Swift SF314-42 with black screen, keyboard illuminates at Power On, fan runs for 3 seconds

And that's it.

I have searched with Google for a solution but can't find one. So here's the nitty-gritty:

Acer Swift 3 SF314-42 (Model N19C4) no longer boots. Pressing the Power button turns the backlit keyboard on, the fan spins for 3 seconds and stops, the screen stays black the entire time, and the only ways to change anything is to shut it down - by holding Power for about 20-30 seconds, pressing the battery reset, or letting the battery run out of charge. There is no sound. Makes no difference if the AC charger is plugged in or not.

I have disconnected the main battery and then the CMOS battery - for 30 minutes and then reconnected them, with no change.

When the battery isn't at full charge, plugging in the AC charger turns the battery LED to amber, until it charges fully. Note that, when the Power is on, either plugging or unplugging the AC charger will produce a single beep.

Is there a fix for this? Does anyone know why it stopped working?

HELP!!

Robert

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

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JackE

Just about everything you described, other than the black screen, seems like a normal boot routine.

Backlight should light up. Normal.

Fan should speeds up initially for a few seconds to avoid stiction stall, then slow down. Normal.

Battery charge LED should turn from blinking or steady orange to steady blue. Normal.

Unplugging/plugging in charger should produce a single hornbeep as a warning of charger power lost/re-gained. Normal.

Now try pressing F6 or FN+F6 to toggle the screen on. If still no screen, connect the HDMI port to a TV set and press F5 or FN+F5 to try to turn the TV screen on.

kirmgrauza

FN+F6 function is tu turn off the screen until any button keyboard is pressed, so it won't help. Your motherboard is dead, you have to use the warranty or go to repair shop.

JackE

Try pressing F6 or FN+F6 to toggle the screen on & off. If still no screen, connect the HDMI port to a TV set and press F5 or FN+F5 to try to toggle TV screen on & off..

Bardi

So, 😕 no keys or combination of keys FN/F or otherwise change anything, plugged into a monitor or TV or not. The F8 key - isn't that supposed to toggle backlit keyboard? It doesn't.

I'm not sure what kind of repair, other than replacing the motherboard, would reasonably restore this laptop. BTW, the SSD is entirely intact, readable. I haven't tried to boot from it in a different PC, but the lack of any BIOS beeps, screen activity, suggests with my decent amount of repair experience that the problem is probably in a malfunctioning motherboard or CPU.

And replacing the motherboard is not really a good cost option - they are difficult to source and they are as expensive as a new 2022 laptop of similar hardware.

Any other options 🧐 to try?

JackE

Let's try this again. Shut the laptop off by pressing and holding the power button for about 5 seconds. Connect the HDMI cable to the TV. First, turn the TV on. Wait a minute or so to initialize. Then turn the laptop. Wait till laptop settles down to give it enough time to boot into Windows. Probably a minute or two. Then use the F5 key or FN+F5 keys to try to toggle the TV screen on again.

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