Notebooks & Netbooks

[cdestratis]

I'd much rather fix it myself, and I'm more than capable of doing so but the problem is I don't know what's wrong with it!

I hope I'm not coming off as rude but there has to be somebody out there that has had similar issues with this model Acer?

I appreciate your help Vince!

[cdestratis]

Bump, Acer surely has to shed some light on this issue? After having a read through this forum it looks like I'm not the only person experiencing this problem.

[JackE]

OK. I'll give it a shot.

First, connect to a TV with an HDMI cable or a VGA monitor. Turn it on and press Fn + F5 or F6 toggle combos to see if you can get an external screen. Did you use these toggles when you tried an external monitor earlier?

Report back with results.

Jack E/NJ

[cdestratis]

I didn't try to toggle displays when I connected it to an external monitor but I just connected it via HDMI to my TV and tried the toggles, still no display.

I'm very certain it's the BIOS, it's like the laptop is turning on but not getting anywhere, you can't even hear the HDD power on.

[JackE]

OK. Next step.

Click this link and scroll to the bottom for comments by ScottyC. This is a way to re-set the bios.

http://community.acer.com/t5/Notebooks-Netbooks/Black-screen-Acer-Aspire-3810T/td-p/200753/page/2

Report back.

Jack E/NJ

[cdestratis]

I read what Scotty wrote but not seeing any instructions on how to recover/reset the BIOS?

I've already done a power-drain multiple times and I've reset the CMOS.

[JackE]

Other than making sure you're power-draining long enough to clear the bios memory and force it to re-set into default mode, I don't think it was Scotty's intention to re-set in another way. If you're sure you given the power-drain enough time, and tried  pressing Fn + Esc bios recovery routine for up 10mins,  then how about the other questions he asked about seeing any LED flash codes or heaaring any beep codes during the power on self test?

Jack E/NJ

[cdestratis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought there were a set of instructions/files needed to recover a BIOS?

I'm sure I've successfully power-drained the laptop, there are no beep or flash codes that I know of.

[JackE]

As you already know from your query, bios are usually flash memory chips on the MB these days. Like a USB memory stick. The factory-installed firmware or program on them can obviously be overwritten or flashed so to speak. I think Scotty's suggestion is aimed at re-setting this kind of a chip to all factory default memory settings in the event someone or something had changed one or more of its graphics memory settings improperly or inadvertantly. This, of course, assumes the bios version firmware program on the chip hasn't been somehow corrupted which I think you're suggesting.

If it indeed has been somehow corrupted essentially disabling all the video among other things the bios is supposed to be testing during powering up , my suggestion is to download the same bios firmware that came on the machine from the Acer site, get it on a USB stick, and press & hold the Fn + Esc keys while on powering on to re-program the chip from the stick. You may have to change the .rom or .123 extension on one of the downloaded files to the .fd extension for the flash program to do its thing.

Jack E/NJ         

[cdestratis]

Okay, so I downloaded the BIOS from Acer's website:

I'm not seeing any files with the extension .123 or .ROM?