Acer won't boot with WiFi card in place

[HobbyTinker]

I have an Acer Aspire One aoa-150 ZG5 that will not boot with the WiFi card in place. I was using it one day and the mouse cursor got very slow and jerky until the machine froze up completely. After that event it simply refused to get as far as BIOS. The power light and battery light come on but the screen is dark. I flashed the BIOS to no avail.

Through some trial and error, dismantling the machine and rebooting at each step, I was able to isolate the problem to the stock Atheros WiFi card. With the Wifi card in it's slot the machine won't even get to the BIOS screen. Pull the card out and the thing boots right up.

I ordered a card, assuming the old one must the the problem. Installing the new card is the same result, with it in place I get nothing but pull it out and the computer boots and works fine.

I use the old machine mostly for a carry around and backup. I can still use it but have to keep it tethered to my phone or plugged into the Ethernet to get online. It's workable but inconvenient. I would rather have functioning WiFi if possible.

My searches haven't taken me anyplace helpful so far and I have been looking at the problem for a couple of weeks now.

If I let the machine sit with the power on, the WiFi card gets warm, not hot, but noticeably warm.

Any suggestions?

 

[Lutfij]

Could you please pass on your OS that you're currently working off on your Acer netbook? It could be possible that the slot in which the card is seated is malfunctioning. You can take your original wireless adapter and plug it into any other laptop around though it won't work out of the box without proper drivers. A quick workaround an be to get a USB wireless adapter and forgot the rout for wireless adapter within the netbook. If you did disassemble the unit have you tried clearing your CMOS by removing motherboard battery for 5 mins before replacing and see if you can get into BIOS while the wireless adapter is populated in it's original slot.

Just via a wild guess, are you on Windows 10? Atheros, Killer, Braodcom devices have been having a tough time on Microsoft's new platform.

 

[HobbyTinker]

Could you please pass on your OS that you're currently working off on your Acer netbook? It could be possible that the slot in which the card is seated is malfunctioning. You can take your original wireless adapter and plug it into any other laptop around though it won't work out of the box without proper drivers. A quick workaround an be to get a USB wireless adapter and forgot the rout for wireless adapter within the netbook. If you did disassemble the unit have you tried clearing your CMOS by removing motherboard battery for 5 mins before replacing and see if you can get into BIOS while the wireless adapter is populated in it's original slot.

Just via a wild guess, are you on Windows 10? Atheros, Killer, Braodcom devices have been having a tough time on Microsoft's new platform.

The operating systems on the Acer are Linux Manjaro 15.12 & Linux Peppermint 5 (recently upgraded to Peppermint 6).

Disconnecting the CMOS didn't change the situation at all, neither did flashing the BIOS a few times.

I've been using my phone, tethered to a USB port as my WIFI for the time being. As I mentioned, it works well enough, just a little inconvenient. I'm assuming the WIFI socket must have burned out for some unknown reason.

I have considered just getting some kind of WIFI dongle, just haven't done anything about it as of yet.