I Think I Broke my Toy!

So, I finally got around to putting an extra gig in my One. The guides say one motherboard screw is tight - this is a slight misstatement. On mine, three were not only tight, it took pliers on the screwdriver to budge them at all. But, that's not the point - I got the memory in and got the One back together.

Everything was fine - I ran it for an hour or so with no issues and then installed Windows 7 RC on it. We're talking maybe three hours run time and then ... it froze. No response at all but I still could see the Windows desktop. So, I did a forced power off, powered it back up and got a pure black screen and once in a while a little fan noise. Carp! Went through the whole disassembly process and pulled out the memory stick. Reassemble and power up: nothing. Disassemble again, watching carefully for any loose connectors, missing jumpers, etc. and while I had it apart I put the memory stick back in. Still no luck.

I've copied the BIOS onto a USB stick and tried the emergency flash (Fn+Esc; power up; power light flashes; hit power again). I let it go a half hour, still no response. That was with a 4 Gig stick, I've also tried it with a 1 Gig and after a half hour of that I gave up there too.

So, it looks like I've fried the motherboard somehow. Any suggestions where I go from here? I'll assume that warranty is void at this point ...

Black A150, 512mb (factory), 160gb hard drive

 

Was the memory on the list of known working memory part numbers?

 

Yep - Kingston - 5300. As I said, everything worked fine for about three hours and then total meltdown. I've got the packaging around, will try to post a complete spec off the label shortly.

 

Did you use this?
http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/08/acer ... overy.html
Works great ; had my AAO broken due to wrong booting from external DVD and it showed the same black screen and "dead behavour" as you describe.
Succes!

 

The TS already described that he did the BIOS recovery thing, but did not work. So this is not the problem obviously.

 

Did you notice the FAN working when you used the AAO after the RAM upgrade? It may not be and you fried something on the mobo... Just a thought.

 

Don't remember if the fan was running or not. But, as I was waiting for the BIOS recovery, it did kick in a few times. If I have time tonight, I'll take it apart again and carefully look at everything.