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Lights turn on, but no display?

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dyckah

dyckah

Member
​
Joined
Jan 9, 2005
Hey guys, I have an Acer Sapire 5542G, and when I try to turn it on, the lights on the power button turn on, the hdd activity light turns on, but nothing comes up on the display, and no noise is made.
the HDD has been replaced with an SSD, so its hard to be totally sure if the drive is actually doing anything, but from the activity light, i would assume it is?
I've tried it with 1 ram stick, both ram slots, tried some other ram that i had that worked when it was last taken out of a laptop, really not sure what to try next.
i've also tried plugging it straight in to a display, and still nothing comes up, with the laptop open, or closed.
anyone have any ideas for me?
 
Can you see the screen if you shine a really bright flashlight on the screen?
 
just shined my brightest flashlight at the screen, could not see anything.
 
How much did you have to tear the laptop down to replace the drive?
 
hardly at all, remove 4 screws from the bottom panel, and then remove 1 screw from the drive caddy.
it had the SSD in there for like 6-8 months before any issues happened?
but i guess i could stick the original HDD in there after work today and see if it works.
 
If the SSD was in for a few months before the issues then you have something else going on.
How old is the laptop and can you still get any parts for it?
 
i have tried an external display, no picture with the laptop open, or closed.
and the laptop was bought in 2010, but it does seem like there is still parts available for it, after a quick google search.
not sure if it is worth it to fix it though, guess it depends on how much replacement parts are.
 
Problem is you don't know for sure what's not working. Could be video chip or even a mainboard problem. I would look at just getting a new one myself, 6 years isn't bad for a laptop. Especially an ACER
 
thats kinda what i was leaning towards, but was hoping that maybe someone here had an idea for an easy solution.
 
Since in the end if nothing works you're getting a new one anyway. It's easy to pull one apart and check for broken connections , general damage etc.. Maybe try clearing the CMOS while you're in there. You really have nothing to lose. I had one once where the charger input had a broken wire on the board. No charge no lappy. Soldered it back on and it worked fine. Never know what you might find.
 
aiight, well, since a new laptop shall need to be looked for/purchased, what brands should i look for, and which should i stay away from?
its for my girlfriend, she just needs to have a laptop for her university classes
 
well, she already has a fairly capable desktop PC, so we were actually thinking more about getting her something like a chromebook, as google docs is what she mostly uses for school anyways, was kinda looking at something like this.
her budget doesnt have to be so low, but it seems to match up with what her needs for a laptop are quite well, so it seems tempting.
 
any brand chromebooks to stay away from?
the asus is looking like a nice pricepoint, and i've had good luck with their desktop components in the past, but their RMA horror stories do kind of worry me
 
This sounds like it's most likely a failure of the onboard GPU/video chip.

Or it could be a hardware failure of some other component on the motherboard (I've seen one laptop where it ended up being a failed/fried power section on the motherboard near the CPU socket). In that case it would power up, but gave very little sign of life (CPU fan spinning, lights on, but no activity) (killed the motherboard, but everything that was still plugged into it still worked luckily).

I've seen similar symptoms several times before on other laptops.
 
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