Gateway MA7 Troubleshooting

You are pressing the power button and trying to turn on your laptop as you normally would, but it remains unresponsive.

Plug the laptop into a power outlet with the charger for your device. Wait ten minutes and try to turn on your laptop. This should have given the battery some charge and the laptop should be able to boot up just from the power outlet alone. If your battery was simply dead, plugging in the charger should fix the problem.

If you notice that your laptop only works when it is plugged into a power source there may be a problem with the battery. Try plugging in the laptop with your charger and allowing it to charger for at least 6 hours. Unplug the laptop and try to start it up. If it will not start up on solely battery power after it had been working when plugged into the power source, there is a problem with the battery and it may need to be replaced.

The laptop is on and functioning properly but it will not connect to wireless internet.

Ensure that the password for the wireless network you are trying to connect to is correct. If it is a network that your computer is supposed to connect to automatically, check to see if it wants you to reenter your password again. This can happen sometimes on remembered networks.

Often time a laptop will have a key on the keyboard that turns on and off the wireless connectivity. On this laptop it should be the F2 key. Hold down the Fn key and press F2. Try to load something in a web browser. If this did not solve the issue the cause of the problem is something else and you should repeat the process back to ensure that you did not just turn your wireless connectivity off.

If you have an ethernet cable, plug one end into the ethernet port on your computer and the other end into the ethernet port on your wireless router or modem. After doing this try to open a webpage. If the webpage loads and you appear to have internet, the problem may be with your wireless router and you should troubleshoot that or contact your ISP.

In Windows if you open up the Device Manager application and select the Network Adapters tab, you should see you wireless card in the list. If it is not there then the computer is not seeing your wireless card and you should first download the latest drivers for this laptop. Visit Drivers Support on the Gateway site and enter in your devices serial number to find them. If your laptop still does not recognize the wireless card after this it may need to be replaced. More on that can be found in our replacement guide.

My laptop is plugged in but it does not appear to charge.

Ensure that the charging connections are properly connected to the laptop. Try replugging in the charger into the laptop and the power cable from the charger. If that does not resolve the issue, then there may be a problem with the power supply.

Inspect the charger cables for any dents, tears, and worn-down insulation. If you notice any, the cord is probably damaged, and may need replacement. Try a different cable.

If the light on the adapter does not appear to be on, and the computer is still not charging despite being properly plugged in, then the adapter is damaged.

If the charger lights up and appears to be fine, this may be a sign that the battery is dead and needs to be replaced.

The laptop screen appears to be black when I power it on.

Try pressing any key on the keyboard. If your laptop doesn’t wake up after you press a key, press the power button to wake it up again.

Sometimes if the RAM on the laptop is not properly inserted, the display will appear black upon startup. To resolve this, reseed the ram, by removing it and putting it back in. You can learn how to remove the ram [crwdns2936915:0crwdne2936915:0]

Perhaps the connection from the LCD display to the motherboard is not properly connected. Ensure that the display connections are properly fastened.

If the display is damaged to the point that no brightness is visible, you will need to replace the screen.

You play an audio sample and no sound is coming from the speakers.

Be sure to check that the volume control on the laptop is all the way turnt up. Make sure that the sound is not muted on the computer itself and the program you are playing the audio from. See if anything is plugged into the audio jack to make sure that the sound is not being projected through headphones. Check to see if your laptop is connected to a Bluetooth system because the sound could be projecting somewhere else. Make sure the output for the sound is on speaker.

The problem may be with the sound drivers so try to reinstall and update them. Check the Gateway website for the download. Drivers Support