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Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot


Posted on: Mon, 01/21/2008 - 3:52pm
Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

I have a an Acer Aspire 5102WLMi notebook that the screen just went completely white on and then upon restarting nothing is displayed, but the computer at least seems to turn on.  I've tried plugging it into an lcd monitor but there still isn't anything displayed.  I should note the laptop isn't mine.  This is how I received it and what I was told.  Is it possible for the on-board video to go bad?

Thanks


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Posted on: Sat, 07/26/2008 - 3:55pm #1
Re: Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

I have an ACER 5570Z and the screen works until the booting up screen. Then once it hits the page the screen is just the greyish screen while the computer goes on booting up and making noises. Any help in this either?

Posted on: Sun, 07/27/2008 - 11:14am #2
Re: Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

Acers are funky laptop - especially concerning video and drivers.

We have one as a back-up laptop for use in conference room projector presentations. I always get tripped up in coordinating the projector with the laptop and pretty much have to rely on ATI control panel to bail me out.

How this may affect you is that the traditional "Function + F7" key sometimes displays just a grey screen or does nothing at all or displays a black screen. In your case it may by Function + F5 or Function + F6.

So I would try this in order. Find the "Fn" key and the key displaying the the two computer screens, usually F7 on most laptops. Simultaneously press both keys when you encounter the grey screen and see if it switches back to the windows logo screen.  

If that fails, repeatively hit F8 on boot up to display the Safe Mode screen and select Enable VGA Support, which will knock the resolution back to 800 X 600.

The Knoppix CD is a good idea in that it is a self contained Linux OS that runs off your CD drive and is useful in determining if there is a problem with the video card or display. 

On another machine burn a Knoppix ISO to CD from this link:

http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/download.php?lang=en&link=ftp://knoppix.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/knoppix

Boot from CD on the Acer and if the Linux Operating system loads, then you probably don't have a problem with the hardware.

 

Posted on: Mon, 01/21/2008 - 4:25pm #3
Re: Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

Did you try booting in safe mode?  I had an old Dell Latitude that booted to a white/grayish screen, but booted in safe mode fine. I reinstalled the video drivers (actually I had to use the Omega ATI drivers b/c lack of ATI support), but no probs since.

Posted on: Mon, 01/21/2008 - 4:51pm #4
Re: Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

The computer doesn't display anything, so it is a problem unrelated to windows.

Posted on: Mon, 01/21/2008 - 9:27pm #5
Re: Acer Laptop 5100 Series Doesn't post or boot

It could be a few items.

It would help to know if the bios screen is displayed - I'm guessing not.

First two simple things is press the button accessing the BIOS screen immediately on start up. It may be F2, Delete, F9, (it may be this one - CTRL+ALT+ESC).

Or try to boot from a cd that is bootable. You may want to burn a Knoppix boot cd and boot from that to see what happens.

Do you have the recovery CD? 

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