Acer Aspire 7720G, seems very dead - trying to diagnose and repair

Acer Aspire 7720G when booted seems to indicate some life, HDD light blinking, CD drive accessed when inserted disk but no beep tones. Early on the system did work by guessing the state of Windows Vista it could be shut down normally. Indicating Graphics path the problem, for example the MXM II card dead.

Have replaced the Microprocessor but still not booting up. It was a guess that the Graphics card was ok as it had recently been replaced and upgraded.

I was assuming that if one had a dead graphics card that a beep tone would be issued, this was the reason why I picked to replace the Microprocessor. I was also swayed by picking up the Microprocessor fro a few dollars on ebay.

As replacing the cpu did not change boot situation there is of course a possibility that the cpu is also faulty, it was extracted from a used computer.

When changing the Microprocessor I realised that airflow path was severely obstructed, at a guess 1/3 the length of the "grills" were rather blocked by short fibrous material, not really dust size particles. We are at a loss explaining the material however this is not important.

I am a bit lost when it is laptop world, more used to desktops.

I would like to know what causes the loss of beep tones in a laptop? As the the graphics card is separate it can be removed, would it be an option to remove this and then see what happens to beep tones?

Yes have cleaned it out , looking for a cheaper replacement card just to check out the system.

Not sure about the baking, will think about it. Guess if I am going to re-ball it as a test case nothing is lost.

Worked on the beep codes, Went through the listed error codes and looked at the few beep codes that may be in the system, from that I figured that pulling out the Graphics card is not likely to give a beep code for the graphics card not present So I may not be any closer. .

Naaah, I am not convinced this is the way with this particular card yet. I did find on the internet some information indicating that I would not kill the pc, if it was not already, if I removed the graphics card.

While waiting for another cheaper card and considering the write off around the corner I decided to remove the graphics card. Starting up without gave a grey LCD indicating this was working, some seconds later this turned black, probably when post well on the way. When trying a Linux LiveCD the indication also that there is life, however I did not want to try full install blind so power was turned off.

Inspecting the graphics card under magnification I found this looked ok but of course no telling. This time however I noticed the bracing frame on the opposite side of the graphics cpu chip had one edge lifted about 1-3 mm because it had to ride on a few components. This was the edge closest to the MXM II socket. Now this explained why I thought the socket was springloaded, when I removed the card 2 holding screws the card flipped one edge up in the air about 25 mm, nice design I thought at the time.

Alarm bells are ringing now as laptops even these older big beasts are very short of space so I am uncomfortable observing carefully the the graphics card bends along the edge as well as the card seem to lif the tiny MXM II socket ever so slightly but very clearly observed. This does not seem right, so I am after some confirmation here.

I would very much like to do some modding here to get the engineering right according to my thinking, but I have little experience in laptop world, only my second unit I am really digging into. I don't remember noticing about springloading in the replacements I have scanned on the Internet but it is only now I am focusing on this problem

Reinstalling the card the pc worked and booted up, but I shut down again as the thermal properties need to be fixed up for longer runs first. Of course I am hoping this is really on the track and not an intermittent 'wake up' I have experienced.

Are there members having experience with replacing graphics cards of MXM II class that has come across "springloaded" card installs?