Travelmate P215-53 - Screen is just black but the screen light turns on and off

LavenderGirl

My first problem was that the laptop was not charging and needed to be plugged in to turn on. I was panicking and finding ways to fix it since it was a school laptop and I don't have the financials to fix it and especially, replace it if it was really broken. I tried doing the battery reset button thing, but it didn't work as far as I've tried it. I also tried updating the battery drivers, but still nothing. So, in a fit of desperation, I tried updating everything, even the optional updates. There was an Insyde firmware update and I had the laptop update to it. Unfortunately, while updating, the charger came loose and the update was disrupted since the laptop can't turn on without the charger. And now, the laptop won't charge and the screen is black. I can hear the fans whirring fast and then stop, and then whirring again. The light for the battery is a steady orange, and the light for the screen is synchronous with the whirring of the fans, it turns off when the fans turn on and off. 

Please I beg of anyone to help me, I'm scared of losing this laptop because this is all that I have to use for school. Please, I'm begging anyone.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/676412/travelmate-p215-53-screen-is-just-black-but-the-screen-light-turns-on-and-off

Unfortunately, you have bricked your TravelMate P215-53 laptops bios as you never ever disrupt the power to any PC while the bios is being updated, anyway its too late to give you advice of what you should and should1 have done.

There is a way of doing a bootable Crisis recovery USB disk with the ZQ0B.FD and ZQ0G.FD file to recover the bios, but that is a complicated process to do and really its not an 100% fix and also on this forum we are not allowed to give advice on such things that might damage an Acer product, sorry as I know how you feel and in what situation you are in.

The quickest way to fix this laptop is to take your laptop to an experienced tech and see if he can do the USB recovery process or he can obtain a new bios chip with the this laptops last programed bios chip dated 2022/11/10 Version:1.46 and replace the bios chip with a new one (there are sellers like on eBay bios-master so enquire with them, if they have your TravelMate P215-53 bios chip) as its not expensive and its like between GBP £11 to £15 as all that will fix your laptop from a bricked dead bios and a tech has all the microscopic tools to replace this chip properly and not .

Also get him to fix your initial charging problems that you had, as a bios update would have not fixed that problem either as its was either the battery that needed replacing or this laptop has an internal circuitry like a mosat or a capacitor in its primary power stages have shorted out component that needs replacing etc which a tech can fix for you also. remember that all this won’t be fixed asap so don't think that your laptop will be fixed before the new year if the tech can get an exact bios chip for your laptop? Good luck and hope this =helps you put. 

The tech needs to check these mosats and the capacitor below as they could be shorted at and after the charging side port to fix your charging problems that you have.

Mosat

Or this Capacitor (which this laptop had the same problem that you had) and if its shorted, but the tech needs a thermal camera to pinpoint where the shorted circuitries are as to fix the charging problems that you initially had.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/676412/travelmate-p215-53-screen-is-just-black-but-the-screen-light-turns-on-and-off

Unfortunately, you have bricked your TravelMate P215-53 laptops bios as you never ever disrupt the power to any PC while the bios is being updated, anyway its too late to give you advice of what you should and should1 have done.

There is a way of doing a bootable Crisis recovery USB disk with the ZQ0B.FD and ZQ0G.FD file to recover the bios, but that is a complicated process to do and really its not an 100% fix and also on this forum we are not allowed to give advice on such things that might damage an Acer product, sorry as I know how you feel and in what situation you are in.

The quickest way to fix this laptop is to take your laptop to an experienced tech and see if he can do the USB recovery process or he can obtain a new bios chip with the this laptops last programed bios chip dated 2022/11/10 Version:1.46 and replace the bios chip with a new one (there are sellers like on eBay bios-master so enquire with them, if they have your TravelMate P215-53 bios chip) as its not expensive and its like between GBP £11 to £15 as all that will fix your laptop from a bricked dead bios and a tech has all the microscopic tools to replace this chip properly and not .

Also get him to fix your initial charging problems that you had, as a bios update would have not fixed that problem either as its was either the battery that needed replacing or this laptop has an internal circuitry like a mosat or a capacitor in its primary power stages have shorted out component that needs replacing etc which a tech can fix for you also. remember that all this won’t be fixed asap so don't think that your laptop will be fixed before the new year if the tech can get an exact bios chip for your laptop? Good luck and hope this =helps you put. 

The tech needs to check these mosats and the capacitor below as they could be shorted at and after the charging side port to fix your charging problems that you have.

Mosat

Or this Capacitor (which this laptop had the same problem that you had) and if its shorted, but the tech needs a thermal camera to pinpoint where the shorted circuitries are as to fix the charging problems that you initially had.

LavenderGirl

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1168264#Comment_1168264

I am beyond devastated with this, but thank you for your good help Sir Steven. I have to take this up with our school's administration because this is school property and I have unfortunately landed on the worst case scenario. I should've really done better... Thank you...

LavenderGirl

Umm... Additional question, when it is possibly booted up again, will I be able to recover the files from the laptop? I don't really need the files because I thankfully backed up the important ones to the cloud. But it would be greatly appreciated if I could be able to access them again.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1168298#Comment_1168298

The bios has nothing to do with the files on the laptop and on the hard drive where your files are, your files are safe and will boot up if you take that hard drive out, its best to swap/put this drive into another TravelMate 215-53 laptop as it will boot straight up (if your school has another exact or similar laptop) but it can be put into any similar laptop, so don't worry about your files as they are safe and a bios crash does not damage internal and personal files. .