AO751h Black Screen of Death + No VGA Output either

How can you repair this issue?

The unit lights up, but the display nor the VGA output produce a picture.
I tried the famous "FN+Esc+Power" trick several times with multiple bios versions, but nothing. It blinks, but then a 2nd press of the power turns it off. The USB stick never begins to flash in those 5 minutes I wait.

Interestingly enough, I just noticed it's making an intermittent low frequency sound when I put my ear up the Netbook as it's powering. Perhaps it is trying to power, then failing, then trying again, then failing. Could is be refusing to start because of a non-working fan? i can't hear the fan at all, but the lights definately come on. Battery or no battery works too. I did the eraser trick with the ram and even tried several other good DDR2 ram chips of the same specs and nothing. i also took out the hard drive and still nothing.

I've successfully repaired lots of laptops in the past but this is one of the first Netbooks I've attempted to fix. I got it from someone who said the screen stopped working one day. I'll be taking it apart soon to see if anything on the board looks damaged or desoildered.

Something's definately up with either the GPU or BIOS (or both) in my opinion so far.

Has anyone repaired this particular model before? The latest bios for it doesn't include Flashit.exe nor a .FN format Bios image. I tried converting it to the .FN filename, but no dice with that either. even tried that 3010 BIOS (probably for another model), but nothing.
Still powers on and I have yet to see it even access the USB during the Emergency BIOS flash procedure.

 

Anyone?

I'm going to just take it apart and do some circuitry testing (and possible repairs) OR scrap it if that can't fix it.

 

Well I tried everything I know whilst taking it apart and still nothing.
I removed the CMOS battery for over 10 mins, used an eraser on both the monitor and VGA connections, tried booting it up and pressing on the GPU to check for desoldier issue, etc. The bios recovery still works, but it won't let me go past the blinking with the latest bios (probably cause it's a WPH file!)
Really wish the VGA would WORKKKK so I could use FreeDos to update the bios. wtf

 

Hi! First of all 3010 shouldn't be the right bios for the Aspire One 751h: by what I know all the bios versions for the AO751h begin with 32, being 3212 the latest one. First of all download the right bios then follow the advices written here:

viewtopic.php?f=87&t=20047&p=112823&hilit=751h+recovery+phoenix#p112823

I had the same problem (a failed bios update) and I solved it following those advices. Please STRICTLY follow them. For example, before reading that post I had already tried the phoenix recovery procedure but it didn't work, not because of my faults but only because the Aspire One 751h needed EXACTLY that version to succeed with the recovery procedure. Please keep me updated.

 

Still can't get it to work. It must be pretty bad. Any other ideas?

 

The sounds that you mentioned in your first post could very well be a failing hard drive. Some machines, while booting, will freeze at the POST screen if the hard drive is malfunctioning and can't be initialised by the BIOS. Have you tried booting the machine without the hard drive attached? I have a similarr issue with my D250 every now and then, whereby the POST screen will freeze while my power-hungry HDD tries to spin up. Try booting without the hard drive installed and without any memory cards in the SD slot, see how you go. Failing that, try a different USB drive, not every USB drive can be read by the BIOS failsafe.