Acer 8920g will not boot, ticking noise, gpu chip not detected properly

[drnoble]

I have an acer aspire 8920g it doesn't want to boot. it makes a ticking noise or a clicking noise from somewhere presumably speakers it does this constantly while the internal monitor is plugged into the mainboard round 2 ticks a second( blown capacitor ? )

i have been through a process of elimination with this computer and found that if i remove the internal lcd then i can get it to boot, this leads me to believe there to be a fault in the MXM graphics card, so i replaced this but upon building it back up it still has the same fault not starting, no lights come on when plugged in or on battery, power brick reads correct voltage power is getting to main board.

when i remove the internal monitor from mobo i can get it to boot into windows however if its not in safe mode it reboots after 10 - 15 mins, it will keep going forever in safe mode.

a lot of people seem to have had similar problems on the internet and it ended up being the graphics or northbridge, now the graphics i replaced it with was a nvidia which was detected but showed 0mhz on all the clocks in GPU-Z memory was detected but not the gpu core. when it does boot there are no post beeps no codes nothing to indicate there is a problem accept for GPU not being detected properly and laptop continually rebooting in normal mode

online i can find the schematic for this laptop and apart from the MXM interface the only other thing in that circuit is the north bridge.

i have a rework station and soldering iron, and i am competent at soldering smd parts, i have never re-balled a chip before nor do i have the correct equipment to carry out this procedure, lot of people seem to have had success just placing the components in an oven and heating to around 200 degrees centigrade. knowing you can buy reworking ovens that work on IR this seem plausible to me, has anyone had this problem with an acer 8920 8930 6920 ect any suggestions ?

 

[Camar0ss]

I'm unsure as to why it would be ticking. Does it still make this noise whilst running, or when you're using an external display? If not, then perhaps your internal display is shorting out in some fashion, and that's where you're getting the tick? If it's doing it even whilst running on another display, it could be the GPU is simply shot, or possibly even the port the GPU is seated in is fried. If it's making a distinct tick, and is 100% certainly coming through the speakers, it's likely that the PC is trying to tell you what's wrong with it. If that's the case, you'd probably be better off counting the number of ticks, buzzes, beeps, or whatever else you may hear and trying to find information via Google about what the sounds mean based on your hardware.

But it sounds like you may have a problem with your Windows system, if you're able to go on forever in safe mode. I'm not really sure what exactly would be causing this, but I'd guess it'd have something to do with your graphics drivers. Especially if Windows installed them, rather than you finding the exact ones you need yourself. Not detecting the GPU, but realizing there's GPU memory, very well could be an out-dated, incorrect, or simply faulty driver. Still, that doesn't really say why it'd be ticking, unless the computer is aware of what's happening.

You could try going into safemode with networking, or find the driver online via a different pc and transfer via flash drive (or other removable media), then update the graphics driver via the device manager to see if it solves the display issues, and if the ticking persists afterwards, we can deal with it as a separate issue.

 

[drnoble]

I'm unsure as to why it would be ticking. Does it still make this noise whilst running, or when you're using an external display? If not, then perhaps your internal display is shorting out in some fashion, and that's where you're getting the tick? If it's doing it even whilst running on another display, it could be the GPU is simply shot, or possibly even the port the GPU is seated in is fried. If it's making a distinct tick, and is 100% certainly coming through the speakers, it's likely that the PC is trying to tell you what's wrong with it. If that's the case, you'd probably be better off counting the number of ticks, buzzes, beeps, or whatever else you may hear and trying to find information via Google about what the sounds mean based on your hardware.

But it sounds like you may have a problem with your Windows system, if you're able to go on forever in safe mode. I'm not really sure what exactly would be causing this, but I'd guess it'd have something to do with your graphics drivers. Especially if Windows installed them, rather than you finding the exact ones you need yourself. Not detecting the GPU, but realizing there's GPU memory, very well could be an out-dated, incorrect, or simply faulty driver. Still, that doesn't really say why it'd be ticking, unless the computer is aware of what's happening.

You could try going into safemode with networking, or find the driver online via a different pc and transfer via flash drive (or other removable media), then update the graphics driver via the device manager to see if it solves the display issues, and if the ticking persists afterwards, we can deal with it as a separate issue.

it only ticks with the internal display plugged into motherboard, my first though once i diconnected the display, is that the display was the cause, as it would now boot but wouldnt with the display plugged in. but after around 10 minutes the laptop rebooted on its own so i knew the display was not the cause. i considered it was windows but then the laptop shows no signs of life with display plugged in, this points to a hardware fault as windows is not playing a part at this point. i did try to install the drivers from acer for this laptop, my first port of call was to uninstall the drivers once i manages to get back into windows as windows was throwing a wobbly with them installed, strangely a HD audio chipset was detected and the nvidia drivers allows an install but the gaphics does not get detected properly via acer nvidia driver. the ticking stops with display unplugged. when i get it to boot i am using VGA and HDMI which both work but not at correct resolution. when it does boot the computer connot detect the graphics card properly. it installs the graphics card as standard VGA adapter.

 

[Camar0ss]

Did you try to install drivers before this happened, or afterward? If it's not detecting the adapter, you could have a motherboard issue, in relation to the ticking and the display not working properly. Your best bet would be to have it looked at by a professional to get a better idea of what may be going on. Without hands-on ability to check the machine, it's difficult to determine exactly what's happening. I'd advise to steer clear of Best Buy's Geek Squad, though, as they'll normally just say something along the lines of "You need a new machine" rather than caring enough to assist you with a repair.