Acer laptop troubles

[Scotboy7]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone in 24land can help me with my dead lappy. I have an Acer Aspire 5101 and two days ago when I booted it up I got to my desktop and found I couldn't move the cursor with my usb mouse or touchpad. Tried 2 more mice but it wouldn't even recognise them so I had to restart by holding down the power button. When it restarted it went to the safe mode option screen and I tried to select safe mode using the direction buttons on the keyboard but nothing moved. Restarted again and pressed F2 to enter BIOS but again nothing so I can't reinstall windows from disc. So to sum up I have a laptop with no input device and no way to re-install windows. Any help or advice with this problem will be appreciated.

Scotboy7

[thraxas]

my compaq did something similar a few weeks ago, no response from the kb or anything.

I left it for a bit, removed the battery and it started working again. Though I suspect that there was a key stuck and one of the encouraging slaps I gave the thing dislodged it.

[Scotboy7]

Cheers for reply Thraxas, Tried removing battery but no luck also tried the thumping method, did me some good but the lappy felt nothing.

[2Beers]

How old is the laptop as the acers had a recovery partition on the HDD.

try holding down ALT and F10 at Boot

[linker3000]

Might be worth grabbing a Linux live CD (Knoppix?) somehow and seeing if the lappy behaves itself - this might rule in/out the hardware or disk/installed OS etc.

[Scotboy7]

Thanks for replies guys,
@2beers, No response at all from keyboard so Alt F10 wont work.

@ linker3000, D/ling now, will the CD install without any input device e.g. keyboard, touchpad or mouse ?

Cheers again scotboy7.

[linker3000]

Ah- bugger - should've read more closely. If you've got no input control even in the BIOS screens then I suspect you either have a loose front panel ribbon cable or the interface controller has died.

Mind you, on my Aspire 3500 - which has been taken apart many times - the keyboard ribbon cable is separate from the touchpad one - you've not had the keyboard/front panel off to do an upgrade have you?

Have you got access to a USB mouse and keyboard?

[Scotboy7]

Another update, Tried USB keyboard and my external hard drive but the laptop is not recognising them so it seems as if the usb ports have been disabled. Along with disabled keyboard and touchpad does this point to any specific part on the motherboard?

Thanks again.

[smartybones]

have you tried to reset the bios?

it can be a pain to do on a lot of laptops, you may have to search for a service manual..

[Ian Newson]

Cheers for reply Thraxas, Tried removing battery but no luck also tried the thumping method, did me some good but the lappy felt nothing.


Do you mean you tried to run it without the battery in? If not try that.

[JamesL]

Same happened with my Macbook Pro, needs a new keyboard/trackpad and also maybe the logicboard.. Looks like the USB controller is being a pain..