Acer 3690 No display on screen

[24Peaches]

My daughter has a Acer 3690-2519..She noticed it was flashing in red letters on the screen (trojan virus) on her laptop. After charging the laptop she noticed it would only stay on for a few seconds then turn off (damaged AC adapter). After getting another AC adapter and charging laptop again, she turned laptop on but there was no display on screen (blank screen). We are unsure why there's no activity on display screen at all..

 

[Sympology]

Are you running it purely off the battery i.e. are you charging it, then unplugging then unsing?
If so, does it run ok on the mains?
Does it run on the mains with the battery unplgged?

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[kjv1611]

It could be as bad as the garphics card being burned out by the fault AC adapter, I suppose. However, I'd start from the source, which is what Sympology mentioned - test the ac adapter and battery, then move from there.

Once you've tested the battery/ac adapter, you can move on from there. Since you say it may have gotten a virus as well, I'd suggest a couple other things....
[OL][LI]Turn the laptop on, wait a while (at least 30 seconds), then hold down the power button until the laptop immediately turns off. Then wait a few seconds - 3 to 5 should be fine, and power it back on. If the screen comes up in this case, then it was likely just an issue with Sleep or Hibernate mode in Windows - which could've gotten messed up by a virus. If this works, it's probably advisable to just reinstall Windows, or use any Restore disk(s)/partition you might have.[/LI]
[LI]Another one that may seem odd - try removing the hard drive, and seeing if the computer will at least show something on the screen with no hard drive plugged in. You should get some sort of error message on the screen eventually if you try this. You could also try booting from some bootable CD/DVD without the hard drive for same effect, but the laptop should boot from the optical media in that case. If #1 didn't work, but this one did, then it still COULD be a software issue, but sounds more likely the hard drive is damaged.[/LI]
[LI]Try connecting the laptop to an external monitor. If it works there, but not directly on screen, then it's something wrong with the screen - could be one of several things.... could even just be the wire connecting the screen to the graphics chip. If it doesn't work, and is still just giving a black screen, then it could mean the graphics chip got burned out, so you'd have to replace the motherboard or the whole laptop.[/LI]
[/OL]

 

[24Peaches]

I have charged the laptop and it shows activity from hardrive, but the fan only runs for a few seconds then stops....I removed the battery and memory for a while then replaced it..I still got no image on the display screen. Now I will try options 2 & 3 that you suggested to see if I have any luck there.

 

[24Peaches]

Sympology>>>I turned the laptop on using the battery,but got no display on screen. Then I charged the battery and tried again but still no activity on screen. When the laptop is turned on the following lights are lit:
power light
battery light (if charging)
hard drive light

 

[kjv1611]

but the fan only runs for a few seconds then stops

This is normal on modern hard drives.

It sounds like it's the video/display adapter or else the LCD. If it's the display adapter, then you'll end up having to replace the whole motherboard. It's a tedious task on a laptop in my opinion, but it can be done. No soldering required, just having to deal with many tiny screws, and at least a few tiny wires.

 

[Stubby17]

Also just for jollies, upon startup press FN (function key) and F5 and see if it may nothing more than the video being moved from internal to external screen.

 

[24Peaches]

When I press the FN (function key) and F5 nothing happens on screen. Therefore it just may be the onboard graphics card that is bad.

 

[kjv1611]

Did you try yet with an external monitor? That's the easiest way to verify whether it's the graphics adapter or just the LCD.

 

[24Peaches]

i tried an external monitor, but still nothing (no display). Acer wants $300 for a motherboard. I guess I will be looking for parts elsewhere (purchasing another laptop).

 

[kjv1611]

It definitely sounds like the graphics card (at least) on the motherboard is toast. If you wanted to mess with replacing the motherboard yourself, you could always look on ebay for a "broken" laptop or even just the motherboard for your model, and replace it yourself. You might come out under $100. Just depends on the model. And there ere other sites with such parts that may also be cheap. Not always, though, I've found with some models that the replacement parts were expensive wherever I looked.

 

[goombawaho]

Laptop video cards, in my experience, seem to be much more likely to fail than desktop video cards. More heat inside the laptop????

So........... it would always be wise to purchase a laptop that has a discrete video card that is removable/replaceable/upgradeable thus not rendering the laptop a doorstop when the video card fails.

This has happened to me in the last 6 months and I was glad mine was not part of the mobo.

 

[kjv1611]

goombawaho,

I know this will seem like a silly question, but since you mentioned it I thought I'd ask..

When I first began hearing about discrete graphics chips in laptops, I just assumed that meant the same as dedicated graphics. But apparently not?

I've got an Dell XPS m1530 with the dreaded nVidia 8600GT chip. So far it hasn't died on me, but regardless, from all I've read, it's dedicated, but apparently not discrete...

So that said, what do you look for when looking for "discrete graphics". I'm sure I could just search on it, but I've not done so yet. Is that all I need to look for, or is there some other specific phrase, keyword that would pinpoint it.

Thanks for any info.

 

[rclarke250]

Today you would look for a laptop with a mobile pcie slot or mxm3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_PCI_Express_Module,

My MSI from a kit has a mxm3 with an nvidia m9600Gt in it, so if the card dies, 5 screws, and 5 minutes later, I'm rocking another video card. You can't just look at what video chip it has anymore, because they can mount everything on the system board. If it doesn't say MXM2 or MXM3 slot somewhere, it most likely won't have a replaceable video card. Some Dell,Sony,and Toshiba have proprietary cards that will only work with that model or maybe at best a few models. Better to stick to an industry standard, because the cards are expensive enough without the added cost of it being proprietary also.

 

[goombawaho]

Don't get hung up on my word "discrete". I just meant that you can unscrew it, pull it out and replace it. I meant discrete from the motherboard - maybe I used the wrong term.

Yeah - those motherboards (video card specifically) you mentioned are on borrowed time.

 

[kjv1611]

Yeah, this is very interesting. I'll just watch for now, b/c it looks like the technology is used few and far between in the laptops from what I can see from the wikipedia article, looking on eBay and NewEgg. Granted that's not the full scope of the world, but you can get a pretty good idea on what's out there by glancing at those 2 (latter mentioned) sites.

I'll just hope my m1530 keeps going a while longer. Besides, it was free to me, and it is still under at least part of the warranty. When/if it does break, then I can think a little more serious about looking for a replacement. I'm just hoping it lasts at least through this winter. If not, I'll just have to do without it for a while.