Updated BIOS in Acer Aspire 5745G from 1.11 to 1.19. Now showing Black Screen.

I have an old acer aspire 5745g laptop with windows 10. I used SSD+8GM RAM a few years back to make it running smooth, which it did nicely.

However, currently, I believe the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphic card it came with is damaged and not working, as such it was using integrated intel graphic card only. Also, the laptop replaced battery is dead.

Yesterday, I updated BIOS from 1.11 to 1.19 in a hope that it could recognize NVIDIA graphic card (but I am now sure graphic card is damaged). To my pain, now it is showing black screen when I start it.

I downloaded BIOS from here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/support-product/2128?b=1

Please help, how to get back the screen.

Accepted answers

deep_blue

Thank you for the post. But that didn't help, as I know that laptop display screen is fine so I do no need to check display externally.

What I did was, I flashed old BIOS 1.02 and it worked.

1. I downloaded the oldest windows version from https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/support-product/2128?b=1

2. Extracted the windows version and renamed ZR7x64EC.fd ---to---> ZR7X64.fd

3. Formatted a USB drive with FAT and copied ZR7X64.fd to its root.

4. Now I turned off the laptop while battery & power cable still connected to it.

7. Connected the USB drive to a USB socket in the laptop and then pressed Fn+ESC. While keeping Fn+ESC pressed, I pressed the Power Button ON.

8. I kept Fn+ESC pressed for a 5seconds, until I see the power-led in laptop start blinking.

9. Left the laptop as it is for a few minutes, and it was still turned ON.

10. After a few minutes, I turned off the laptop and turned it ON.

11. And to my wonder-and-surpise, it had the oldest BIOS v1.02 flashed/installed into it.

12. And I am able to see the screen now.

I hope this helps someone out there, in case of a need.

All comments

StevenGen

deep_blue said:

I have an old acer aspire 5745g laptop with windows 10. I used SSD+8GM RAM a few years back to make it running smooth, which it did nicely.

However, currently, I believe the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphic card it came with is damaged and not working, as such it was using integrated intel graphic card only. Also, the laptop replaced battery is dead.

Yesterday, I updated BIOS from 1.11 to 1.19 in a hope that it could recognize NVIDIA graphic card (but I am now sure graphic card is damaged). To my pain, now it is showing black screen when I start it.

I downloaded BIOS from here: https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/support-product/2128?b=1

Please help, how to get back the screen.

Why did you update the bios? You never ever update bios for nothing, a bios update is not like a usual update as the bios on your 5745G v1.19 is only to fix these aspects of your laptop and has nothing to do with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics:

This is what BIOS v1.19 fixes

1. This for the RAM - Improves S3 long run when use one Micron ram module.
2. This is for the DVD drive - Adds delay 10ms between Odd_on to MAINON (+5V/+3V) for ODD (UJ8A0) detect fail.

This how you diagnose your problem of "No POST or Video" so do the following:

If the POST or video doesn’t display, perform the following actions one at a time to correct the problem.

1. Make sure that the internal display is selected. On this notebook model, switching between the internal display and the external display is done by pressing Fn+F5. Reference Product pages for specific model procedures.

2. Make sure the computer has power by checking at least one of the following occurs:

• Fans start up
• Status LEDs light up If there is no power, see “Power On Issue” on page 136.

3. Drain any stored power by removing the power cable and battery and holding down the power button for 10 seconds. Reconnect the power and reboot the computer.

4. Connect an external monitor to the computer and switch between the internal display and the external display is by pressing Fn+F5 (on this model). If the POST or video appears on the external display, see “LCD Failure” on page 139.

5. Disconnect power and all external devices including port replicators or docking stations. Remove any memory cards and CD/DVD discs. Restart the computer.

If the computer boots correctly, add the devices one by one until the failure point is discovered.

6. Reseat the memory modules

7. Remove the drives do the “Disassembly Process”.

8. If the Issue is still not resolved, get in contact with your nearest Acer Online Support Information.

Try all these recommended Acer troubleshooting steps and see if this fixes your problem.

deep_blue

Thank you for the post. But that didn't help, as I know that laptop display screen is fine so I do no need to check display externally.

What I did was, I flashed old BIOS 1.02 and it worked.

1. I downloaded the oldest windows version from https://www.acer.com/ac/en/IN/content/support-product/2128?b=1

2. Extracted the windows version and renamed ZR7x64EC.fd ---to---> ZR7X64.fd

3. Formatted a USB drive with FAT and copied ZR7X64.fd to its root.

4. Now I turned off the laptop while battery & power cable still connected to it.

7. Connected the USB drive to a USB socket in the laptop and then pressed Fn+ESC. While keeping Fn+ESC pressed, I pressed the Power Button ON.

8. I kept Fn+ESC pressed for a 5seconds, until I see the power-led in laptop start blinking.

9. Left the laptop as it is for a few minutes, and it was still turned ON.

10. After a few minutes, I turned off the laptop and turned it ON.

11. And to my wonder-and-surpise, it had the oldest BIOS v1.02 flashed/installed into it.

12. And I am able to see the screen now.

I hope this helps someone out there, in case of a need.

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