Acer Aspire One charge light does not light up and battery does not charge
My Linpus Acer Aspire One was laying idle for a few months, then I pulled it out to use it, and was dismayed when it would not charge. The orange battery charging light would flash for a second, then turn off.
Problem 1: The Acer would not power up with the AC adapter.
After scanning the web for a while, it appeared there were several possible reasons for this:
- Bad battery
- Bad AC adapter
- BIOS update needed
- Loose jack on the motherboard, necessitating service.
The easiest possibility to deal with was to assume that the AC adapter cable had gone bad so I ordered a new one. Fortunately they are inexpensive. I found one through Buy.com for a total of $19.84 including the shipping and handling.
It showed up after a few days and worked like a charm. But I still wasn’t out of the woods.
Problem 2: Once the Aspire One booted up, it still would not run unless it was plugged in – the battery would not charge.
The power indicator said “battery: 100%” but it was clear that the battery had not charged at all. At that point I decided to try the recommended BIOS update. That turned out to be pretty easy. I downloaded the BIOS updater for the AOA110 from Acer’s site here. To use, you will need a USB thumb drive. Open the archive, and find the file 3310.fd inside the folder “Dos_Flash”. Change the name of the file to zg5ia32.fd. Copy zg5ia32.fd and Flashit.exe to USB flash drive. Be sure the AC adapter is plugged in. Insert the USB flash drive into a USB port. Press and hold down the Fn and Esc keys together and press the power button. When the unit’s power light comes on, release the Fn and Esc keys. The power light will start to blink. Let it run, and after 1-7 minutes, it should reboot and the BIOS will be updated.
At this point, you should see the battery icon in the task bar is now indicating charging – it will show a few percent charged after about 5-10 minutes.
If the battery still will not hold a charge, the battery may need to be replaced, or the netbook may need service.
copy all the files from inside the folder “Dos_Flash” to the thumb drive.
Lessons learned: Do not leave the Acer idle for too long. Start it up once a week, at least.
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Hi!
I have the exact same problem and I’m trying to update the BIOS. I’m following the instructions to the letter and the Acer behaves exactly like the instructions said it would with the blank screen and rebooting and all that. Still, when I check the BIOS version afterwards, it hasn’t been updated.
Any thoughts on why? 🙂
Nevermind, I found another way to update the BIOS here: http://www.techdc.com/aspire-one-bios-update-version-3304
🙂
When my acer aspire one laptop wasn’t working I figured it was the battery. I spent 50 dollars on it. Than when that didn’t work I realized maybe it was the charger. I went to buy.com after I read your solution and bought a charger. Now it works! Thanks alot for the help
Stephanie
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