Another black screen of Acer Aspire E1-571 :)

Hi to everyone!
About me: just a regular computer user with no "deep" knowledge about the inner workings of PCs, but so far managed to do all the repairs/installs by myself. So far...

I've been searching and reading a lot about similar problems, but not exactly the same as mine. The reasons for that or solutions seem to be not explained, not existent or just too many, that I'm unable to see the correct one. HDD, USB, RAM, BIOS, cables, viruses, or the stars in the sky are blamed for these long boots...

I have a laptop Acer Aspire E1-571 Serial Nr. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Can't figure out, what's happening to it. When switched on, only the power button lights up and the HDD LED blinks, and fan seems to spin, the screen remains completely black. That continues for about 3 to 30 minutes, until the F2 and F12 options appear for a blink, after which the Windows 7 loads fairly quickly and function as it should.
This situation started some months ago, but probably was inconsistent at the beginning, now it's "a must". I did a format for C: and reinstalled Win 7 and the drivers for the hardware, but no effect. Even tried two of the startup time measurers, but they did not see the long black delay at the start, all they saw, was 26-30 seconds of boot time- GREAT! Teared the laptop apart (pain in the ***) and took out the CMOS battery, but it was OK- 3.2 volts, so put it back.
There has not been any hardware changes made. The RAM and HDD show no errors, the DVD drive works fine too. So I suspect a corrupted BIOS, but am unable to find a way to flash it- can't find a better or even the same version of it, and, shamefully, am a bit afraid to mess things up by truing just to see, if one or the other would work...

Any thoughts, please, good people?

Thank you.

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JackE

The BIOS firmware is NOT corrupted. Don't mess with it. Next time this happens, see if the same screen problem is the same on an HDMIed out to a TV. You might have to press the FN+F5 or FN +F6 toggle key combo to turn the TV screen on. From your description it sounds like the video ribbon cable has conductor trace breaks in the hinge area from opening and closing the lid too much. Google e1-571 video cable for vendors/sellers. Less than $20 USD. Jack E/NJ

OhMy

Don't have a HDMI cable, but I already tried the Fn+F5/F6 keys, they do work, when Windows has booted, but have no effect, while the black waiting screen occurs. I tend to think,that the video cable is OK, since there are no defects or flickering of the image, while moving the lid. And my guess is, that computer would boot up just fine even without the monitor being attached, you just wouldn't be able to see it, right?
There must be something different going on.

Can anyone suggest some utility to test for possible causes, please?

JackE

HDMI cables are incredibly cheap and available in any electronics store. This is how you test the graphics card and video cable at the same time. Do not assume a video cable with cracked conductor traces behaves the same way during a POST and after Windows boots. In other words, if the POST fails due to a trace break, Windows and the key combos will NOT work even if the trace break reconnects after POST. Buy or borrow an HDMI cable! Jack E/NJ

OhMy

So, started up the laptop and connected it to a TV via HDMI and with the help from Fn+F5/F6 keys. Then restarted the laptop to see, if there is any difference. No, there was no difference. Computer still had a long wait with a black screen, but the TV showed "No signal". The signal to TV reappears only when the "Welcome" screen on laptop finally comes up a few seconds before a full boot into Windows.
Don't know, maybe there is some other way to configure the computer, so that it starts to transmit the HDMI video data immediately after the power button gets pressed.

JackE

>>>The signal to TV reappears only when the "Welcome" screen on laptop finally comes up a few seconds before a full boot into Windows.>>>maybe there is some other way to configure the computer>>>

Hold on! Don't jump to conclusions so fast. This is a good sign that your graphics adapter is OK. The HDMI signal is controlled by Windows not the BIOS post. You probably only need a new video cable. Google "e1-571" and "video cable" with the quotes for vendors/sellers that ship to Gulbene. Less than $20 usd. With a new cable, the BIOS menu and ACER logo screen should reappear and be available to you again with the F2 key. Jack E/NJ