Laptop power trouble

Peccavi

Alright, it's 3 am, I'm tired, and I'm not going to be able to deal with this tonight, but I figure I might as well throw this up now to potentially accumulate advice while I sleep. I own an Acer Aspire 5552g, purchased less than a year ago.I was gaming on it tonight, when all of a sudden there's this click and the computer turns off. No emergency shutdown message, no blue screen of death, just immediate fade to black (of course, this happens 15 minutes after I was planning on calling it a night, "it won't hurt to play for a few more minutes," fucking hell). I at first assumed it was heat related, wouldn't be the first laptop of mine to have heat issues, but I quickly realized this was worse. The light on the laptop that's supposed to be on whenever it's plugged in, isn't on, and the computer doesn't do anything when I push the power button. The light on the adapter is lit, it should be getting power, but no dice. Tried pulling the plug out and putting it back in, removing the battery, but neither of those plans worked. I can't get it to power on.

A quick Google search tells me that it's probably a problem with the mainboard. A fucking expensive repair, but ive got the extended warranty. Still, do not want to deal with this shit.

So, questions: 1. Any other ideas on what the problem could be, with easy solutions I can do in my own apartment (not involving taking the laptop apart)?
2. I bought this computer off Newegg, and got their extended warranty. Never had to deal with something like this before, how do I initiate this? Am I supposed to call them, and if so, what do I say? Also, am i supposed to do data recovery before sending it to them? (is there even anything worth the effort of data recovery on this stupid thing? That's a question for me to think over after I've gotten some sleep, obviously you guys don't know)

Any help would be appreciated, now it's time for sleep.

Hevach

Sounds bad. Was it hot? Where? Do you keep it sitting flat on a surface when you use it, especially if you play games on it? Laptops can be pretty godawful for heat dissipation. The heat generally builds up on the bottom, and that dinky vent or two on the side or back can be like pissing on a forest fire. One of those raised cooling thingies is a good investment if you're going to play games on one.

I don't know much about Acers first hand, but about the only things you can do without taking it apart are checking the cord (feel it along its length, flex it generally feeling for a "crackle" that could be frayed copper strands rubbing on each other) and replacing the battery (unlikely, since even with a shot battery it'll run on the plug). There's a thin chance letting it cool off will get it working again, but... Well, like I said: Sounds bad.

You should have gotten information on the warranty when the laptop was delivered somewhere in the papers. That'll tell you exactly what to do. If you've lost them, yes, contacting Newegg is step one. If that's not the right thing at least the runaround will hopefully send you to the right place.

If there's anything on there that can't be replaced, yes, you'd want to recover that yourself. Chances are slim that they'll take the time to save anything for you... there's a pretty good chance you won't even get the same laptop back, they may just ship you a refurbished one off the shelf and then refurbish yours. But, doing that's going to involve taking the thing apart to get your hard drive out and hooked up to another computer.

Peccavi

Yeah, this laptops been on a cooling pad its entire life, since I had one from when my last laptop had heat issues. But I still noticed it would sometimes get hot, especially in the upper left WASD area. And it's pretty clearly not a powercord issue, if that were the case I would've gotten a low power message before it turned off. Pretty sure my mobo just died.

I don't think I have anything especially important on the hard drive, my music is backed up on Amazon, my games are all on steam (I'll lose the save files, but that's not a huge deal). Only thing I can think of are a couple receipts, but I'm pretty sure those are all in my email too. I'll lose some files, but nothing worth spending money on data recovery. Dodged a bullet there.

Apparently I'm still on Acer's warranty, the extended one hasn't kicked in yet, and Acer has a handy web form I can fill out for that. Just need to find a paperclip so I can check the DVD drive, not sure if there's anything in there.

It's a goddamn annoyance, but it could've been a lot worse. Hell, I could've bought Mass Effect 3 for PC instead of my 360. I would not be taking this so well if that were the case.

Draygo

After you plug it in, lift the power cord at the back of the computer and see if the power light comes on.

Most likely something fried though if it just turned off suddenly without a battery warning, when you lose AC power the bat should kick in. Sounds like it didnt.

Yes you need to send it in for a warranty repair. I would copy the data off it that you want to keep just in case. Sounds like you dont care though, so just send it in.

Also send it in to acer directly instead of using newegg if the laptop is more than a month old. Nix that you got the extended from newegg, send it to new egg.

If you havent tried plugging it in and turning it on with the battery removed do that first.


About laptop cleaning, cooling pads are not enough if there is blockage near the fan. You need to get a can of compressed air, or something that can push air at a decent rate. When cleaning the laptop, flip it over and use a paperclip to hold the fan in place. Then blow into the exhaust on the side of your laptop. That is the side of the laptop. do not blow air down directly into the fan on the bottom of the laptop, that can cause dust to get wedged in the heatsink. What you want to do is blow the dust off the back of the heatsink and back out the intake. If you have pets you should clean a laptop like this at least once every 3 months.