Hi all,
I'm looking at my mum's Acer Aspire 5520 laptop with Kubuntu installed that seems to have strange shutdown problems.
I can power the laptop on, but at random times (where t is generally < 2 minutes, sometimes up to 10mins, sometimes as little as 5sec) the laptop will power down completely with no user intervention. I've seen this happen while in the Grub boot menu, while Linux KDM login screen is displayed, while it's booting Linux, while it's running memtest and even while in the BIOS setup screens. This happens on the battery only, mains only and on battery and mains power combinations.
At other times, it seems the laptop goes into some kind of sleep state where the hard drive, power button LED and power state LED flash at the same time (approx 1s on, 1s off but I've not measured this), and while in this 'state' pressing space bar 3 times toggles the wifi LED so that it flashes in the same manner as the power and HDD LEDs.
When Linux does actually boot (rare given the quick power off), it appears to function ok, other than when powering off or restarting, the laptop is not actually powered down, and I can still switch virtual terminals but I cannot type anything in the getty (or whatever ubuntu uses) login processes.
Some google results suggest the motherboard needs to be reflowed, and people suggest putting the laptop motherboard into an oven at 200 degrees C for 5 -7 minutes!! :(
The CPU fan does come on and spins a lot in the grub menu (when the cpu should not be busy): I cannot tell if the CPU fan exhaust is hotter than normal, but this suggests that perhaps there's an overheating problem and some sort of thermal cut-out is powering down the laptop. I cannot see any abnormal amount of dust in any of the cooling vents, and there's no unusual rattling of the fan.
Any suggestions please?
Thanks, Srdjan
On 19/12/11 14:43, Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
Hi all,
I'm looking at my mum's Acer Aspire 5520 laptop with Kubuntu installed that seems to have strange shutdown problems.
I can power the laptop on, but at random times (where t is generally< 2 minutes, sometimes up to 10mins, sometimes as little as 5sec) the laptop will power down completely with no user intervention. I've seen this happen while in the Grub boot menu, while Linux KDM login screen is displayed, while it's booting Linux, while it's running memtest and even while in the BIOS setup screens. This happens on the battery only, mains only and on battery and mains power combinations.
Does gentle flexing of the case make the problem come and go.
Googling about it does seem this model has the nvidia chipset with the classic RoHS Solder vs BGA chip mounting problems.
Oven/Hot Air Gun tricks will only effect a temporary solution I am afraid. A proper repair would require BGA reballing and that requires a reasonable amount of skill and equipment.
You can check it isn't thermal and at least eliminate that..The fins on laptops can look quite clear but still be well clogged up in the actual fan housing. Remove the HSF assembly..remove the fan assembly from the heatsink and look at where the fan blower meets the fins. Then reassemble with new thermal paste.
Beyond that it's going to be a replacement mainboard or find someone that can properly reflow BGA.
On 19 December 2011 22:20, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
On 19/12/11 14:43, Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
I'm looking at my mum's Acer Aspire 5520 laptop with Kubuntu installed that seems to have strange shutdown problems.
Does gentle flexing of the case make the problem come and go.
Not tried that - see below.
Googling about it does seem this model has the nvidia chipset with the classic RoHS Solder vs BGA chip mounting problems.
It is the model with the nvidia graphics chip.
Oven/Hot Air Gun tricks will only effect a temporary solution I am afraid. A proper repair would require BGA reballing and that requires a reasonable amount of skill and equipment.
That seems too expensive and too involving.
You can check it isn't thermal and at least eliminate that..The fins on laptops can look quite clear but still be well clogged up in the actual fan housing. Remove the HSF assembly..remove the fan assembly from the heatsink and look at where the fan blower meets the fins. Then reassemble with new thermal paste.
Before I got to doing this, I found and followed these instructions:
http://superuser.com/questions/168928/acer-aspire-5520-power-light-blinks-no...
Which seem to have fixed this problem. The laptop has been working for the last 2-ish days without apparent problems. I will be monitoring the situation with the laptop to see if the problem re-appears.
Thanks, Srdjan
-
Srdjan Todorovic -
Wayne Stallwood