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In the following guide I will remove and replace the power board in an Acer TravelMate 3260 series laptop. Most likely my guide will work for some other Acer TravelMate laptops but I don’t know all models. If this guide fits your laptop, please mention the model number in comments after the post.
In Acer TravelMate 3260 laptop power from AC adapter goes to the motherboard through the power board. When the power board goes bad, the laptop stops working at all and appears to be dead. In order to get access and replace the power board we’ll have to disassemble the entire laptop.
STEP 1.
If you need spare parts for your Acer TravelMate 3260, you can find them here.
First of all, turn off the laptop and remove the battery.
Remove two screws securing the switch cover on the back of the laptop.
STEP 2.
Start removing the switch cover and lift it up by the hinge cover.
Continue removing the cover with your hinges.
STEP 3.
Remove the switch cover.
STEP 4.
Remove two screws securing the keyboard.
STEP 5.
Carefully lift up the keyboard from the laptop base and place it upside down on the palm rest so you can access the cable connector underneath.
STEP 6.
You have to unlock the connector before you can pull the cable and remove the keyboard.
On the picture below you see connector in the unlocked position.
Pull the cable and remove the keyboard.
The keyboard has been removed.
STEP 7.
Remove the hard drive and memory/Wi-Fi covers.
STEP 8.
Remove one screw securing the hard drive assembly.
STEP 9.
Pull the hard drive to the left and disconnect it from the motherboard.
Remove the hard drive from the laptop.
STEP 10.
Remove one screw securing the optical CD/DVD drive to the base.
Push the drive from the laptop with your finger.
Remove optical drive from the laptop.
It is not necessary to disconnect memory modules, wireless card, modem card and CMOS (RTC) battery for the purpose of my guide . You can leave them connected to the motherboard.
STEP 11.
Remove all marked screws from the bottom of the laptop.
Disconnect cables I pointed with yellow arrows.
Disconnect two antenna cables from the wireless card (green arrows).
STEP 12.
Remove one screw from the back side of the laptop.
STEP 13.
Disconnect the video cable connector.
Unroute both Wi-Fi antenna cables and pull them through the opening in the motherboard.
Remove four screws securing LCD panel hinges.
STEP 14.
Remove the LCD panel.
STEP 15.
Remove five screws securing the top cover assembly.
Disconnect the touchpad cable.
STEP 16.
Start separating the top cover assembly from the laptop base.
STEP 17.
Remove the top cover assembly.
STEP 18.
Remove two screws securing the motherboard.
STEP 19.
Start removing the motherboard from the top left corner.
Release and lift up the top right corner of the board.
Carefully pull the motherboard from the base assembly.
STEP 20.
On the picture below you see the power board attached to the motherboard.
The DC power jack and power switch are located on the power board. If the DC power jack is broken, you can repair it using this technique.
Remove two screws securing the power board.
Disconnect the power board from the motherboard.
The power board part number is printed right in the middle. It’s DA0ZR1PB6D1 (REV:D). You can find a replacement power board here.
STEP 21.
While the motherboard is removed from the base, you can clean the cooling module.
Loosen six screws securing the heat sink assembly.
Disconnect fan cable from the motherboard.
Remove the heat sink assembly and blow off dust using compressed air.
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October 1st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
slightly offtopic.. but you were always so generous providing answers to people’s questions in the comments that i figured i’d try.
got an acer aspire one, 10″
the webcam only works when the netbook’s screen/lid is more than half-closed. when opened past, say, 40 degrees, the windows usb-device-being-removed-sound is heard, and the webcam disappears from device manager. basically i’m able to make videos of the netbook’s keyboard, and that’s it. when closing the lid, the new-usb-device-detected sound can be heard once it’s closed past 40 degrees or so.
think it’s just a loose connection that is relavitely easy to fix?
October 1st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
andy,
It does sound like connection or cable related issue. You’ll have to remove the display bezel and take a closer look at the webcam connection. Try reconnecting the cable, make sure it’s plugged all the way in.
The webcam is located above the LCD screen. I’ve never worked on Acer Aspire one, but removing the display bezel should be similar for most laptops. Take a look at the guides I posted in Acer or LCD categories. Find some explaining how to remove the LCD screen and you’ll get the idea how to remove the bezel.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Dear Laptop Tech,
Thank you very much for your time and explaining the issue in detail, you guys are really helping people, and even a guy like me who has no technical background, can THINK to open my machine
. ALLAH bless you my friend, bye
November 19th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
ii’m having problem with my wirless card im my laptop i have an acer aspire 3680 the light isnt lighting up can u help me
November 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
lynda,
I don’t remember this model off the top of my head. Is there any physical switch for the wireless card, maybe it’s turned off?
November 28th, 2009 at 6:42 am
A very helpful guide thanks. Anyone with an iota of common sense can use it to disassemble an Acer TravelMate 2300. Main differences are:
1. The screw to remove the CD/DVD drive is under the keyboard (not on the underside of case as shown above).
2. The two screws holding the mother board are by the battery connector and on the PC card casing
3. To remove the mother board, you also need to undo the two small nuts on either side of the VGA socket on the back of the case
4. A possible killer …. the power board is part of the the mother board, not a separate board. However, if you are on the lucky end of unlucky resoldering the power jack will fix the common power supply problem.
I have photos if you want them…
Regards, Richard
January 3rd, 2010 at 6:15 am
I have an Acer Travelmate 2300 and it doesn’t recognize the battery. It works fine on the AC adapter, but doesn’t recognize the battery. I bought a new battery too. I went to Batteries Plus and we tried a new AC adapter to see if the batt would charge; it didn’t. We tried a new battery, and the software didn’t recongize that battery or try to charge it. I reinstalled the factory software and slicked old programs, that didn’t work either.
Any idea? Should I replace the mother board? The power board? thanks for your thoughts.
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:48 pm
dahr,
In an Acer Travelmate 2300 laptop the battery is connected directly to the motherboard. I believe there is no power board in this model.
If you tried replacing the battery and AC adapter but it didn’t help, there is a problem with the battery charging circuit on the motherboard. The motherboard has to be either repaired or replaced. I cannot help you with the motherboard repair because I don’t fix them on the component level.
I guess you’ll have to replace the motherboard.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
I have an Acer Aspire 3680 and I believe the power jack has been fried. If you plug in the charger the light on the front display does not come on and it does not charge. However, if you wiggle the cord for a few minutes you may find a spot where it does “connect”. Then it may charge for a minute or so before it stops. I have used a tool that is meant to clean off any oxidation that may result from arching inside and it was ineffective in correcting the problem. When the power cord is inserted into the jack, you can tell it is loose inside because the cord has a lot of “play”. A new cord did not fix the problem. My conclusion is, as I stated earlier that it must be a bad power jack. I have found new one’s on the internet for 25 dollars, they just pop in and do not require and soldering.
However, I can not find a manual or tutorial anywhere on the web that shows how to replace it. I called acer and they told me their repair manuals are not available for the public! (why?)
I have no experience working on laptops except for changing RAM and Hard Disk’s. I am an I.T. Student. Any help will be helpful!
January 26th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Wesley,
Sounds like the power jack is damaged and has to be replaced.
Here’s service manual for Acer Aspire 3680 / 5570 / 5580. It’s a pdf file and might take some time to download.