Hi everyone,
I have an older Acer Aspire V3-574-7481 that no longer boots properly. When I press the power button, the keyboard backlight turns on and the LED indicators respond, but the screen stays completely black — no Acer logo, and no response to F2, Del, or other boot keys.
The system powers on electrically but doesn't seem to complete POST or reach BIOS. The issue began around December 2024, gradually got worse, and now the laptop no longer starts at all — even after being left off for extended periods.
The laptop was running Windows 10, and I had attempted to set up dual boot with Ubuntu Budgie, but never got it working reliably. I was able to boot either with rEFInd, but otherwise it defaulted to Windows. Changes to fast startup and secure boot were made.
What I've tried so far:
- Disconnected the main battery, CMOS (CR2032) battery, and power adapter
- Held the power button for over 60 seconds with all power sources disconnected (capacitor drain)
- Tried booting with only the power adapter (no battery), and with only the battery
- When the laptop still occasionally booted, I tried repairing the boot sector using Windows CMD and ME region tools following advice from this Acer thread:
Unfortunately, those steps aren’t helpful anymore since the system no longer powers on at all. - A few other posts describe the same synthoms, but with no solution:
Additionally, the Acer support website doesn’t recognize my SNID, so I'm unable to access firmware or model-specific downloads through official channels.
Based on what I've seen online, the issue may be a firmware related or eventually a motherboard problem. Not having Acer support recognizing my laptop makes it harder to find a BIOS firwmare to attempt any update.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
