LAPTOP WILL NOT TURN ON . GATEWAY 8738. NO LEDS LIGHT ON FRONT. DOES NOTHING BATTERY IN BATTERY OUT. WILL NOT TURN ON. I SUSPECT MOTHER BOARD

take the new battery out
see if it will kick start just on mains power

if you hear a beep as it powers up mother board is ok
if the mother board is dead and no beeps it wont start up

try this each time from power up
if you hear a beep hold down
one of these F5 of F1 or F 12 wait to
see if a menu from the mother board itself is visabe
then follow the prompts

if nothing also suspect hard drive or chip failure

need to reset from mother board jumpers try to find datasheet

Sounds like your power cord is no good.

Things to check:
1. AC adapter cord, esp close to the brick. Does the green light come on the brick? If not, replace the adapter.
2. Reseat battery. Check the battery charge by depressing the battery indicator button on the battery. Does it have a good charge? If so, then it could be the connection to the mother board causing the issue. If not, then replace the battery.
3. If both the battery is good and the AC adapter is good then you are looking at a mother board issue.

Hi
I presume you checked the DC power supply. Don't use a generic power supply on this model, because that will cause alot of different symptoms. I use the exact same model on service calls. A further way to test the mother board is to remove the CPU and memory. Carefully provide power and look for lights. If none, my next step would be to refloat the video chip. This requires special equipment. A replacement mother board without processor on eBay is $49.00 so it might be time to consider that. Good luck

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?

A fast check to determine whether you have a problem with the power adapter, power cord or the laptop's battery is to turn off the laptop, remove the battery, connect the power adapter, turn on the laptop & see if it works.
If the laptop works directly from the power adapter with the battery removed, then the power adapter is good. In this case we can suspect that the battery is defective.

Remove the battery and power cable from the laptop. Press and Hold teh power button for 20 sec, connect the power chord and then try to turn on the computer

first check the window program for the display /backlight timer and you can increase the time its on or turn it off

Sounds as if your power pack might have a problem.blown fuse ect.I whould remove the cmos battery and or change jumper pin setting to start fresh in the bios settings.after removng the cmos battery,Make sure to put it back in before you re boot your computer. Good Luck garydalel