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Help me to repair a friend's ACER M3100

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First post, by eL_PuSHeR

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Hi guys.

Two weeks ago a friend of mine brought me his ACER M3100 in the hopes of repairing it. At first I thought it just needed a reformat, but when I powered it on, there was no video signal whatsoever.

This is what I have tried so far:

- I cleaned all dust and balls of fluff from the fans/heatsink. It was pretty dirty inside.
- I tried 3 different video cards (the onboard one and two pci-e ones). Nothing.
- Tried resetting all RAM (four modules in four banks). Tried several combinations. Nothing.
- I took out the cmos battery.
- I used a different PSU.

The machine powers up, all fans seem to be working nicely but there is not video signal, nothing at all. No beeps either.

So for me, either the mainboard is DEAD (probable) or CPU is fried or both. I guess it must the mainboard (hopefully) but now I have two questions I need to know:

1. CPU socket. I visited ACER webpage and it's a mess. I wasn't able to find any comprehensive specifications chart. If that PC comes with an Athlon 64 X2 I think it could be a socket AM2(+) (940), but I need to be sure.

2. I intend to reuse the case so I hope it's ATX factor form.

Can anyone give me some insight on this? I want to start looking for mainboard replacements.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 1 of 8, by nemesis

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Could you post some pictures of it?

Athlon 62 x2? do you mean Athlon 64 x2?

Those started with socket 754 and continued through socket 939 if I recall correctly.

Reply 2 of 8, by eL_PuSHeR

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Yes, I fixed some typos I had made... 😵

I see it's pretty hard to find AM2 mainbards nowadays. And they come in very steep prices (70 €+)
Also I need a board with four memory sockets. It currently has 3GB of RAM (2 x 512 MB; 2 X 1GB).

Some specs

Someone asking for replacements here

150 Sterling pounds !!! ouch!!!

Googling I found this post. I have to try using a new cmos battery.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 3 of 8, by eL_PuSHeR

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Hooray! I replaced the cmos battery and the whole thing came to life. That's weird!

By the way, bios says it's model M5100 (and yes, it's a socket AM2 [940]).

I am now in the process of reformatting it.

Best regards.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 4 of 8, by Malik

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Weird indeed, but a happy ending nonetheless. I'll keep the CMOS battery oddity in mind.

I do remember issues where non-bootable systems working after shorting the CMOS battery jumper.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 5 of 8, by nforce4max

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This is common and yes it is board level. If the cpu is from the Phenom 2 era you could swap the board with an am3 but if it is what you are thinking then it isn't even worth it. New cpu and board along with some cheap used dd3 for around the same price.

On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.

Reply 6 of 8, by eL_PuSHeR

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The system is reformatting and running quite happily W7 x64. It has got 3 GB RAM.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

Reply 8 of 8, by eL_PuSHeR

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Yes, you learn something new everyday as the saying goes...

Best regards.

Intel i7 5960X
Gigabye GA-X99-Gaming 5
8 GB DDR4 (2100)
8 GB GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming (Gigabyte)

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