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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.
April 10th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
mohan,
It’s hard to tell what is wrong without troubleshooting the laptop. I’m thinking maybe it’s related to the DC jack. It’s possible the DC jack has to be replaced or resoldered, maybe it’s not making good contact with the motherboard.
April 10th, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Hello Laptop Tech,
I have an Acer Travelmate 2423 laptop and I have been having issues with the it since last year after I discharged my battery completely. It does not recongnize that the power adaptor is plugged-in and starts on the battery mode. It starts beeping continuously (power led stays green and battery led stays orange but keeps on and off) until the battery is fully charged. The beep is so disturbing that you can’t even hear any other audio sounds that are playing. During the initial few mins (30-60mins), the power scheme keeps switching between power to battery mode all the time causing the system to slow down. At least after 30 mins, the system stabilizes with the power mode recognizing the adapter connection.
Recently, all of a sudden, battery started showing completely empty and the computer won’t start at all. Whenever I press power on, a message comes up “your battery is critical low” and shuts off. I left the adapter plugged in for about 5-6 days and noticed that the battery’s led turned green. I tried starting it up again and it did. But, it won’t recognize that adapter is plugged in and it stayed in the battery mode for about 20-30 mins and then went off due to low battery.
I have no idea why this happens. Is it because of bad adapter or bad battery or bad power board or bad hardware driver?
Please help me out with this.
I look forward to your answer.
Thanks in advance.
April 10th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Jaya,
Yes, it’s possible. I have a laptop like that at home and using it with my TV. I’m using this laptop for watching videos, online movies, netflix, etc…
Here’s the catch.
The internal wireless card antenna cables running inside the display assembly. It means, when you remove the display you have to disconnect Wi-Fi antenna cables from the internal card. The internal card will not work without antenna cables. In this case you’ll have to use an external USB or PCMCIA wireless card.
April 9th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Hi,
I have Acer TraveMate 4100, and it’s kind a likely with the model in this review. The LCD suffers dead pixels (in line). I plan to remove the whole LCD part from the laptop, and so the board will still remain. Then, I will use monitor to replace it as a screen. My question is, is it possible to do?
Thanks. Looking forward your advise.
March 30th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Lawrence,
Yep, it sounds like the DC jack is OK.
It’s hard to tell what is wrong. Sounds like a motherboard related failure.
Try removing all not needed parts: battery, hard drive, DVD drive, wireless card, etc… Leave only major components: motherboard, memory, CPU.
Try again. If the laptop still doesn’t turn on, try removing memory modules one by one. If the problem still there, it’s probably bad motherboard.
March 30th, 2011 at 2:46 am
Thanks for this website, extremely helpful….
I have an Acer TravelMate 2300 that now wont startup.
On pressing the start button the green lights on the top and front, light up for a second (sometime 2-3 secs) and the screen changes subtlety from black to dark grey, (there are no other signs of activity – i.e noises ) and then it all goes dead, and the green lights go out.
When on AC power the battery light goes orange and then green once the battery is charged. This leads me to think that the DC jack may be OK ? But I am not sure where to go next.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Lawrence
December 9th, 2010 at 9:03 am
Shahid,
1. Unplug AC adapter and remove the battery. Wait for a few minutes, plug in the AC adapter and try turning it on again.
2. If it doesn’t help, test your AC adapter with a voltmeter. It’s possible the adapter is dead and the battery has not charge left.
3. If the adapter outputs correct voltage, there is a chance of bad DC jack (power) board.
4. If you replaced the power board but the problem still there, most likely this is motherboard failure. Not worth fixing.
December 9th, 2010 at 12:29 am
Hi… i have Acer Aspire 4520 Laptop 2 years old last till last night it was working fine i shutdown properly next morning when i tried to switch it on it didn’t only all indicators light goes on for fraction of second and goes off i can hear cpu fan runed and HDD activity for faction of second then goes off all. What do you think what would be the problem or might be due to bad power adapter board. please help me out i will be very great full to u.
Regards.
September 23rd, 2010 at 6:56 am
Well got a new power jack board for the travelmate 2480, stripped apart laptop today using your excelent guide. muchly appreciated.
End result, lossed on this one, same issue as before. blinking power adaptor when plugged in and still no power to the laptop. So yeh bugga.
Question though, is there are way of testing the power jack board itself? via multi meter etc.
Just want to make sure if there good or bad.
Thanks again
Matty
September 19th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Hi Laptop Tech Guru,
Hope you can help me with my Acer problem.
I have an Extensa4430 that gives me no display (black screen) when powering on. The green led turns on (however it doesn’t blink or flicker like it normally should when booting), but nothing shows on the monitor. I also notice the fan turns on but off after a couple seconds it stops spinning.
I’ve tried draining the power by removing the battery and unplugging the adaptor then press and hold the power button for a mintue. Still doesn’t turn on when plugged back in (without battery).
I’ve tried messing with the RAM by using one stick at a time on different slots with no luck.
I’ve also removed the HD, with no luck on that method either.
Any ideas why? I do hope it’s not the motherboard.