I was on my laptop, until i discovered my favorite show was on…so i left my laptop on because i had important data opened. About 1 or 2 hours later…i discovered my laptop was dead. i thought it would be that batterys problem, so i went to my aunts house, because we have the same laptop, and changed the battery. the same thing happened. there was a light on the front of my Acer Travelmate 4500 series where the lightbulb thingy is when the battery is drained, and u plug it back in, it turns GREEN and the YELLOW repeatively. If i just pulled out the battery, and then turned it back on, the light bulb thingy turns GREEN then BLANK repeatively like the one before with green and yellow, but this time no yellow. My cousin told me about this site so rather just check it out. At least i still hear the fan, which means its not completely dead!
I have to wonder if the video has gone on it, the problem is being a laptop there is not a lot we can do when it comes to such things, we could try switching the hard drive and ram between the 2 systems as they are the same, but all this will prove is that these components are OK or not, what is the exact model of your laptop ?
We can try and see if it's onboard video or a separate card, then we can look at whats possible, but I fear it is a shop job, it depends on the video.
I have to wonder if the video has gone on it, the problem is being a laptop there is not a lot we can do when it comes to such things, we could try switching the hard drive and ram between the 2 systems as they are the same, but all this will prove is that these components are OK or not, what is the exact model of your laptop ?
We can try and see if it's onboard video or a separate card, then we can look at whats possible, but I fear it is a shop job, it depends on the video.
well…im not really sure what the exact model it is..all i know is that it is Windows XP with the model of Acer TravelMate 4500 series…ill try to figure out in the manual
According to that This appears to be your system, and as I feared it does not appear to use a video card, but onboard video, this means it may be a new motherboard job, mind you saying that, it's also possible the back light has gone, but this can sometimes cost more to repair than it's worth, I'm sure I've heard talk about some of these being so difficult and expensive most don't bother, , so it is almost certainly a shop visit for this.
You could of course take the attitude if it's broke you can't make it much worse, so how comfortable are you with opening up parts of the 2 laptops ?
There are 2 simple and quick tests to make sure the ram and hard drive are fine, if nothing more it will allow you to back up any data you don't want to lose, shops don't always worry about these things and theres no knowing what they may do or mess up so saving work before taking it anywhere would be a wise move, so what do you feel about this ?
If the laptop is powering on but no video, 8210GUY has hit on several things that could be the problem. As I work on laptops all the time, I can clarify some of those things a little bit.
One of the easiest things to check is to make sure that the RAM is seated properly. It could just be a bad connection, and this is more common than you might think. There is a small access panel on the bottom of the laptop. One or two screws usually to remove it. Ground any static by touching some metal object first and then unclip the memory modules and plug them back in. See if the laptop POSTs now.
If it still doesn't. Turn the laptop on and take a close look at your screen. Get under some light and look at it at an angle. See if you are able to faintly see the Windows screen or anything else on the screen. If you can, then the backlight is out. This could be the result of a bad inverter board (more likely than a bad bulb, and easy to change), or a bad backlight (which is a cheap part, but is like brain surgery to put it in - I usually replace the screen because my time is worth more and it is EXTREMELY difficult). Not to say its not possible, but it is highly unlikely that you could successfully change the backlight bulb in your screen without damaging the screen.
Besides that, you have a couple other possibilities. The screen on the laptop could've gotten a bad connection. YOu can plug an external monitor into your laptop to see if that is the case.
Your lid switch could be stuck closed keeping the screen from turning on, or the laptop from coming out of "standby" mode, or powering up properly. I've seen this a few times. This is only a possibility if you closed the laptop lid before you had this problem. If the lid was open the whole time and the problem occured, its probably not the switch.
And, lastly, the motherboard is probably bad, barring all these other things. One test I like to do to get a good idea if a motherboard is bad or not is to remove ALL the RAM and power the laptop on. Most systems, whether it be laptop or desktop, will beep error codes at you when you power them on without RAM. If you hear the beeps your motherboard and CPU are working. If you don't hear the beeps, your motherboard or CPU are dead. But, as 8210GUY pointed out. A motherboard could POST, and BEEP at you because it is working, but the video portion of it might be bad and you still won't see anything. Thus, requiring you to replace the motherboard anyways. Video failure on laptops is fairly common because they are so terrible for heat.
If you do the work you can get an inverter board anywhere from $20 to $45. You can get a backlight bulb for $20 shipped. You can buy a new replacement screen for anywhere from about $75-$140. And lastly, you can buy a used motherboard for probably around $150.
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Besides that, you have a couple other possibilities. The screen on the laptop could've gotten a bad connection. YOu can plug an external monitor into your laptop to see if that is the case.
Your lid switch could be stuck closed keeping the screen from turning on, or the laptop from coming out of "standby" mode, or powering up properly. I've seen this a few times. This is only a possibility if you closed the laptop lid before you had this problem. If the lid was open the whole time and the problem occured, its probably not the switch.
And, lastly, the motherboard is probably bad, barring all these other things. One test I like to do to get a good idea if a motherboard is bad or not is to remove ALL the RAM and power the laptop on. Most systems, whether it be laptop or desktop, will beep error codes at you when you power them on without RAM. If you hear the beeps your motherboard and CPU are working. If you don't hear the beeps, your motherboard or CPU are dead. But, as 8210GUY pointed out. A motherboard could POST, and BEEP at you because it is working, but the video portion of it might be bad and you still won't see anything. Thus, requiring you to replace the motherboard anyways. Video failure on laptops is fairly common because they are so terrible for heat.
If you do the work you can get an inverter board anywhere from $20 to $45. You can get a backlight bulb for $20 shipped. You can buy a new replacement screen for anywhere from about $75-$140. And lastly, you can buy a used motherboard for probably around $150.