Problems with Acer Ferrari 3400

[yamnobody]

This has been the second time it happens to me. Utilizing a USB hard drive you can actually make the motherboard obsolete.

1) Turn on the harddrive, make sure it has a separate power supply and doesn't use power supplied by the USB (or at least Think it doesn't).

2) Turn on the Ferrari. Make sure it is done no less than a second after the step one.

3) ???

4) PROFIT!!!.... If the steps above are done correctly you will see the boot logo for a brief period, then lights out. The computer will not turn on, the battery will not charge and you will have yourself a shiny red paper weight. If you are lucky you can see that the battery can send juice to the board(plug it to your lan).

 

As mentioned before this has happened to me twice and both came as a shock to me. The first time was done exactly as it has been written, the second time was while rebooting (power wen't out for a moment and the Hard drive turned off then on at the right moment). I don't think this can only happen with this laptop but there are very similar ones out there. On the morning im going to take it for the waranty and see if they are willing to get me a replacement board.

 

****WARNING****

The procedure above may cause permanent damage to your computer. If you are going to try it, keep in mind that board replacement comes at a very high cost. Make sure you are in waranty.

 

Update: The company that gives me service didn't want to take it. Guess it will end as a red paper-weight.

[volvoguy]

I'm wondering what other USB devices might do this to this laptop. I'm currently trying to pull the hard drive out of my brother's Ferrari 3400 because it just died one day. He's not a power user, couldn't have over-heated it playing games or something, but a few weeks ago he tried to turn it on and it wouldn't even post. I've tried booting it plugged in with no battery, not plugged in with just the battery, switching around RAM and making sure they're seated properly, with the optical drive pulled - nothin. He said he called Acer and they said they'd fix whatever was wrong with it for $500 (which seemed a little suspicious to me), but that's a lot of money for a barely used computer.

 

If you've discovered any fixes since you posted this, I'd love to hear about it. As it stands, it looks like we're like you - having a very expensive, shiny red paperweight.

 

Technical info seems relatively non-existant on their site. if you know how to remove the hard drive I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on that as well.

 

Aaron