Dad's Laptop Failure

[Shannon Chou]

So, after some trail and error and a bunch of troubleshooting, there's something wrong (identified 1, might be more). It is an Acer Aspire 4738G, previously it kept on restart and my dad sent it to a technician and they say the graphics card burned and they changed it to a recon one (honestly i don't know how they did it, it is soldered to the board), so the laptop came back and can be used but cannot plug in with hdmi to a TV.

Two days ago, while my dad's using it, it suddenly blacked out, nothing came up when turned on, similar to my previous post. Surely, i found what happened to my laptop and you guys can see the answer i marked.

So, back to my dad's laptop, the troubleshoots i had done were:

1. Switched dad's laptop hdd to my laptop

My laptop posts, i entered my laptop's bios and found that the hdd is detected, exited bios and continue, nothing happened, hdd light blinked a few seconds and totally gone. Restart my laptop again without entering bios, still same, after post and blank. Hence i can deduce that my dad's laptop hdd is dead.

2. Switched my laptop hdd to dad's laptop

Hoped it works, but it still the same, dad's laptop does not post and nothing came out on screen. Besides, i found out something weird, when i wanted to shut it down by holding the power button, i just need to press the button, no need of holding it, and dad's laptop shut-ed down. My laptop would need to hold down the power button for a few seconds to shut down tho. This not posting and nothing on screen problem is the same as my own laptop (as topic shared above), so i...

3. Changed ram and check ram slots

Can't prove anything either, switching slots, switching rams, still did not show anything on screen. Dad's laptop ram works fine on my own laptop tho.

 

Attached is the pictures i took about my dad's laptop. There's something bothering me, there's a small metal piece (picture 4 and 5) on the graphics card heat sink. Took more pictures of it because i suspect its the graphics card burned out again but end up more faults found.

 

So what i wanna ask is that what is actually wrong here, which parts that i can identified as faulty so i can help the technician to narrow the scope down and fix it for me. Or is it really no point to save this laptop anymore?

 

Thank you for your time reading this, i gladly accept any suggestions.

[Theguywhobea]

I'd say it's time for a new laptop.

[Nerdtality]

TL;DR RIP laptop. Looks like you ripped the die head of the CPU.

[Nerdtality]

Though, those CPU's are cheap. Just get a new one.

[Theguywhobea]

2 minutes ago, Nerdtality said:

TL;DR RIP laptop. Looks like you ripped the die head of the CPU.

I think that's just a copper shim on the GPU heatsink

[Nerdtality]

Oh, looks familiar. Anyways, time for new CPU/GPU what not. Or laptop. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

11 minutes ago, Nerdtality said:

TL;DR RIP laptop. Looks like you ripped the die head of the CPU.

That's copper, and there's still TIM underneath. I think he just got a copper spacer that connects the die to the heatpipe.

 

Also, OP: what's the heatsink-less die to the left?

[Shannon Chou]

7 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

That's copper, and there's still TIM underneath. I think he just got a copper spacer that connects the die to the heatpipe.

 

Also, OP: what's the heatsink-less die to the left?

oh u mean this? i'm not very sure either, own laptop got this too near the ram

 

21 minutes ago, Nerdtality said:

TL;DR RIP laptop. Looks like you ripped the die head of the CPU.

lol, i think its not much of a problem, there's thermal paste down there, so it should be able to rip it out

[Shannon Chou]

22 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

I think that's just a copper shim on the GPU heatsink

u mean the small metal piece? its covered with thermal paste tho and its between the GPU and the heatsink... obviously  

[SpaceGhostC2C]

5 minutes ago, Shannon Chou said:

oh u mean this? i'm not very sure either, own laptop got this too near the ram

Yes, I'm thinking that could be the GPU, with the other heatsinked chip being a north or south bridge.

[Shannon Chou]

1 minute ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Yes, I'm thinking that could be the GPU, with the other heatsinked chip being a north or south bridge.

oh no, tats not, the gpu is above the cpu, beside the blower, furthermore, how could it even work without burning out without cooling solution  

[SpaceGhostC2C]

14 minutes ago, Shannon Chou said:

oh no, tats not, the gpu is above the cpu, beside the blower, furthermore, how could it even work without burning out without cooling solution  

The same way many other laptop and onboard GPUs do?

 

Besides, if the GPU is the one you say (I trust you it is), the other one still is one of the bridges, and it still works without heatsink...

 

Edit: on closer inspection, it is indeed the HM55 chipset.

Edited April 11, 2018 by SpaceGhostC2C

[MellowCream]

Shoot whoever applied that thermal paste.

[Shannon Chou]

19 minutes ago, MellowCream said:

Shoot whoever applied that thermal paste.

should be the technician that fixed the gpu previously, nearly fainted when i saw that much paste, dunno if laptop should be like this, i did not apply that much on my desktop....

[Shannon Chou]

30 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

The same way many other laptop and onboard GPUs do?

 

Besides, if the GPU is the one you say (I trust you it is), the other one still is one of the bridges, and it still works without heatsink...

 

Edit: on closer inspection, it is indeed the HM55 chipset.

yes, the gpu is above the cpu, beside the blower, it has the ATi logo on it, oh i forgot to take a picture of it when i scrapped the thermal paste

 

maybe this little chip which does not have a heatsink is the onboard graphics. after comparing with both laptops, this small chip is right behind the holes for air inlet, so maybe the surrounding air is sufficient to cool it down?

[Ace McPlane]

20 minutes ago, Shannon Chou said:

yes, the gpu is above the cpu, beside the blower, it has the ATi logo on it, oh i forgot to take a picture of it when i scrapped the thermal paste

 

maybe this little chip which does not have a heatsink is the onboard graphics. after comparing with both laptops, this small chip is right behind the holes for air inlet, so maybe the surrounding air is sufficient to cool it down?

I would say it definitely is time for a new laptop if it's an ATI GPU  

They don't even exist anymore.

They were bought out in 2006. Branding phased out in 2010 so that laptop has to be at least 8 years old.

Definitely time for a new one either way.