Acer Swift 3 SF314-41 Keyboard Backlight Suddenly Not Working

builtinaday_ · June 2022

Hi,

I've had my laptop since (I'm pretty sure) mid-2020, and up until recently the keyboard backlight has been working fine. In the last few days though, I haven't been able to turn it on. I've tried pressing F8, which is the button I normally press to toggle the backlight, and I've tried pressing FN + F8, but to no avail; the backlight will not turn on.

Is it possible to fix this, and how?

The model is Swift SF314-41

The F8 key has an icon on it depicting a white square with an A on it and light rays pointing out of it

Thank you.

(Thread was edited to add model name to the title)

William_mk2 · June 2022

builtinaday_

I am really sorry for the inconvenience.. Let us do the basic steps first..

Doing the power drain and bios defaults will really help. Kindly follow the steps given below:

Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices or any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down. On the bottom of the laptop, you can find a pin hole. It is a tiny hole. You can a find a battery symbol indicator next to the hole. It is like a + and – sign symbol as though somebody is trying to shift the battery out. Insert the pin on to the hole for 30 seconds. Remove the pin. Flip the laptop. Connect the charger cable, turn on the computer. Only on laptops where the battery is inbuilt you can find the battery reset hole on the back of laptop.

If you don’t find a pin hole on the back of laptop then you might be using removable battery. There is no need to unscrew anything to remove the battery. Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices and any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down. On the bottom of the laptop, please look at the top or bottom depending on the way you look at it. You can find a long door. It is a battery removable door. Just below that you can find a latch. If you move the latch you can remove the battery door. Once the battery is removed, flip the laptop. Open the top cover, press and hold the power button for 1 minute. Connect the battery back on the back of computer. Connect the charger cable back and then turn on the computer.

If you don’t see a reset pin hole on the back of laptop or if you are not able to remove the battery (if it is inbuilt) then please unplug all the cables and devices out of laptop. Hold the power button for 1 minute. After releasing the button you should wait a while before plugging in power. Just because the button has been pressed doesn’t bleed off all the residual electricity on the motherboard. Wait 15-30 minutes before plugging in power. Then once power is connected wait for a full battery indication before turning the system on. That allows the battery to fully reset it’s internal statistics.

Connect all the cables back and restart the computer.

While turning on the computer, tap f2. It will go to bios. Press f9 once. It will show load bios defaults with a yes or no popup. Press enter. Popup screen will disappear. Press f10 once. It will show save changes popup with yes or no. Press enter. Computer will restart and it will load into windows.

It should work fine..

JackE · June 2022

If the backlight doesn't show a hint of briefly flashing when first turning on the machine, then it's likely that the backlight connector needs to be re-seated on the mainboard.

Nine screws (note two sizes used) must be removed and bottom cover pried off with a credit card wedge. Then re-seat the backlight connector and cable a few times.