This morning, my 2+ year old Acer Aspire One netbook gave me nothing but a black screen when I turned it on. No Windows logo, no DOS-looking stuff, no nothing, just black.
The on-off button still glows green when I turn it on, and gives a quiet hum just like my wife’s netbook (same brand and model) does when it’s on. But that’s it.
Fortunately, I’ve never had anything important on the netbook that I haven’t backed up elsewhere. I basically use it as a photo album and for websurfing while traveling. So even if it’s dead forever and the hard drive’s screwed, all I’ve really lost is the appliance itself.
But still, I’d like have the use of the appliance. Anyone have any recommendations for trying to get the thing running again, or at least figuring out what the problem is and whether it’s worth the hassle to fix it?
I shone a light at the screen, but I can’t see an image.
Which I guess would be consistent with what happened when I plugged a working monitor into the VGA port - nothing but black showed on the monitor. So I expect it’s not the screen.
But thanks for the suggestions, especially the one about the backlight, which I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.
This is not a highly technical suggestion but…my million-year-old laptop only shows black when I open it, unless I open it really far (like 120 degrees from the keyboard). Then the screen shows everything properly and I can move it back to 90 degrees and all is well.
This has been happening since I took the thing on vacation and put it in my suitcase, so I suspect I’ve got some gook in whatever senses that the laptop is open, and I’m too lazy/don’t use it enough to clean it up.
Zipper - I actually thought of that one, since we’ve got a portable DVD player whose screen blanks out if it’s opened at the wrong angle. So I’ve opened it in a number of different positions (including all the way), and turned it off and back on, to no avail.
At any rate, the fact that nothing showed up on the monitor I plugged into my VGA port seems to suggest that the problem’s not my screen.
Other things I’ve tried - Ctrl-Alt-Delete does nothing. Ditto all the F keys.
When we bought a full-sized laptop recently, they tossed in a 6-month Geek Squad membership for free. They said they couldn’t suggest anything over the phone, that I’d need a $116.99 house call to have it diagnosed. Given the risk that a fix might be either expensive or impossible, I’m not going that route; I’d rather just put the money down on a new netbook, if it comes to that.
Not the same brand, but there’s a known issue with Lenovo Thinkpads that matches the behavior you describe. Pull out the battery for a good ten minutes, then put it back in, and power it on. Worth a shot.
Forgot to add… the link above tells you to download a file called zg5ia32.fd, but then goes on to tell you to rename the file you downlloaded to zg5ia32.fd.
I downloaded the latest version of the BIOS (contained in ZG5_3310.zip) and renamed the .fd in that archive to zg5ia32.fd.
Of course, all this is assuming that you have a ZG5. If you don’t, I would bet the procedure is the same, but you will likely need a different BIOS file.
My ZG5 did the same thing. There is a simple reboot procedure on the Acer website that fixed it.
However, a few months later, it suddenly would not boot the OS (Linpus). A BIOS update got it running again but with so many issues I ended up reinstalling the OS and all programs.
I still have the Aspire 1 problem that it won’t charge fully discharged batteries.
As near as I can tell, the Aspire hardware is solid but the BIOS is squirrelly.
The instructions are right there in that link… the process requires no user input, aside from holding down a couple of keys when you start the netbook up.
I have the same machine and had the same thing happen. This is a long shot, and I have no idea how it caused a problem.
On the lower right of the machine, there is a blank that fits in the mutil card reader port. I just popped it out and put it back in and my machine has been fine ever since. Very odd, but worth a shot.
If it’s a problem with Windows or the hard drive, you should still see the BIOS screen. The fact that you’re not even seeing that suggests that the problem is with the motherboard or the power supply. It may not be fixable (at least not without spending more than it’s worth).
Actually, one thing to try is to pull out everything that you can. Remove the memory sticks, if possible, along with the hard drive and anything else and try booting again.
I’m delighted to report that this worked like a charm - my Acer netbook (which is in fact a ZG5, so I didn’t even need to hunt around for a BIOS file) is once again up and running!