Aspire 5 A515 Display won’t wake up.

shiftless · July 2021

Two weeks into this. Hoping to trade info with others currently suffering this.

This is a problem which goes back on various brands to the introduction of win 10. If the display ever shuts down for sleep (closing the lid, going into sleep mode, or for any other reason such as selecting only an external monitor) it won’t come back on. The only way to get the display running again is to restart the computer.

This problem is especially hard to research because it is usually diagnosed (Misdiagnosed?) as a power problem or a sleep problem. Every single official troubleshooting session starts with the power options in windows. These never fix it. Then updating all drivers, again nope. Updating the Intel iris driver specifically. Nope. Then paper-clip reset and bios reset. Nope. Then windows updates. Nope. Then windows reset. Nope. Disabling fast start. Nope. Changing the “what closing the lid does” settings. Nope. Changing the “what the power button does” settings. Nope.

Some intrepid souls get into video driver backdating. I tried this, but never successfully got an older driver to install, They said they were incompatible and auto-exited.

Right now I’m using the machine on an external monitor, which works fine - so now I have a desktop. Well, I already had one of those, a better one. While running on the external monitor, both screens are fine until the laptop goes to sleep, or I close the lid, then the built-in display won’t come back on, and display properties says “display 1 is not active”.

So, I guess the only option is to send it in. Any advice appreciated.

JackE · July 2021

>>> laptop goes to sleep, or I close the lid,>>>I guess the only option is to send it in. Any advice appreciated. >>>

Control Panel's power button app and power plans settings are notoriously unreliable especially when the fast and furious Win updates happen. In some machines, it's best to set the power button lid closure to do nothing instead of sleep. The screen and the significant power to run it will still shut off because of the hall sensor, but the rest of the system will idle at much lower power but not sleep. As for the power plan, I set laptops to never go to sleep when idling.

You might get things back to the way they should work with a full factory reset to the original ACER-flavored Windows version. But then an errant Windows update will come along & get installed when you're not looking, and you're right back to power plan annoyances and power button app frustrations.

And I'd guess the 'send it in' option will ultimately lead to in even more annoyances, frustrations & suffering. But you could take a chance and prove me wrong

Easwar · July 2021

Hi shiftless,

# Try to get the BIOS page.

1. Turn OFF the unit.

2. Press and hold the F2 key and turn on the unit.
3. You will be in setup utility page.
4. Once you got the screen release the F2 key.
5. Tap on F9 key and hit enter key without changing the option.
6. Tap on F10 key and hit enter key without changing the option.
7. Your unit will restart by itself.

Check this T/S and post the result.

shiftless · July 2021

Done both of those suggestions, and noted both. I spent 2+ Hours with acer tech, they covered everything.

JackE · July 2021

>>> I spent 2+ Hours with acer tech, they covered everything. >>>

And they solved ????? You don't seem to have an ACER hardware issue. If it was mine and I had to use Windows for some reason, I'd live with the annoyance.

shiftless · July 2021

Ffs this community is useless.

You can’t live with a laptop that requires constant hard reboots. And, duh, I want all the features it was advertised with. These things are expensive. So, we tried a service rep, and wasted hours on that. We tried self-help on the web, saw a bunch of sad people who never got their laptops (of many brands) to work right. We’ve determined that there is a long standing problem which affects a fraction of all win10 laptops, so that their displays don’t recover from sleep. There is no one solution for them, apparently.

So, now we’ll let Acer techs attempt to fix it, and if they succeed, great. If not, we’ll move on.

***** sure we won’t waste any more time here.

JackE · July 2021

>>>This is a problem which goes back on various brands to the introduction of win 10>>>Any advice appreciated>>>.

Yep. If you choose the sleep setting when the lid is closed, problems like this eventually happen when the original factory version of Win10 gets an errant update. If you send it out, I'm pretty sure you'll get the machine back working as it should for a while with a factory reset. A reset you could do yourself right now and save yourself the time and costs of shipping it both ways.

Changing the lid position setting to do nothing instead of sleep and relying solely on the hall lid position sensor accomplishes pretty much the same power saving. The screen shuts off and the rest of the system and cpu idles instead of sleeps, consuming little extra power.

Sorry you didn't appreciate any of our suggestions to try to deal with Windows buggy power saving apps.

wascas · July 2021

@shiftless,

did you try a BIOS-Update to solve the problem: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1032645/#Comment_1032645

Sferns · July 2021

My 2 week new Acer Aspire 5 has so many problems that I lost count. Constant fan noise, display issues, etc. There is always a 'fix' suggested but nothing permanent. Cant imagine new laptops coming out with so many probs then how about in next few years.