Acer Aspire 7551g laptop black screen NO BOOT

JohnnyBravoz
JohnnyBravoz Member Posts: 11

Tinkerer
edited October 2023 in 2020 Archives
Note to moderator: I reposted this thread under the same title because probably no one saw my previous thread
as it took a while to be approved by a moderator (probably because I posted it just before the weekend)
so you can delete the previous duplicate thread. :)

Hi, I have had this problem for years and thought I'd try again.
I plug the charger into the 7551G laptop and it's just a black screen, the laptop fan starts but it doesn't boot.
I believe this may be due to a corrupted BIOS.

Extra Information:

I previously solved this problem by doing what this website suggested:


It worked once (don't remember which USB port I used) and it revived the laptop.
But after putting the laptop in sleep mode for a long time, the black screen no boot problem returned.
I tried removing the battery, HDD and RAM, no change.

Next I tried an alternative method, last post on here:

1) Instead of the CRISDISK method, I tried the above method.
So I used the software Rufus (portable) to format a USB flash drive to FAT32,
FreeDOS bootable, as shown in this article:

2) Then I downloaded the 7551g BIOS zip from the Acer website, unzipped it.
I copied the files from the DOS folder into the root directory of the USB.
In the FLASH.bat file, I edited it, removing the line containing the word "pause" and saved the bat file.


3) Next the Acer post above suggested making a duplicate of the FLASH.bat file
and renaming that duplicate to autoexec.bat

4) But there was already a hidden file on the USB called autoexec.bat
so I tried both skipping that step and also tried
renaming the hidden one to allow this step.
Neither worked.
I put the USB into the laptop (left and right USB port).
Held down Fn and Esc while plugging the charger into my laptop,
after 10 seconds, the USB light is not flashing.
So the laptop isn't reading the USB?

What could I be doing wrong?
Any help is appreciated! :)
Please note: my power button doesn't work (the power button ribbon is damaged, don't know where to buy a replacement ribbon).

I also notice my USB keyboard does not light up when connected to the laptop
but my USB flash drive light does turn on (but does not flash).
Tried both the USB keyboard and USB flash drive on the same USB ports, and different ports, same result. Anyone know what this means?


Answers

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,895 Trailblazer
    >>>I believe this may be due to a corrupted BIOS.>>>

    Why did you think this was due to a corrupted BIOS? What do you think got it corrupted? Before you messed with the BIOS, did you try to turn the screen on with the FN+F6 toggle key combo? If not, did you try to HDMI out to a TV set and turn the TV screen on with the FN+F5 toggle key combo? Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,173 Trailblazer
    JohnnyBravoz said:
    Hi, I have had this problem for years and thought I'd try again.
    I plug the charger into the 7551G laptop and it's just a black screen, the laptop fan starts but it doesn't boot.
    I believe this may be due to a corrupted BIOS.

    Firstly, have you tried to get into bios by pressing F2 or F12? Try the fixes that JackE suggests first, as it could be your boot or monitor (as you don’t say what OS you have?) are you running the OEM Win-7 64bit or Win-10?. As a blank screen like yours could have allot of fixes and doing a "Run "\DOS\FLASH.BAT" batch file to flash BIOS" reset through a DOS flash could brick your laptop and make it unusable, be careful and only reflash your bios as a last resort and when you are sure that the bios is the problem and you do it correctly and you know what you are doing, otherwise you will brick your 7551G .


  • JohnnyBravoz
    JohnnyBravoz Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer
    Thanks guys. :) By the way, by black screen I mean the screen does not turn on
    and I don't hear beeps or anything.
    I only hear the fan noise.
    JackE said:
    Why did you think this was due to a corrupted BIOS?
    The black screen/no boot issue started when years ago I put the laptop in hibernation mode each night for several nights in a row (maybe that's what corrupted it?).
    I remember two times when this black screen problem was fixed: the first time was temporarily when I used
    a live Linux USB to try to boot, it revived it (until maybe I turned it off, I don't remember). Using the same method, it did not revive a second time.
    I may have also tried taking the CMOS battery out and putting it back in after 10 minutes, this may or may not have helped in reviving the laptop,
    it's hard to remember.

    The second time the laptop was revived was years later, this time using the the "flashing BIOS with crisis disk on USB" method.
    It revived the laptop after years of gathering dust....until I left it in sleep mode too long (maybe 2 or 3 days?) then the issue came back.
    However, again, using the same BIOS flashing method it did not work a second time strangely (unless somehow I'm doing the USB method differently without noticing,
    I did wipe the USB in between BIOS flashing attempts as I didn't think I'd need to flash it again at the time).

    I tried FN+F5 and FN+F6 while connected to my TV with a HDMI cable, and also tried without the HDMI. No difference on the laptop screen, no signal on the TV.
    I'm wondering if the issue is partially due to charge or static build up in the laptop motherboard or capacitors or something?
    Or maybe some circuits are turned off due to a safety feature? (I'm just thinking this because my USB keyboard does not light up when connected but my USB flash drive light is on, but does not flash).

    StevenGen said:

    Firstly, have you tried to get into bios by pressing F2 or F12? Try the fixes that JackE suggests first

    I tried tapping F2 on startup and also F12 on startup, neither made a change on the screen.
    The laptop is using Windows 7 64 bit.

  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,895 Trailblazer
    Sorry, from the described symptoms and history, I'm gonna guess the regular vga chip either has a bad or cracked solder joint or been fried. Since this has sorta been an intermittent issue over the years(meaning previous fixes were likely illusions), I'm leaning more toward a solder joint failure. If it was mine, I might be tempted to reflow the chip with a solder gun. This is a fairly common mainboard found in a few aspire models that's still available less than a $100 new.  Jack E/NJ


    Jack E/NJ

  • JohnnyBravoz
    JohnnyBravoz Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer
    Thank you Jack.
    Do you know any more information about BIOS flashing or recovery?
    I'm wondering if the BIOS file needs to be renamed to a model specific name for the USB to be read.
    Or maybe there's a way for it to read the USB without needing to use a keyboard key press combination (to rule out the possibility of keyboard issues, hence why I wanted to try using my USB keyboard but it doesn't light up but did work perfectly in Windows when the laptop was working).

    It doesn't look like my USB is being read (indicator light is on, but not flashing), yet strangely my USB keyboard caps lock light does not come on at all.
    Would a broken VGA chip really cause all these USB problems and prevent booting?

    Is there anything I could try to first rule out the possibility the issue is related to BIOS, software or built up charge in the motherboard?
    My power button does not work so I have to plug in/out the charger to turn it on and off,
    meaning I can't discharge the normal way ("remove battery, unplug charger, hold down power button for 60 seconds") and I don't see any reset hole (which some Acer models have, I don't think mine does?).

    If it is indeed the VGA chip (is this the same as the dedicated graphics card?)
    what would have caused it to crack?
    It getting fried seems less likely to me since it's been revived a couple of times but
    cracked solder might be possible (although I don't really move it around much so I wouldn't expect huge temperature changes
    like moving it from a very warm environment and then to a cold environment).

    The BIOS flash doesn't sound like a coincidence considering nothing was working until
    I successfully did the crisis disk BIOS flash, turned on for the first time in years!
    Then stopped working after I foolishly put it in sleep mode too long.
    If it's a cracked solder, maybe the connection was temporarily bridged??
    Maybe there's a way to confirm this? You can imagine my confusion thinking it was a hardware problem
    until the BIOS flash revived it after a long time of giving up. :o
    I'm happy to try out any diagnostic tests as I really want to bring this old laptop back to life. :)





  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,895 Trailblazer
    edited December 2020
    It is a Phoenix BIOS  that uses the method outlined in the sunbane link in your original post above using BIOS.wph binary (wph, bin, or rom extensions) found in the unzipped DOS subdirectory. BIOS.wph is the correct name assigned to the binary for Phoenix BIOS. It is essentially the same method on the bios mods site (google "Phoenix Bios Recovery"). Insyde BIOS usually uses a unique filename with an FD extension, not Phoenix. At any rate, the FN+ESC methods rarely work usually because there's a hardware failure, not corrupted firmware or drivers. As suggested earlier, I think you had an intermittent hardware issue from the getgo. In other words, your apparent previous success with the BIOS flash may not have actually solved underlying intermittent hardware issue.

    Jack E/NJ

    I do recall a few users were able to successfully flash the Phoenix BIOS by using the BIOS.wph file as the only file on a FAT32 formatted stick. Apparently the BIOS bootblock was able to use the file directly instead of relying on an dos-like auto batch file to run. 

    Jack E/NJ

  • JohnnyBravoz
    JohnnyBravoz Member Posts: 11

    Tinkerer
    edited December 2020
    JackE said:
    I do recall a few users were able to successfully flash the Phoenix BIOS by using the BIOS.wph file as the only file on a FAT32 formatted stick. Apparently the BIOS bootblock was able to use the file directly instead of relying on an dos-like auto batch file to run. 

    I appreciate your help Jack, thanks.
    I'm probably not going to be able to solve this and probably will avoid laptops in the future unless they get more reliable! :p

    I just have one more question if you don't mind.
    If it turns out not to be the solder but the chip itself, do you know if it's possible to replace the VGA chip (I assume this is the same as the dedicated GPU?).
    Would there be compatibility issues if it was replaced with another laptop GPU, or is the selection limited to only using another mobility radeon HD 5650?
    Also is it worth it or will it break again or last for years?
    I wouldn't do it myself as I have no soldering experience but wanted to know if this was an option.
    Thanks again. :)


  • JackE
    JackE ACE Posts: 44,895 Trailblazer
    Sorry, you're trying to salvage an Aspire 7751g laptop with a hardware design that is well over 10 years old. It has an earlier mainboard, BIOS and other soldered chips that are no longer used in laptops since about 2013 when the first Win8x machines with UEFI bootstrappers were first introduced. Sure, anythings's possible. But it is more practical to simply purchase a new replacement 7551g mainboard for about $50. Jack E/NJ

    Jack E/NJ

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