A 14" work station from Acer. Released in 2010.
Student-Contributed Wiki
An awesome team of students from our education program made this wiki.
Sounds problems could be anything ranging from crackling and popping sounds coming from the audio port, to your sound controls no longer working, or the symptoms could be exhibited by working sound controls and no audio output.
The first way the sound problems can be fixed is by simply rebooting the computer. In order to do this navigate to the start menu in the bottom left hand corner of the screen on the computer, and select the restart option.
If rebooting does not work try going to the start menu on the computer, then type “control panel” into the search bar. Now, go to “system and maintenance,” then go to “system” and then to “device manager”. Once in the “device manager” check to determine if the device is installed properly, this can be verified by looking for any yellow exclamation points or red X’s. After checking for this make sure that the driver is updated.
First navigate to the “device manager” menu and select the “driver tab”, once in the driver tab select the rollback driver option.
First navigate to the “device manager”, once in the “device manager” menu click on the audio driver tab. When in the audio driver section click on the uninstall driver button (red X on the top bar of the screen), not reboot the computer. Now that the driver is deleted just initiate a windows update in order to reinstall the driver.
Microphone problems can be noticed by failure to record sound when the microphone is in use. In addition, the microphone may be distorting audio that it is recording instead of failing to record any sound.
Problems with your microphone could be caused by faulty drivers which can cause the microphone to stop recording audio, drivers can be repaired in multiple ways.
The microphone may not be plugged in properly, ensure that the microphone is properly plugged in by taking it out of its connecting port and then plugging it back in
If this doesn’t work your problem may be with your microphone driver. To check that the driver is properly installed you should go to the “Control Panel” via the windows start menu and then “System and Maintenance” following this go to “System” and “Device manager”. Once in the device manager click on “Audio inputs and outputs” and then click on “microphone” if there are no yellow exclamation marks or red Xs next to the microphone driver then it is properly installed.
If the driver is properly installed you should try to update your driver if it is not up to date. To do this go to the “device manager” and click on “microphone” inside of “audio inputs and outputs”. After this click on the microphone option and click update driver in the top bar.
Sometimes updated drivers actually cause an issue with your device drivers.If your driver has been recently updated before your device malfunctioned you should go to your microphone inside of the “device manager” and instead of clicking “update driver” click “rollback driver”.
If none of these solutions have worked so far you can try removing and reinstalling your microphone driver. Navigate to the “device manager” and click on the “microphone driver” inside of “audio inputs and outputs”. After navigating to the microphone click on “uninstall driver”. Following this reboot the device and initiate a windows update which will reinstall your microphone driver.
The next solution available is to remove any recently installed hardware or software which might conflict with the microphone driver.
Finally, if all of these solutions have not helped your microphone drivers function you should try reinstalling your operating system to restore function to the microphone.
Touchpad problems may exhibit themselves by loss of touchpad function. Additionally, the cursor may not be smoothly responding to your inputs.
The first way you can possibly fix your malfunctioning touchpad is verifying that your computer didn’t drop your touchpad activation settings. To do this, go to the “start menu,” type “control panel” in the search box, and then press “Enter.” Then go to your “hardware and sound settings.” Often times this will have an icon of a printer and speaker next to it. Select the “devices and printers” option. This will take you to a page that contains all of you peripherals. Then click “mouse” and navigate to “mouse properties”. Once this is open verify that there is a check next to “enable touchpad.” If there is not, then select that field and then select apply and close the window. Immediately after this, the touchpad should begin functioning again. If there is not field for this option, or this option does not work, follow the next guide.
In “mouse properties” click on the hardware tab and check for a field labelled “HID-compliant mouse.” If you are using a connected mouse there may be two of these fields. Click the one that does not have USB in location property. Click on properties for “HID-compliant mouse”, and check the device properties. Click on change settings under the driver tab and click update driver button and then you will likely have to restart your computer, and your touchpad should be working properly.
To check for this you need to open the laptop and find the FFC that is connected to the touchpad and verify that it is plugged in. If the cable is plugged and the above steps failed to work then you will likely have to replace your touchpad.
Keyboard issues will be noticeable when you try to type something with a specific key and the input is slow or not recognized.
First try to reboot your laptop by navigating to the start menu and clicking “restart” if this does not work move on to the next steps.
Loss of keyboard function is often due to the keyboard being plugged in incorrectly or coming loose. To check if this is the issue you should plug in an external keyboard via USB and see if it works. If the external keyboard works your laptop keyboard has a loose wire and needs to be plugged back in.
Besides being unplugged a keyboard can also malfunction due to a driver error, if your keyboard is wired in correctly you should try to update the drivers by going to “control panel” in your start menu, “System and maintenance” in the control panel, then click “system” and then “device manager”. Once inside the device manager navigate to your keyboard driver and click update. If this does not work try reinstalling your keyboard driver.
If all of these options did not work you may need to replace your laptop keyboard.
A power on issue could be occurring when your device fails to launch when you press the power button, or if the battery is failing to charge.
Check and verify that the charger is plugged in and that the adapter light is on. If the light is not on then consider buying a new adapter.
If the charger is in working condition then attempt replace the battery using this battery replacement guide.
A random loss of BIOS settings will look something like an error such as an invalid system disk, boot failure, hard disk error, NT boot loader missing, or missing operating system.
If a USB flash drive or some other USB device is connected to the computer try and unplug the device before starting the computer.
First a restart must be initiated on the computer, once the restart has started immediately start tapping “F10” while holding down “alt” until the Acer Recovery program comes up. Once in this menu use the arrow keys on the computer to select either “factory backup” or “eRecovery backup”.
If none of these options work consider replacing the RAM by following this RAM replacement guide.
An LCD failure is observed when the screen is too dark to see clearly, the the colors on the screen seem “washed out” or aren’t contrasted correctly, or the screen has a tendency to skip and freeze.
If the screen appears too dark, try to increase the brightness by holding the “Fn” key and pressing the left arrow key which should have a blue image of a filled-in sun.
If the colors on your screen seem “washed out” or otherwise unbalanced, try altering the color settings by right clicking on the desktop and selecting Intel Graphics Settings. Then click display followed by clicking color settings. Toggle with the color contrast bar until the correct color balance is achieved.
If you experience freezing or skipping on your screen, updating the display driver may solve the issue. You can check for updates by clicking the Start tab and following this guide: Start > Settings > Update & security. Once here, click Windows Update and then click Check for Updates.
If this fails, try downloading a driver update tool. Download run DriverDownloader which will automatically match your system with the correct driver.
If none of these methods work for your problem, you may want to consider replacing the LCD display.
