Acer Aspire 5551-2805 black screen. No POST, yes Power lights, no HD light.

Cyndy_B

Estimable
Jan 30, 2016
3
0
4,510
I have an Acer Aspire 5551-2805 running Windows 7. (AMD Athlon)

When the battery was low, I closed the lid to go get the charger. After plugging the charger into the laptop, all I got was a black screen (no blinking cursor, no POST, just black). Many reboots later...still only black screen.

Things I've tried: (had no impact what so ever)

1. Removing battery, plugging in just charger.
2. Removing battery, holding down power button for 30-60 seconds then plugging just the charger.
3. Re-seating both RAM.
4. Removing only 1 RAM.
5. Removing both RAM.
6. Plugged laptop to an external monitor (no signal)
7. There is no output seen on the screen when pointing a flashlight at it.
8. Hardware reset -- With the battery out, laptop connected to power - held down the power button and F12 at the same time for a rough 60 seconds (really, like 2 minutes)
9. F2, F9 and F10 and press enter, then reboot (basically everything suggested in this discussion: http://www.tomsguide.com/answers/id-2589991/acer-aspire-5560-power-post-black-screen.html)
10. Starting with the lid open at less than a 45 degree angle

Nothing made a difference. No beeps, no errors, no BIOS, no HD blinking. Just a black screen. However, the power light in the bottom left (light bulb) is always blue. And the charging indicator lights appropriately.

In the upper right, the power button will light up when pressed (and stay lit when 'on'), but the HD indicator never lights up. And I don't hear the HD spinning.

So, I'm thinking it might be in a permanent SLEEP state? I was thinking if I could just get into the BIOS, I could disable Sleep all together. But how can I do that when it stays black? Is it the video card? Or is it a bad motherboard? I wanted to try to re-seat the CMOS battery to see if that would make it go to the BIOS, but it's on the underside of my motherboard, which requires the complete dissemble of my laptop. I'm savvy enough to take it half apart (battery, HD, RAM, keyboard) but got stuck on the motherboard (aka got tired and frustrated). :) While it was apart, I cleaned out the dust, reassembled, but no change. Before I bite the bullet and either try getting to the CMOS battery, or paying someone to do it ...

Any tricks or suggestions to force it to get to the BIOS -- to test it's the sleep issue? Or any other suggestions would greatly be appreciated! (I looked on the Acer website for Bios Recovery file that I could copy to USB and try to boot off - but I guess my system is so old, it didn't see it offered).

Thanks!
 

Cyndy_B

Estimable
Jan 30, 2016
3
0
4,510
I ended up taking the whole thing apart, thinking I'd just pull or replace the CMOS battery. But found that the CMOS batter is soldered onto the motherboard. Anyone know how to upgrade the BIOS and make a bootable USB drive (and force the Acer to go to USB on bootup)? Without accessing the BIOS first?