Blank Screen on Acer Aspire V5-571 Laptop, Please Help!

[eric_s07]

Hi everyone! Last year, I started having some trouble with my main PC at the time. It is an Acer Aspire V5-571, a just terrible laptop. At the time, I got a black screen with an error message that said something like "OS Not Found" and that was it. It never launched Windows 10, I could never get in the BIOS and just... nothing. Eventually, it got to the point where the screen was just black even though the keyboard and fans turned on, so I built a PC and forgot all about it. I still have the laptop and due to the quarantine, I have some free time. So can someone with more experience than me please help me out? I tried a bunch of things at the time, but I'm starting from scratch now. To sum up, the keyboard lights up, the fan starts spinning and I get nothing on the screen. The only "physical" thing I did to the PC was remove the HDD, but I have a bunch of flash drives where I can install an OS to start from there. Today I tried turning it on and off again and then I connected it via HDMI to a monitor and I didn't get a signal. Any ideas are more than welcome. Thanks in advance!

[Catsrules]

Guessing it has HDMI, Maybe try plugging it in to a monitor/TV see if anything comes up.

[eric_s07]

1 minute ago, Catsrules said:

Guessing it has HDMI, Maybe try plugging it in to a monitor/TV see if anything comes up.

As I explained above, nothing happens.

[bmx6454]

try some different ram? maybe a bios flash aswell

[eric_s07]

Just now, bmx6454 said:

try some different ram? maybe a bios flash aswell

Good, I read about flashing the BIOS as a solution to my problem, but I have no idea how to do it? Can you send me a link to a tutorial or something? I'd really appreciate it!

[AndreiArgeanu]

You could potentially try taking the laptop apart unplugging the drives and giving everything a clean including the connectors but remember not to be very harsh with the connectors and potentially as you do it check to see if there's anything out of order like corrosion.

Also different laptop manufacturers often assign their bios key differently, from a quick search I found that your bios key may be either F2, F12 or Delete.

[AndreiArgeanu]

2 minutes ago, eric_s07 said:

Good, I read about flashing the BIOS as a solution to my problem, but I have no idea how to do it? Can you send me a link to a tutorial or something? I'd really appreciate it!

For laptops, especially because you don't have access to the bios you need to desolder the chip from the motherboard and then put it in a tool you need to buy online, then find a bios that is made for your motherboard and flash it on the chip.

[eric_s07]

1 minute ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

For laptops, especially because you don't have access to the bios you need to desolder the chip from the motherboard and then put it in a tool you need to buy online, then find a bios that is made for your motherboard and flash it on the chip.

Oh, OK. I don't think I'll be able to do that with the tools I have at my disposal right now. That's a shame, really. Thanks for the comments, though.

[bmx6454]

3 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

For laptops, especially because you don't have access to the bios you need to desolder the chip from the motherboard and then put it in a tool you need to buy online, then find a bios that is made for your motherboard and flash it on the chip.

not a good idea..

 

this video covers what to do, just make sure to get the exact bios image from acer's website.

 

 

[eric_s07]

7 minutes ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

You could potentially try taking the laptop apart unplugging the drives and giving everything a clean including the connectors but remember not to be very harsh with the connectors and potentially as you do it check to see if there's anything out of order like corrosion.

Also different laptop manufacturers often assign their bios key differently, from a quick search I found that your bios key may be either F2, F12 or Delete.

I will try that now. I also read about taking the ram outside the latptop and placing a coin or something conductive on the contacts to short something? Does that ring any bells. Thanks! Taking apart the laptop now using the manual.

[bmx6454]

1 minute ago, eric_s07 said:

I will try that now. I also read about taking the ram outside the latptop and placing a coin or something conductive on the contacts to short something? Does that ring any bells. Thanks! Taking apart the laptop now using the manual.

try flashing the bios first, before ripping anything apart. i posted a video for how to do it with black screen on acer aspires.

[eric_s07]

I've made some progress. I have access to the screen now after trying all of your suggestions. Problem is, the laptop still has the same error as before (no OS found, which makes sense, since it doesn't have an HDD). Now I need to find a way to launch the BIOS, which seems to be a common problem in this model of laptops and as soon as I have access to that, I need to create a Linux or Windows 10 bootable drive to see if the laptop works as it should. Then I should get an HDD where I can install Windows 10. At least that's in theory, let's see how it goes from here.

[eric_s07]

1 hour ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

You could potentially try taking the laptop apart unplugging the drives and giving everything a clean including the connectors but remember not to be very harsh with the connectors and potentially as you do it check to see if there's anything out of order like corrosion.

Also different laptop manufacturers often assign their bios key differently, from a quick search I found that your bios key may be either F2, F12 or Delete.

I tried all three bios keys and it doesn't work. Apparently, that's a common problem, but I need to find a solution that works for me.