Acer Aspire 5552 not booting

Last night, my partner's laptop - the above-described Acer Aspire 5552 - suddenly stopped functioning. Earlier in the day it had started up with no problem, but when she started it up again the screen failed to display anything at all. It is not a heavily used laptop - she uses it mainly for iTunes, Facebook and email - so it seems unlikely that it would be due to overheating.

I have attempted numerous possible fixes, all to no avail. I have connected it to an alternate monitor and toggled the Fn-F5 and Fn-F6 switches to ensure the monitor was not the problem. I have removed and replaced the RAM, the HDD, the main battery and the RTC battery. I have also tried shorting the HW gap. I have tried updating the BIOS from a flash drive, but nothing happens. I've booted up using Fn-Esc, and again nothing.

I'm not sure if I'm missing some recovery software from my flash drive, or if there's something else I need to try, but my partner has a lot of family photos, music and other bits and pieces that she now can't access. Any suggestions?

Accepted answers

All comments

Tommy-Acer

There are a lot of troubleshooting steps listed, but I'm not seeing the results of those steps.

You state that you toggled to an alternate monitor. Did this display properly?

What lights are showing on the system?

DanielM

I've tried to connect to an alternate monitor but nothing happened. The only light that is working is the power button. No HDD activity whatsoever.

Dudidum

Hi!

I've got exactly the same problem here but with an Aspire 5541.

I also tried to connect a montior to the vga output but there was no signal.

It does always the same when the power button is pressed:

Fan spins up - CD-ROM makes the start-up noise - Fan spins down a bit - Screen stays black forever - no harddisk activity

I found it interesting that taking out the RAMs does not affect this state whatsoever.

Normally I would expect it to beep but it does not. Instead it makes the same procedure as I wrote above.

For me this would be an indicator that something very basic is not functioning.

Since there is probably no physical problem I would suspect a software problem.

Hence my guess is that the BIOS is faulty for whatever reason.

I asked this in another post already:

Is there any chance of re-flashing the bios without a user interface (Fn+ESC routine)?

All the best!

zar1001

There seems to be many Acer computers that the same black screen issue that happened recently. Is there an inherent problem with the Acer hardware or software that caused these related problems? My Acer 5552 computer started having the same problems two days ago and nothing I have tried has helped. Acer tech, any suggestions?

Dudidum

Hi,

Is there no solution?

Regards!

Colonel_Ives

If you can hear the Windows start up tune, but can't see anything happening on the screen... likely a monitor/inverter/video issue. That's easy to pinpoint those two things whereas an external monitor will get you going at least.

Let me take a wild guess, you press the start button and it doesn't even POST, but only a black screen. The hard drive activity light turns off right away. Everything seems to have power; optical drive works, power button is lit up, the fan is running, and the hard drive is spinning faintly if you put your ear near to it. What doesn't work is the keyboard and whatever is frickin' malfunctioning on the mobo which doesn't let the laptop start up properly.

Yep... same ol' story with my 4752. I found that I can get the bugger going again after about 15 restarts and forced shutdowns via the power button (also much profanity lets loose). Some days, the laptop fires right up multiple times and other days or even later on, I get the repetitive non-booting/POSTing Black Screen Of Death. I've flashed in every BIOS available to no avail. That stupid thing even has BSOD without memory and hard disk in it. hahhaa. Ugggggh. Sigggghhhh. I have found no viable solution and likely never will because I don't have any diagnostic tools nor the fine skills for circuitry boards such as mobos.

Do you have a desktop or another laptop at your disposal? You can use your laptop hard drive as an external to salvage all of your files. I don't know what else to suggest as I believe we're all stuck in the growing BSOD Club which is a mysterious and frustrating abyss with no escape without any warranty.

zar1001

Well it looks like my only solution is never to buy another Acer computer, I have purchased two. I understand that there can be issues with any electronic item you purchase, but Acers non-response to any of these posts is irresponsible. Acer, you have your own blog here, if you aren't going to answer any questions, why have it???

Dudidum

Well it's good to hear that someone (you) played around with this problem.

I will take my time and try a lot of reboots and perhaps I'll have some luck Smiley Happy .

But this isn't a proper solution. What the heck causes the laptop to behave like this??

What really shocks me is, that it apparently concerns a lot of different old and new Aspire series laptops and not just the 55xx for example.

Since this is a severe problem and no single case anymore I can't understand why acer isn't reacting.

Interestingly it doesn't happen to all Aspire laptops or, to put it another way, not every Aspire 5541 has this problem.

One wild guess of mine would be that the problem could be related to planned obsolescence but this quickly leads to conspiracy and should only be considered if there is actual proof (like they found proof in some printers where they counted the printed sheets and if the counter reached a number like 10000 then there would be an error message that won't go away).

BSOD Club yay.

Maybe we should start one with a rank system. The more BSOD acer aspire laptops you own the higher your rank...

Tommy-Acer

The OP has never responded. I see that there are several other individuals with different systems, but similar symptoms.

Unfortunately, these are symptoms that could affect a number of hardware pieces on the computer, such as the main board, video board, cabling. There is no way for anyone on the community to be able to accurately diagnose what has occured with each of these different series of computers.

If you would like assistance from Acer, I would suggest contacting your local Acer service center. They have the tools necessary to diagnose and repair what appear to be hardware issues.

Dudidum

Thank you for responding!

Still I'd like to know if this "black-screen" state is initiated by a damaged component which is not the CPU/RAM/HDD.

Does acer have a "protection circuit" to prevent the laptop from further damage?

From how the laptop behaves (it does virtually nothing) it must be a low level component that is not working.

There is no Acer service center in the vicinity of my city, the laptop has no warranty anymore and I'm not going to pay for any repairs on this laptop.

Since it is quite dead I will detach everything that is not necessary for a boot and see if I can find anything.

Chances to find something are pretty low but let's see...

Best regards!

Colonel_Ives

I fieldstripped mine to no avail. No change in the Black SOD. I noticed the integrated graphics chip gets really really warm even though the unit didn't boot nor display anything, so I'm left to assume that it's malfunctioning therefore the board is no good. I give up either way. Ah, well, my notebook is still disassembled and makes it easier to sell the remnants on Ebay. Hhaha. I wonder how your fieldstrip experiment went.

RonB

My Acer 5552 laptop is having the same issue too, since 2 days. It won't start at all - blank screen, no noises, no LEDs light up (not even power light or the HDD light). Any troubleshooting tips anyone? Tried removing the battery and plugging in directly also, no help. It suddenly went down while my kiddo was playing a game it appears.

Thanks in advance.

RonB

Hi, Had no luck w my tries so I 'retired' this laptop after taking out the harddrive and copying the data to a new HP laptop (Bought a harddrive case for $10 to be able to attach this HDD, so for now I am able to use it as a USB drive with any PC/laptop). So fortunately no data loss although the laptop itself has gone waste. Still will try to revive the old one when I get a chance again before calling quits or junking it.

davidtuti

Hi,

I have a acer aspire 5541 and I have the same problem.

Someone could help me?

Many thanks

Gangan123

I have same problem. This is Aspire 5552. At first time,I took off the battery, hard driver and 2*2GB momery, then reinstalled. It came back, everything was fine. But next day the same problem came again. I did it again it did not work. Where can I get repairing for i?

tam2nice2002

Hello Everyone,

I am also having the exact same issue with my Acer 5552. I thought is was the battery but it wasn't. I even took it to a repair shop and they told me that it was the mother board, when I know good and well that it was not the mother board. I know exactly what the problem is for these computer but I haven't had the chance to repair mines yet. The problem is the power button board. If you take the computer apart, there is a power button board right under it. It is actually burned out. I seen on ebay and amazon where you can purchase this power button board it also comes with a cable to connect. It is not expensive at all.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-Aspire-5552-Power-Button-Board-W-Cable-LS-6582P-/131046181798?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e82f60ba6

tangerineman

I'm having the same problem with a black screen.

And unless I leave a radio station streaming, my Aspire 5736z shuts down.

SLEEP function doesn't work either. Any time I instruct the computer to SLEEP, it does a hard close.

If I CLOSE THE LID, the computer does a hard close even though I've instructed it to HIBERNATE or SLEEP.

I've gone back to factory settings, and tried the 'remove the battery and power cord, press start button for 60 seconds' and these have not worked.

I'm using WINDOWS 7

Following with great interest......

tangerineman

And I forgot to say, that I wonder if replacing the power button board would be the issue. It doesn't sound like it to me. I'll be interested to see.

ChristianB

Hi,

I had the same problem as many of you which is kind of comforting in a way, but actually also maybe pointing towards a design error of Acer.

Yesterday I booked a flight using my Acer 5541, closed the screen and wanted to check something else on the internet 5 minutes later. Opened the screen and ... nothing. Also using the power button nothing appeared on the screen.

The blue LED from the external power supply was on and also the blue power on LED after pushing the power button. CD-rom player starts for a second and than normally the hard drive starts, but ... nothing. Also no post beeps indicating errors. I can turn on the wireless which will also show a orange/red small led but that's it.

I was sitting on the couch closed the screen placed the notebook next to me on the couch grabbed it again after 5 minutes and opened the screen. Somehow that was to much for my Acer. No idea what happened there.

Today I secured my data using an external docking station for my 2.5"320GB Western Digital hard drive that was in the Acer 5541. Worked perfectly, so the hard disk is not broken!