I have an Acer Aspire 5251 purchased at Walmart 2-3 years ago. The other day it failed to boot up after having done nothing unusual to it.
I've been all over the web looking for a fix. Some claim I should flash the BIOS to fix it -- which I tried -- but so far that technique has failed every time. Instead of seeing the power button flashing as explained in several tutorials (after first downloading and installing the correct files onto a FAT32-formatted thumb drive and inserting it into the sick computer while is is turned off) nothing happens when I hold the Fn and esc keys while pressing the power button.
Maybe this is a 'good thing' because maybe the BIOS is not the problem? Does the "BIOS flash" technique fail when something else is wrong? If so, what else might be wrong that's causing this problem?
I upgraded the RAM more than a year ago by adding a new module, but I haven't touched it since and it has been working fine. However, when this problem occurred I removed, replaced, and swapped each RAM module in turn to make sure it was not a RAM problem. I even tried an old RAM module from another laptop I had around here (in both slots) yet so far nothing has fixed the problem.
What else do I try? Or have I failed to try something I should have?
I would hate to give up on this computer if it is not a 'brick' already, and I certainly hope it is not, but I need to do something about this one way or the other. Any help and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
