are the aspire 1642 and 1642z mainboards interchangeable?

Hi,

In another thread I mentioned the need for a new mainboard to solve my problem with the battery charging issue, I bought one today on ebay for a good price that came from a 1642z WMI with a processor a fan included, I read the specs to compare the 2 after I bought the board. There is something that is puzzling me now, my LCD is a regular 1024 x 768 tft and the 1642z has a 1280x1024 cristal brite LCD, are the connections that send the signal to the LCD the same on both models and compatible with each other or am I screwed because the 1642z board won't drive my 1024x768 screen?

 

There is a good chance that the 1640Z mobo wont be compatible with the 1640 since the former is the ZL9 model and the latter is the ZL8 model....!!

you could try it out but I doubt it would work, since visually the two motherboards look quite different..!!
Try looking out for the mobo of the acer travelmate 4060 or the 1640 itself....!!
and what is the mobo code on the ram bay sticker..??
and is your model the 1642WLMi..??

 

Yes my model is 1642WLMi I'll look for the code later and post it here.

 

Ok I removed the fan cover and I didn't find the code you asked me, but I removed the fan/processor lid and I found that my model is DA0ZL8MB6C6 Rev C. After looking for a picture of this board I've put both photos side by side to see if I would find any difference in shape between the two, in fact I did find a small difference that I highlighted on both photos for you to see, give me your opinion, do you think I'm safe? first one the ZL8 and second ZL9, please give me your thoughts, looking at the usb ports dc vga audio fan everything looks alike. I think, and I hope it will fit in my laptop, I worried about the LCD driver thing though, this will be my first time disassembly of a laptop, but I'm willing to take the chance, so I don't know how the mainboard interacts with the LCD monitor, could you please let me know if the connections arfe the same?

Edit: I even skewed and rescaled the ZL9 photo to the dimension of the zl8for a better comparison (yes I am that patient)

 

Compare these pics, U shud be able to see the difference in the chips on the board, and minor differences in the design..!!
The code I am talking about is that BOLD sticker on the ram bay..!! If you just remove the ram cover of your laptop, you should be able to see it..!! Click a pic of that and upload it if possible as it would make things alot easier..
Left is 1640Z and right is 1640....

 

Ok, I understand that the boards arent exactly identical, but if they physically fit it would be like replacing a motherboard in a desktop computer right? Would you know if this board designed to drive a 1280x1024 lcd could drive a 1024x768 screen? From what i understand the driver is on the mother board itself or does the screen have it's own lcd driver and the signal coming from the board is "universal" like VGA and the screen processes the info? Because if they physically fit in my case I think the only possible issue would be the compatibility with the lcd panel

 

Ok, is this the sticker you mentioned? If it is it says 547ABWMBQTF17480 31ZL8MB0000

 

That code doesnt make sense, it might be printed somewhere else....but I am sure that the motherboard is definitely not compatible with the one you have bought since the code on your motherboard shows that it is a ZL8 model....and the new mobo is a ZL9 model..!! The code your motherboard will be having is LBTAK02001 ----
You should feel really lucky if the new mobo fits in place of the old one....!! I dunno much about the LCD, but normally the LCDs are plug and play and can be upgraded irrespective of drivers....!! Your video BIOS on the new mobo should recognize the LCD, only then it will work..!! Keeping fingers crossed....

 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed too, the seller is shipping the mobo tomorrow, I'll post the results I sure hope I will swap them successfully, I've been searching for a disassembly guide for the 1640 but I haven't found one, I guess I'll have to be extra carefull while doing it.

Edit: I have a sticker like that but on the wireless bay LBTAK0200154813508EM00 what does this code mean?

 

this code is used to recognize the motherboard for the acer 1640....LB.TAK02.001....!!

 

The ZL9 board arrived today I gonna (or try to) swap them tonight, lets see if it fits, still keeping my fingers crossed

 

Good Luck mate....

 

Tough luck, the board fit like a glove everything fit in fine and plugged in fine and all, after all the hard work the board must be faulty, there is no display and I plugged to an external monitor and al it shows is garbage flashing I unhooked the LCD to see if it was some sort of compatibility problem but the external monitor showed the same garbage, damn...

 

Ok I got the main board up and running again, these boards are infact interchangeable everything works and fits perfectly, so if you have a 1640 with a busted board you can always fit in a 1640z board, graphic wise it is better because it has a built in ATi graphics adapter and it has much better performance with 3d games and applications etc... The original 1640 board had intel graphics, though it was not bad it was more sluggish on some games. So you can say it's a slight upgrade.

 

did you have to change many of the drivers, as im assuming you used the same HDD ?

nice rebuild.
PHIL

PS.hang around, some people my need your help
+REP

 

Congrats''

 

Thank you! No the only driver I had to install was the ATi driver, the rest was all the same but I started having problems when booting to win xp it took a good 10 minutes to get to be able to do anything with it, so I ended up installing windows vista and everything is perfect now. I have a photo of the surgery

 

does the MOTHERBOAD use a SATA hdd?? is it based on INTEL CPU and chipset??

if so to install XP make an Nlite CUSTOM XP INSTALL CD by following the instructions on this page,, use the SATA driver there if your CPU and chipset are intel based.. as in an INTEL i945 or i965 chipset.

the other drivers from that SOULPASS page may not work for you!

but i can find most any ACER XP driver... if they ever wrote one

 

hi, it uses an ide HDD and it is intel based

 

then a fresh XP install may resolve those issues you had previously..... unless you did a clean install after installing new MB

 

Yes I did a clean install it's working great so far, thanks