Nitro 5 "Black screen of death" or....? how can I get the hard disk out to recover

Julian0922
Julian0922 Member Posts: 5

Tinkerer
edited May 2023 in Nitro Gaming

Have two Nitro 5, relatively new, under 1 year, why I mention 2, in a minute.

Laptop stayed on over night on a cooling stand, so no overheating, in the AM I had a black screen (like "off"), could not start it back up, blue light on, tried different plug in, in case, took the battery out, plugged in multiple working plug ins (a laptop should also start up without a battery), took the battery from the second Nitro and put it in, no result. Orange light for charging did not go on. The reset did also not work. A short circuit is also not possible, the second Laptop is connected to the same outlet.

So question, what could it be? It is NOT the battery, it is NOT the charger, its NOT overheating! Any ideas? RAM issue maybe? That would be the cheapest I guess….

IMO either dead, or ???? and if so, how can I get the hard disk out to recover at least the data….well I can google that. And sorry dear Acer, never again a gaming laptop from you. 

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Best Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 14,084 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/685006/black-screen-of-death-or

    You did not say that you kept the Power Button pressed down for 2 full minutes after you disconnected the battery, that is the whole purpose of a Power Drain procedure to discharge all statics on the MOBO by pressing the Power Button.

    If still under 1 year warranty bring your laptop to Acer Services in your country to check the power problem.

    If your data is on a 2.5" SATA drive you can take it out and mount it in an external USB case, connect to another PC and copy your files. You then can also check the external disk with freeware like GSmart Control and reformat it for privacy concerns.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,493 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/685006/black-screen-of-death-or

    Try to disconnect the bios battery also and take the ram out (if you have 2x ram modules) take both out and wait for 15min then reconnect main, bios batteries and 1x ram module only and reboot, see if that fixes your problem, as I had the same problem with a brand-new Nitro AN515-56 laptop and that is what I did, and it worked perfectly and the laptop rebooted perfectly and has worked ever since.

    If all the above doesn't work then there is some issue within your laptops primary power stages inside your laptop where either a capacitor or resistor has shorted (look at the mobo internally around the power port) and see if you see any burned circuitries as a sign (but not seeing a burned circuit does not mean anything) as a chip could be shorted/burnet without showing any signs, also and at worst, be prepared that it could be a shorted mosat/vcore that has burned the gpu out, which there is no fix, and you will need to change the mobo with a new one.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,493 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1200940#Comment_1200940

    If your laptop is 8 months old and you bought it off Amazon it makes no difference even if you opened the laptop, as long as you haven't broken any warranty seals that Acer puts on certain laptops in certain markets, my Nitro 5 didn't have any Acer warranty stickers, as I have opened my laptop and changed the ram and M.2 SSD and cleaned and repasted the cpu/gpu.

    An 8-month-old laptop like the Nitro 5 is covered under the 12 months Acer warranty and your power on fault is 100% covered under that warranty, The only thing that could be a problem is if you put any scratches or damaged the laptop casing in any way when you opened it, as opening a laptop during the warranty period is allowed, as long as you don't break any warranty seals stickers, as a user can upgrade their ram and M.2 SSD drives. Contact Acer urgently in your area and book a service call and get the Acer technicians to repair your Nitro 5 laptop as its covered under warranty! Good luck and hope this helps you out.

Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 14,084 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/685006/black-screen-of-death-or

    You did not say that you kept the Power Button pressed down for 2 full minutes after you disconnected the battery, that is the whole purpose of a Power Drain procedure to discharge all statics on the MOBO by pressing the Power Button.

    If still under 1 year warranty bring your laptop to Acer Services in your country to check the power problem.

    If your data is on a 2.5" SATA drive you can take it out and mount it in an external USB case, connect to another PC and copy your files. You then can also check the external disk with freeware like GSmart Control and reformat it for privacy concerns.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,493 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/685006/black-screen-of-death-or

    Try to disconnect the bios battery also and take the ram out (if you have 2x ram modules) take both out and wait for 15min then reconnect main, bios batteries and 1x ram module only and reboot, see if that fixes your problem, as I had the same problem with a brand-new Nitro AN515-56 laptop and that is what I did, and it worked perfectly and the laptop rebooted perfectly and has worked ever since.

    If all the above doesn't work then there is some issue within your laptops primary power stages inside your laptop where either a capacitor or resistor has shorted (look at the mobo internally around the power port) and see if you see any burned circuitries as a sign (but not seeing a burned circuit does not mean anything) as a chip could be shorted/burnet without showing any signs, also and at worst, be prepared that it could be a shorted mosat/vcore that has burned the gpu out, which there is no fix, and you will need to change the mobo with a new one.

  • Julian0922
    Julian0922 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    Thanks to both of you, StevenGen and Puraw, and yes I pressed the power button for 5 minutes….maybe it was too long though. ;-)

    What is interesting, one of the Nitros is an AMD and the other an Intel Core. And I always thought AMD (the kaput one) is the better choice, I probably thought wrong.

    I will try first Stevens path via a laptop service and then we shall see the price for the repair… (I bought both of the Nitros via Amazon US around 8 months ago, and so I do not know what the warranty is because I did not include the protection plan BUT since I opened it and removed the battery on my own I presume the warranty is invalid now anyway and so I put already a new gaming laptop in my basket. If its really the motherboard, with repair labor cost and hardware, I rather buy me a new one and salvage this one. Its the second time I have an issue like that with an Acer, the previous one was although not a gaming laptop. )

    Thanks again to both of you. Highly appreciated.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,493 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1200940#Comment_1200940

    If your laptop is 8 months old and you bought it off Amazon it makes no difference even if you opened the laptop, as long as you haven't broken any warranty seals that Acer puts on certain laptops in certain markets, my Nitro 5 didn't have any Acer warranty stickers, as I have opened my laptop and changed the ram and M.2 SSD and cleaned and repasted the cpu/gpu.

    An 8-month-old laptop like the Nitro 5 is covered under the 12 months Acer warranty and your power on fault is 100% covered under that warranty, The only thing that could be a problem is if you put any scratches or damaged the laptop casing in any way when you opened it, as opening a laptop during the warranty period is allowed, as long as you don't break any warranty seals stickers, as a user can upgrade their ram and M.2 SSD drives. Contact Acer urgently in your area and book a service call and get the Acer technicians to repair your Nitro 5 laptop as its covered under warranty! Good luck and hope this helps you out.

  • Julian0922
    Julian0922 Member Posts: 5

    Tinkerer

    Hi again Steven, tried your method, took the bios battery out, the ram, its just one module though….and nope. Well, it would have been really surprising if it would have worked, would have been too cheap. ;-)

    Recharged also the battery, was empty I guess, in the other laptop and now the blue light is off, but the orange one is on. Strange, but nonetheless, does not start up.

    So, ja, tomorrow I will give Acer a call, I live in the Seattle area and I am pretty sure they have some service techs around here. And no, no scratches, no nothing, looks like brandnew from inside and outside. I hardly ever touched the laptop. Always via external mouse, keyboard and also external Hard Disk. Just the important stuff I saved on the HD in it, whilst having a 2 TB harddisk standing next to it….my mistake. Stupid→stupidier→Julian.

    This model has no Sata HD in there, but a nice space for it, never opened it til yesterday. It just some module or whatever it is. But nothing you can take out without professional help, at least not me. And that will become then really tricky if Acer does not cover it to repair it. It's probably really the motherboard, yet I never heard that a MoBo goes kaput whilst the comp is on sleep modus over night….

    Whatever. I ordered me already a new one, just with Win11 which I tried to avoid so badly. Anyhow, would really be nice if Acer would repair this one under warranty, yet at the very least can get me the files somehow. Will try my best and cry them a river. ;-) Thanks again and ja it helped me out, like a tab on the shoulder people need sometimes when they are lost! Seriously, great job and in case you do that professionally: great service, great help. And so knock knock knock that Acer covers it.

    PS. BTW, you are right, there were zero seal stickers on it. None.

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