Acer 8930G won't boot

Hi all, I'm dealing with a serious problem here.
Recently, my relative's machine stopped working. He took it for diagnostics to some shady repair shop and all they've done was steal a stick of RAM and say that nothing could be done.

I had a look at it, but I didn't manage to figure anything out. Here are the symptoms.

When I plug the laptop in I can hear a clicking noise coming from the inside of it. It's constant and doesn't stop until I unplug the cord.

I thought that the HDD might have died, so I took it out, but the sound persisted and the thing is, that the computer doesn't start at all, no fans, no visual, just a quiet clicking sound.

I tried pinpointing the origin of the noise, but after taking out the HDD, RAM, CPU, even the damn wireless card, the sound persisted every time the machine was plugged in.

Here is a link to a video of what it sounds like I made: video


Here is a picture where of where I think the sound originates, it might me that square thing under the CPU (no idea what it is and does though) or more to the left of it. picture


I have no idea what the issue is, might be the power supply or whatever, anyone have an idea?

 

That square thing is probably the chipset. Does it click when you use the battery? or can you try another power supply to check.

I guess that the chipset needs a reflow. the chipset is soldered on the motherboard and because of heat and the age of the machine the solder balls can become a little loose. the thing is that reflowing is just temporary. (just google reflow a motherboard).

 

Thanks a lot for the input, the sound continues even with the battery removed. I'm now also confident that the power supply is not the issue. I'll try reflowing the chipset and see what happens.

 

Hmm, tried reflowing the chip and nothing changed Either it's something else, or I didn't manage to melt the tin. I really don't feel like taking the whole motherboard out and frying it in an oven. Could anything else be wrong?

 

Have you found any solution to this I have the same problem.
After playing a game the laptop shut down and don't turn on and also I hear this ticking noise. Also I can't power on either with the battery or the charger cable. And also when I plug the power cable the blue light up from the power button doesn't glow
Thank you

 

Can you answer please my friend ?

 

DominikCZE can you answer please......
It ll be a great help

 

Hi, I didn't manage to reflow the chip on that laptop, but I'm pretty sure that that was the problem. Everything pointed to it, so that's your best bet. I didn't have heat gun. Just a soldering needle, so the result was obviously pathetic. One day I'll try to fix it again with proper equipment, it's kind of low priority right now as the owner has a new Dell XPS.

So get a heat gun or better yet, if you don't mind the hassle, bake it in the oven. There are videos on youtube and guides on the internet that will walk you through the process step by step.
And remember, disassembling the machine is simple, you just unscrew things and take them out one by one until you can take the whole motherboard out...right....but make sure you remember how to put everything back together, that tends to be the trickier part, I'm always left with an extra screw here and there, haha.

Anyway, don't be scared of reflowing the chip, it's not like you can do anything to a completely dead laptop and you'll get a chance of reviving it along with some hands on experience with the hardware.