Hi, first post. Hoping I can draw on your wisdom.
I have a laptop that I'm trying to fix for a friend (I'm using it to type this post). I originally bought it knew about 2.5 years ago and sold it to him 3 months after I bought it.
It's an Acer 4021Wlci
Pentium M 1.6ghz
1024GB Ram
30GB (not original) 4200RPm IDE HDD
Windows XP Pro SP2
When I got this laptop, it would not recognize the factory 60GB HD in the bios at all and had the following error on boot up.
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcomm PXE ROM.
I've read several things about this error. Did multiple recommended steps. Clearing CMOS, disabling boot options. Confirming boot order, disabling all boot options but HDD that the bios would allow. Could not get machine to recognize the drive. Popped it in a Dell laptop, no problem. Reinstalled OS while in Dell machine, worked like a charm. Ran diagnostics on the drive, tip top shape despite being nearly 4 years old. After it was formatted and OS installed, I tried to put it back in the Acer and it would not recognize. Reset Bios again, still wouldn't recognize. Connected factory 60G drive via USB and it recognized the drive, but would not boot from it.
Then I got the novel idea of trying to put the 30GB drive from the Dell laptop in this Acer, and Bingo. Recognized, formatted and installed windows. Strangest thing I've encountered with a laptop. Okay, that's all the background, now to the problem.
For the most part, when on AC power, the laptop runs fine. Both HD and CPU run within safe temp specs. When on battery power (that now only lasts 1 to 1.5 hours) things heat up, but still in safe range for HDD (going from 33c to 38C), however cpu gets up to 57-58C (up from 48)when on my lap. This is when things get weird. The HDD light will stay illuminated and the machine will lock up. Sometimes the mouse is free, sometimes not. But eventually I get blue screen of death, system reboots, and it works fine for another 20 minutes. This hard drive had no issues in the Dell where it came from. It will occasionally do the same thing when on AC power, but usually recovers after 20-30 seconds, but the HDD light will not necessarily go out.
First question, I know batteries lose capacity over life, but I've never heard of them not providing the required current (at least in notebook batteries) to spin fans fast enough so units are cooled properly.
Secondly, does this sound like a controller issue, or a HDD issue?
Last bit of background info. I setup this machine completely manually. No driver disk, no back up CD. Hunting and pecking on Acer's website. Could this be a chipset driver issue, no alternative listed on the Acer sight, not sure if you can get intel 915 chipset drivers from Intel direct or not. Does it sound like the IDE controller? There's also a bios flash that's simply supposed to make it "support" Vista.
I don't want to spend money on a new HDD if it won't make a difference. Then I'll be stuck with an IDE laptop drive I have no use for.
Any ideas? Thanks.
