Black Screen in ACER Laptops

6 December 2018

An ACER E5-474 laptop was sent in for repair.  It had a flickering screen but later developed into a black screen that occurred randomly especially when one tried to move the laptop around with the screen activated. 

There are many posts found in the web recommended how to fix this black screen problem.  They are not only for ACER laptops but also for other brands.   Generally,  the  following fixes were recommended:

a)  Power down the Laptop for a few second,  then power it up and at the same time,  pressing [F2], [F9] and [F10],  followed by a [Enter] key,  one by one in sequence.  With some luck,  the screen will come back on to life; 

b)  Remove the power adapter and also unplug the battery.  Wait for about 60 seconds and reconnect the battery and the power adapter; hopefully,  everything will be back to normal.  Usually,  this works like magic.  Acer laptop even has a pin somewhere at the back of the laptop where one can reset the battery if the battery is in-built and not the detachable type;

c)  Replace the BIOS by downloading the BIOS to a thumb drive and plug the drive to an USB port.  Thereafter,  start the laptop by pressing the [ESC],  [Fn] and [Power] keys all at the same time for a few seconds and then release the keys.   wallah!  The screen is always shown back to normal.

There are also other fixes that did  not quite work out.  

The laptop's screen came back after performing method a)  but it did not last long and the screen went  black after sometime.   Removing the battery worked better but suffered the same fate.  After some time,  none of the methods worked.

What are They Doing? 

In all these fixes found in the Web,  there is one thing in common;   none of them could explain properly what they were doing and also,  there was no guarantee that this  black screen problem would go away.     The method about replacing the BIOS has some substances.  At least it replaced and reset something in the laptop.

What was the Actual Problem?

After having gone through all the fixes except for the replacement and updating  of the BIOS,  one would get a conclusion that there was actually nothing wrong with the laptop.   May be the black screen was just a resetting problem and the flicking screen got something to do with dirty VGA port.

Why a Resetting Problem?

The screen flickering and black screen problem just went away after we removed the battery for about 10 to 15 minutes.   This could have reset the BIOS.   At the same time,  we clean up the laptop’s input and output connection ports with a tooth brush and WD40 cleaning fluid.  We paid particular attention to the cleaning of the VGA port for which reason we will explain later

 

After switching the laptop back on,  we noticed that the BIOS reset itself as we no longer able to  boot into the Windows Installation Disk using the DVD drive as we did before.    

We also made sure that the screen setting was set to [PC screen only] as we suspected the user could have forgotten to reset the screen after running in [Duplicate] or “projector” mode.  Therefore, if the bare and exposed VGA port is dirty and active,  it might cause 'short circuiting',   disrupting the screen’s operation. 

How Do We Know if the Laptop is now Working?

We retraced back the step that we have taken before the screen flickered and went completely black.  One of the steps is to enter the Windows’ recovery mode from the sign-in screen where we would press and hold the  [Shift] key and restart the laptop by selecting [Restart] from the power button as shown attached.  Now the laptop performed this function without a hitch.

     

What is the Take Away?

a)  New and Modern Laptops not made for DIY users

1.  The new laptops, ACER in particular. are no longer made for DIY users as they have

a)  In-built the battery and no longer made it removable for troubleshooting;

b)  Concealed the RAMs and CMOS battery located underneath the motherboard making them not accessible for upgrading and repairing the laptops

c)  Not provide much information about how to troubleshoot the technical problem

Fortunate enough,  the ACER laptops have a small hole at the bottom where one can reset battery should there be a need to do so (Note that there is also a  small hole near the keyboard for ACER E5-474.  This is for microphone,  please do not insert any pin to damage the microphone)

b)  Confusing Keyboard Functions

Many function keys are provided for the convenient of the users at the touch of keys such as turning on and off the Wi-Fi,  changing the mode of screen display, turning on and off the touch pad and speaker etc.  For ACER laptop,  there is no warning sign or light to tell if these functions are turned on or off;  so,  an  active VGA port could well have caused the black and flickering screen if the VGA terminals are dirty

What Best To Do in Future?

Step by Step

Description	Action	Remark (doubleclick to enlarge)
1.  Reactivating the screen	Try reactivate  the laptop by pressing F2,  F9, F10 and [Enter] keys in sequence. Try also other methods as recommended by the Web including removing the battery or resetting the battery etc	Nothing can be done if the screen stays black
2.  Resetting  the BIOS	With the screen activated and laptop starting,  press [F2] key and then reset the BIOS to default value	Hopefully,  this will restore  all the settings
3.   Ensuring VGA port is turned off	By pressing [Fn] and [F5] key and select [PC Screen only]
4.  Cleaning up the VGA and other input/output ports	By using tooth brush and clean fluid such as WD40	Doing a spring cleaning to ensure dirty ports are not problem

.

Should we do a BIOS Replacement or Update?

It is never recommended unless one has other  problems with the laptop.  If the laptop is still working with hard disk humming and the keyboard responding, one would risk to “brick” the laptop by performing a BIOS update especially with a black screen.

What about re-installing the Windows?

This should be taken as a last resort as the installation will wipe out all the data store in the hard disk and recovery of such information might be a painful process.

To  Remove the CMOS battery?

Removing the CMOS battery will reset the BIOS.  However,   for new and modern Laptops,  this CMOS battery is located under the motherboard and is unreachable unless one is prepared to dismantle the laptop to unsolder the battery terminals.

What about Connecting VGA port to an External Monitor?

This should be one of the recommended steps to check if the laptop screen is working.  It can be done easily if one has an external monitor.  Should the external monitor have image or picture showing up after toggling [Fn] and [F5] keys,  it is likely that laptop screen is faulty.  On the other hand,  if both screens stay black,  the laptop would need further repair  and troubleshooting or a reset.


===================================================================== span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">

Other articles about computers

tinyurl:  https://tinyurl.com/y9g8tfmo