My Gateway 1450 will not power up. For the last 2 weeks that battery light has been red (battery need recharging). i had the unit turned off with no ac power to it all weekend and not it will not power up. the battery light is yellow (charging)but that is all it will do...no fan, no nothing. I tried removing the battery and ac power, holding the power button for 20 seconds then appling power, still nothing. I saw something about maybe the bios battery could be bad? Any thoughts on that. It is about 7 years old and is almost always plugged in the ac.

Your battery is either 1) dead or 2) recharging. Take the battery out and see if the laptop will run simply from the AC cable (plugged in to the wall).

Avoid leaving a laptop recharging for weeks.

yellow usually indicates a HOT battery and is waiting for a cool down before recharging or it can mean a defective battery/charger. If you just bought this unit I would take it back for warranty replacement.

No guarantee but you can try this. Remove the battery and unplug the AC adapter. Hold down power button for 30 seconds. Plug in AC adapter but leave battery out. Try to restart computer. If it starts, reinstall battery. It worked on a Gateway I was working on last week. Worth a try.

I have the very same problem, the Drive light turns red, the screen is "black" and the battery charging light indicator on the front is off. No differance if I'm traying to power up on battery or AC-adapter.

Before this problem appeared I had problems where the laptop was powering off, with no warning, and I had to restart it. This happened several times and was going on for about a week before it died totally. Can it be the CMOS battery on the mother board? Anyone having clue what the problem could be?

You can replace the battery with other new batteries, that way, you can tell whether it is the rechargeable batteries or the iron that are faulty.

Seems to be a problem of not enough power.

First check the voltage output of the charger(adapter) and match it with its specs.


Also try to reset the hardware using the following steps:

1 Disconnect battery and the charger
2 Let it sit for 1-2 minutes.
3 Press and hold down the power button for 30 seconds.
4 Reconnect battery and charger and try to start by pressing the power button.

We've seen this issue when using rechargeable batteries that go above 9 volts. Make certain your batteries are not over 9 volts.

Flashing red light 3 times and won't boot. I recently recalibrated the battery and again the 3 flashing red lights. Seem to be draining the battery fast. It's also a new battery...which work for about 2 weeks before the 3 flashing red lights first started. Now 2 batteries later. It won't boot.

Fix for Gateway Solo 1450

If you are comfortable soldering and opening the laptop, then this is your day.

I was fixing a Gateway Solo 1450 that shown only red light indicator. Push the power on botton and didn't respond. Did all sorts suggested reseating no availed. Here the solution I made:

1. Go to Gateway website and look for taking out the keyboard. That's the only support I got as far as user/service manual I need.
2. Take the 5 silver philip screws and 4 black screws from the CPU heat sink. Take out the CD-ROM with one screw.
3. Take out the palm besel cover. Note, the screws while taking them out by drawing on the paper their location.
4. Take out the metal that covering the 5 bottons. Again draw the location of screws.
5. Take out the remaining screws from the motherboard.

The main event.
1. Check the 3 soldered legs of the DC jack. If they are loose then Resolder them. If not still resolder them anyway.
2. I found out the Power botton was intermittent. So with a fine soldering tip (30 watts from Radioshack) and Soldering braid. Clear the soldering tip (pile it until no solder on it). With a steady hand use the braid each leg of the Power botton, then pull it with tweezer. Note the orientation is very important. Mark the front face of the power button. The good news you have 4 available switches to use. Next do the same to the last switch botton (a person icon from the dash board). I chose the last right botton. I switched their place.
3. Assemble the unit backward as you first disassembled it.
4. Check the memory. Use eraser from the pencil and rub the memory fine pins back and forth until they look shiny. Insert/reseat it/them.

Hope this helps you. Good Luck.

Roan
Chapel Hill, NC

Batteries last about 2-3 years...perhaps longer...depending on how you use them. To test, go to control panel. Find the power options tab...use the utilities in there to tell you what the system finds. There may be other power utilities on your machine which are used by Gateway. Explore them and get your answer.