Has the Acer Aspire E5-576-392H Black Screen/Sleep/Screen Timeout issue been figured out yet?

I've frequented many of the posts in this community regarding this pesky issue. It's been happening to my laptop since around March 2019 and for a few weeks after a microsoft update in December of that year it went away, until another microsoft update in January 2020 when it returned.

Specifically my issue is that when my laptop is plugged in IF I leave it idle either for screen timeout or auto-sleep the screen goes black, the hard drive continues to spin and the activity light stays on. controls are unresponsive, FN+F6 or F5 do not work and a forced shutdown is needed. In this state I've even plugged it into a different monitor and confirmed there is no display output either. I'm currently running Windows 10 update 2004, drivers and Intel graphics drivers are up to date, BIOS is 1.49, I've run situations in which I disable fast startup hibernate etc and the problem still persists. When unplugged I encounter none of these problems.

I've done battery resets, uninstalled/reinstalled the even changed the screen turn off times to NEVER when plugged in, and in this case when the laptop is unplugged it can successfully go into a sleep state. However when waking from the sleep state I get a black screen and no display output when using an external monitor.

A couple things I have noticed when trying to get to the bottom of this issue. On the user sign-in screen when plugged in and left to idle (basically I don't log in). The screen will timeout after about 1-2 minutes and the laptop becomes unresponsive like the situation explained above. Well before the set time (10 minutes) for the screen to turn off in that state. This problem also occurs during under diagnostic mode (basic services and devices), but does NOT occur when in Safe mode.

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JackE

About when did you install BIOS v1.49? What was the factory version? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

I installed it around June 2019 to my knowledge. I'm unsure of the factory version I want to guess 1.43 as that would've been the latest bios prior to me buying it.

JackE

>>> changed the screen turn off times to NEVER when plugged in, and in this case when the laptop is unplugged it can successfully go into a sleep state. However when waking from the sleep state I get a black screen and no display output when using an external monitor. >>>

What happens when you change everything in the power plan to never both plugged in and on battery AND everything in the power button settings to sleep both plugged in and on battery, then manually put the laptop to sleep by pressing the power button? Does the screen come back on when you press a key? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

>>> What happens when you change everything in the power plan to never both plugged in and on battery AND everything in the power button settings to sleep both plugged in and on battery, then manually put the laptop to sleep by pressing the power button? Does the screen come back on when you press a key? >>>

When unplugged the laptop went to sleep with no issues, when plugged in the same problem occurred.

JackE

Is the charger's AC plug polarized? Or does it have a ground pin? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

JackE said:

Is the charger's AC plug polarized? Or does it have a ground pin? Jack E/NJ

Yes

JackE

Have you tried another wall socket preferrably on another circuit? Ideally at another house. Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

JackE said:

Have you tried another wall socket preferrably on another circuit? Ideally at another house. Jack E/NJ

Oh sorry I didn't read that last part correctly. It's a grounded AC plug

JackE

I just want to check that your wall socket is polarized correctly by checking the laptop's behavior on another wall socket, preferrably on another circuit or in another house. A properly grounded or polarized charger plug won't work the way it should if the socket is improperly grounded or polarized. Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

JackE said:

I just want to check that your wall socket is polarized correctly by checking the laptop's behavior on another wall socket, preferrably on another circuit or in another house. A properly grounded or polarized charger plug won't work the way it should if the socket is improperly grounded or polarized. Jack E/NJ

No problem, I'm a student at the moment and use different wall sockets or different circuits all the time around campus and that doesn't make any difference regardless. I forgot to mention in my OP so this may add a twist to your current thinking. But if left unplugged the problem does occur occasionally.

b34stl0rd

seems like this is an issue with almost all the acer laptops.
I've been seeing so much posts about the black screen issue after sleep.
Unfortunately I have the same issue and have been troubleshooting since months but didn't find any solution yet.

JackE

>>>But if left unplugged the problem does occur occasionally. >>>

Go to the elevated command prompt. Enter 'powercfg /batteryreport'. Then return to the desktop. Open file explorer. Then search for' battery-report.html' in the c:\windows\system32\ sub-folder. Double-click to open it in the browser. Compare design capacity with full charge capacity. Post screenshot of beginning of report if possible. Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

In case the picture doesn't load.
Design capacity: 62,160 mWh
Full charge capacity: 47,086 mWh

JackE

Seems OK. What happens when you change only the power/sleep button to turn the display off instead of put computer to sleep, both plugged in and unplugged? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

In both states the same issue happens. Fan is on and hard drive is spinning.

I tried again in both states and quickly pressed a keyboard key to make sure it can wake up. In these situations the laptop did wake up only if a button was pressed immediately after turning off the screen otherwise. The crash above happened in both states

JackE

>>>The crash above happened in both states >>>

When the power button setting is still set to display off, what happens when you press FN+F6 to toggle the screen off? Then try to toggle it back on again with FN+F6, immediately and after a minute or two? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

Yep, I actually tried that when testing your recommendation and still nothing. Plugged it into a different monitor and there was no display output there.

JackE

If FN+F6 and FN+F5 can't reliably and repeatedly toggle the screen off & on, then this seems more like a hardware or firmware issue. Does the v1.49 firmware have a function key behavior option in the Main tab? Jack E/NJ

Kevinnivek

Adding another test I did. After setting those same options to turn display off I tested it by pressing fn+f5 and fn+f6 before pressing the sleep button. They functioned as intended. But for some reason if the display turned off due to the sleep.button

I do not have a function key behavior tab. Just to verify are you're referring to the firmware tabs in device manager?

JackE

No. The BIOS Main tab. Doesn't matter anyway. If FN+F5 and F6 work OK, then it's likely not the firmware or hardware. More likely just another Win10 power plan/button quirk. Not a rare thing. If it was mine, I'd live with the annoyance and hope a future update resolves it. If however you can't live with it, then back up your personal files and do an ALT+F10 Win10 refresh or full reset. Then immediately make sure ControlPanel's restore point app has SystemProtection turned on so that the offending Win10 update can be identified, reversed and avoided till a future update fixes it. Jack E/NJ

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