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My Travelmate 8204 Problems!!!!!!!

post #1 of 3
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone,

I have been a user of Acer Travelmate 8204 WLMI for about 16 months now.
I had some problems with this laptop such as gray lines on LCD, overheating and many other problems that I am sure many users have experienced.

However, I was okay with using this machine despite many problems that I am going to describe below. But since last week it started to act very weird. When I push the power button, it would turn on as usual but I was not getting anything on the screen. I would hear the fan running and the hard drive starting up, but I had no screen display. However, when I pick up the laptop and tilit it foward little bit and press the power, the familiar ACER booting screen shows up and my computer works just fine.

Unfortunately, even with the little trick of picking up the laptop and pressing the power, it does not boot at all. I hear the fan running for about 10 seconds and it stops running and I barely hear any sounds from the hard drives( I usually heard somewhat loud noise) and no display what so ever!

I am college student and also a gamer who spends a lot of time with my laptop, and it is really a tough decision to send in the laptop to ACER for repair. I have initially purchased additional two years warranty so my warranty is still valid, but honestly, I would like to use this machine for little bit longer if it will boot up.

Right now, I have following problems with my Travelmate 8204 WLMI.

1. Does not boot at all (biggest problem!)

2. Overheating is insane! Cant use laptop without cooling pad!!
I have always used the Antec cooling pad ever since I got my laptop but the overheating gets worse and worse!

3. One keyboard keys missing!
My " ~ " key on my keyboard fell apart and I couldnt use this key for a while!

4. Speaker Broken
My left side speaker is broken and it makes harsh crashing noise whenever I play any music or video or any types of sound. I set my speaker to play only on the right side to use it.

5.Gray lines on LCD, and Very dim screen
I have tried manythings such as glossy film and other stuff but I was never really satisfied with my LCD screen. I also flashed the BIOS that was supposed to brighten up the screen but doesnt seems to help much! Also I see tape kind of thing on the bottom left (near the corner) of the LCD, it seems like it was not installed perfectly.

6. Memory (RAM?) error problem very often!
I get this memory error and it has been occuring ever since I got my laptop,
more details is on the previously thread I wrote (http://www.notebookforums.com/thread149743.html)
Hoping to get a new ram, I got a reply from Acer support a while ago and the support guy believed it was a hardware problem..



After writing down these problems above, I realized that it is time for a repair.
I have few questions that I am concerned about and I would really appreciate if anyone could answer these questions as best as they can!

1. How long does it take for acer to send me the box to safetly ship the laptop to them?

2. How lond do I have to wait to get my laptop back hofully with all my problems resolved?

3. I actually formatted the initial setting of the hard drive and divided into three partitions(I did not erase the back up partition that was originally installed!) windows and I am using the different version of windows, will this void my warranty?


Thank you all for reading this long long thread, but as you may have noticed, I am very frustrated not being able to use my laptop It took me a while to finally deciding to send it in for a repair!

Please feel free to write any comments, tips, and thoughts! thanks!

*sorry for posting this on this part of the forum as well, but I really need some help and support from you! please understand and help me!
post #2 of 3
1) I can only speak for the US, but I had to send Acer the laptop. (I used Fedex Express... it got there in two days though I didn't pay for the 2 day service).

2) I had a simple "replace the heatsink/fan" problem. They did exactly that, even did a burnin test to make sure it wasn't overheating. So really they spent maybe a day processing (they have to unpack it and put it into the system.. they sent you an email that it has arrived).. and then a day for fixing and repacking.

They used Fedex Ground shipping to sent it back.. 3 days or so.
In total, about 8 business days I was without my computer. It was more than a week because they don't work over the weekends.

3) It will not void your warranty. If there are just hardware issues and easily replaced, then they won't have to reinstall your OS.

They do suggest to leave the passwords off.. I gave them the administrator account with no password. They didn't mess with any of my files.. (although I did lock access to my data just in case).



----

I can't speak for other people, but Acer's repair in the US has been pretty good to me. Only they won't ship internal parts like the heatsink/fan directly to me. Would have saved me the time and the money.. because I can do it myself in 5 minutes.
post #3 of 3
In Germany you would have to wait for app. 2 weeks, that was my experience when I had to sent in my Acer 8204.

What I would suggest is that you send your 8204 without the harddisc, even Service Center at Acer recommended that to me. It seems that they have enough harddrives with various OS/S systems around and your data should be absolutely safe at YOUR home.

Just as a hint.

Regards,

Michael
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