come back on.

It has always been run on power from the stock (massive) power brick, never on battery alone. I ordered a replacement power supply just in case, that will arrive soon. Doubt it's the issue but couldn't hurt to check the box saying we tried it.

When plugging in, a small LED on the side lights up blue, which I think means it is charging. But pressing or holding power does nothing. Steps I have tried so far:

Swapped outlets so it is definitely plugged into a known-working power source
Held down power button for several minutes at a time
Made sure power plug connections are properly seated in wall and into laptop port
Removed bottom cover, unplugged battery, tried to run just off AC power alone with battery out of the mix
Cleaned out all dust/funk with canned air
Reset BIOS by shorting the pins
Removed RAM and reseated

Throughout the process I never achieved even an attempt to boot, no fans spinning up etc. The only signs of life are that blue LED indicating charging is happening, and there's also a "turbo" button above the keyboard that lights up for maybe 5 seconds when I plug it in. That light soon turns off. Pressing the turbo button itself does nothing.

Searching for this model shows plenty of reports of similar experiences. Speculation is that the motherboard dies. I suspect I'm in the same boat but wanting to double check that I'm not missing any obvious steps I should be taking. That way I'll have no doubt that it was a lost cause when I start looking for a replacement.
 
i know youve done them all but not together:
unplug it, remove the battery, short the clear cmos pins, this part sounds odd but find a way to short the battery connector(in the laptop, not the battery) if you can and bridge as many pins as possible(use tin foil), hit the power button a few times and let it sit for 5-10 min. put it together and keep you fingers crossed, theres nothing else i can think of to try.
 
Last edited:
pendragon1 said:
i know youve done them all but not together:
unplug it, remove the battery, short the clear cmos pins, this part sounds odd but find a way to short the battery connector if you can and bridge as many pins as possible(use tin foil), hit the power button a few times and let it sit for 5-10 min. put it together and keep you fingers crossed, theres nothing else i can think of to try.
Click to expand...
Uhh, the connector in the laptop, right? Not on the battery? o_o
 
pendragon1 said:
i know youve done them all but not together:
unplug it, remove the battery, short the clear cmos pins, this part sounds odd but find a way to short the battery connector(in the laptop, not the battery) if you can and bridge as many pins as possible(use tin foil), hit the power button a few times and let it sit for 5-10 min. put it together and keep you fingers crossed, theres nothing else i can think of to try.
Click to expand...

Thank you, sorry if I wasn't clear but I did do those together and wait over an hour. No luck. I'll give the battery connector a try by shorting it just in case.
 
learners permit said:
A little poking around the web the general consensus is the motherboard crapped. I found a brand new replacement laptop inventory but $688.88 seems like too much.
Click to expand...

Motherboard replacements in a laptop are a pain in the ass if you don't know what you are doing and don't have the tools to do it. People often try to pry the case open with flat head screwdrivers and mar the case.
 
I used to repair them as a side gig and am well equipped for it but no one wants to pay for repairs anymore. Yes some designs are a pain and finding board schematics is difficult but having the right tools for any job is the key to success. I still have a large pile of scavenged good parts for older laptops but they are mostly used for component resources. Have been considering a new IR mainboard sized rework station for LGA cpu socket replacements since AMD switched to the LGA socket but they're quite expensive and hard to justify the expense when folks are unwilling to pay for repairs
 
Thanks everyone, I have come to the same conclusion - too expensive to fix compared to just putting that money towards a new one.

I've always picked up great deals on the for sale threads around here, and may do so again, but now I'm wondering if buying new with an extended warranty of some sort makes a little more sense. We have had quite a few laptop failures over the years. Not from abuse but what ends up being common failures for that particular design. Very annoying, so maybe a warranty is useful there.

Anyone have experience with extended warranties actually being worthwhile or not?
 
Interesting video on the mainboard failure type here. This guys a bit heavy handed but was able to eliminate shorted together PCB layers successfully.
 
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