Dead aspire one

I have same problem as described above. Black screen with working cursor. I was logging to my wireless and started webcam at the same time, this seemed to provoked a crash. I turned off the computer and there it was.
Now I am pretty sure that recovery would recover my Acer one. However problem is I had a lot of tweaks and I don't want to do everything again if not needed. I am not a Linux expert but I am not a novice too. What it seems to be happening is that the system hangs somewhere and than instead going back to the terminal mode (which would happen if I would use "normal" Linux distribution) it just stuck somewhere without booting xfce... I don't know would there be a way to access Linpus in terminal mode and try to see what is wrong with the system... I guess not but if someone has some idea how to access Linpus on Acer one in pure terminal mode I would highly appreciate. This would really help me diagnose what is causing problem. Otherwise I am wondering if any of the Linux boot recovery drives down-loadable from internet could help me identify the problem...

EDIT

I can confirm in accordance with previous posts on this forum that burning ubuntu 9.04 live CD using Netbootin, and performing disc check on the Linpus HDD after booting fixes this problem...

 

Just a note if you can boot to a live CD or a live USB then it is a good idea whether you are running Windows or Linux to have a live CD/USB to try and recover your data. In Linux this probably means that you need to copy your user or home directory as this will get your tweaks other than the changes you have made via root.

 

I can identify. Walmart gave me a number 3106048208 ext 252. I left message that my AOA150, quit booting up and had a black screen. Also the 3 lites by the charge indicator, didnt flicker. They gave me a number, 8008162237; and they responded. Gave me case reference number and told me to go to acerpanam.com, then go to hot topics #5 read and down load and follow the instructions. You will needa usb drive stick and access to another computer. Call that 2nd number. I just got mine going again. tejano

 

Thanks very much for posting that, it worked a treat.

My 10-month old AOA150 died last night and wouldn't POST/boot at all. I was about to get the screwdrivers out as a precursor to giving it the old heave ho when I spotted your post and thought might as well have a go...

Now, does anyone know *why* that helped exactly? Did the BIOS get corrupted? Can that happen? How? Just curious.

Cheers!

 

I too have a 10 month aao the zg5 model. and it died this morning,[ power light but no activity on any other lights, black screen] this bios update worked the second time i tried. i was shocked when it rebooted and the system came up normally. Thanks to all here, youve helped me in the past and i registered today just to say wsheeeew and thanks

 

Dead after a drop / fall

My AAO was dropped a short distance (say 6-8") into a soft bag that I thought was empty and landed on a small hard object inside the bag. I think it was off at the time but I'm not totally sure. Now, it powers on and the fan runs but nothing else happens. This happened before for software reasons and I used macles' trick to get it running again, but that didn't work this time.
Is it possible the hard drive is dead, or would the computer get further along in starting up (ie show something on the screen etc) if that were the case? I could take out the hard drive and put it in an enclosure for testing but I don't know if that would ruin my chance of getting it repaired under warranty. Also, is it true that acer will bill you for any repairs determined not to be covered by the warranty without asking you first whether you would want the repair done at x price? Someone said this earlier in the thread. How much would a new motherboard cost anyway if that's what's needed? (8.9" AOA150)
My feeling is that the impact might have been enough to trash a running hard drive or knock a connection loose, but I doubt it's really going to be obvious otherwise that the thing was dropped.

 

That worked for me as well.

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/netbo ... aq22.shtml

 

they say it's the BIOS, and having it in "hibernating" mode, i'm still trying to resurrect my AA1, i got the usb with flashit.exe and zg5ia32.fd file, so far i'm reading success stories with the reboot and i hope it works for me too, how long do you hold down the esc and fn keys? before the power led blinks, during when it is blinking, or after?

 

I've only had mine a little while but this morning, after not using it for a bout a month, it won't turn on.

Any ideas?

EDIT: As a side note I've already tried all of the ideas listed, no dice. When plugged into the power cord the charge light doesn't even light up. I've called acer and after a bit of an argument they're sending me a new power cord but I really don't think that's it. The power cord works fine with my friend's Aspire 1 but they insisted. I'll let you all know if that works.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE: After assuring me that they would send a new power cord I got a box delivered from them with half a new power cord. After just over a half-hour they finally figured out the other half was back ordered.

It also didn't come with the return shipping label they had promised. I'm beginning to wonder if they're just going to draw this out until my warranty expires (another 6 months).

I'll let you guys know if they actually fix it

 

man, i tell ya, this forum/thread was a life saver. This morning when i went to turn my Aspire one on, I got the power light and that was it, no screen, faint sound of the fan, great, pulled the battery, use adapter only etc. no luck. called up Acer, they said it was dead motherboard and didn't want to help me further because my warranty was 10 days expired, no grace either. I was ready to chuck this against the wall and head out to bestbuy to buy a new HP mini until I started searching on this forum. Found this thread, did up the bootable usb key with the bios and key sequence a bios flash from the dead aspire and it worked! My aspire has been revived.

That said, thank you to all in this thread/forum for the technical advise, I couldn't recommend this forum more. More then what i can say for the idiot cakes at Acer support. They wanted me to send my A1 in for repairs charging my $200, nice, not a bad fee for 2 minutes to flash the bios.

Damen

 

This forum is awesome.

I had the black screen/computer won't work happen today after work. I tried all the usual battery things, replacing ram, dusting, ect... Then i decided to come here and see if anyone else was having this problem, saw the flash drive bootup and that fixed everything. Thank you very much.

My one year warranty was up 8/27 so i wasn't looking forward to buying a new computer.

 

I have the black screen of death also (see my other post here) and the BIOS flash does not seem to be working... The power LED just keeps blinking and nothing else... Any suggestions will be appreciated... You can reply here or send me an email at : [email protected]

 

Did you follow all the instructions from this link?
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/netbo ... aq22.shtml

My power LED blinked for a few seconds and then turned off. After a few minutes of nothing the computer started on its own.

 

I followed the BIOS re-flash procedure and it didn't work for me... Still nothing... No POST, no hard drive light activity, no screen display... Just the power LED blinking and the fan spinning... Ugh...

 

Might want to check my experiences here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=16142&start=50#p104610. I brought a unit like this back to life, and then killed it... then brought it back to life. Something in there might help...

 

I sent it back to ACER for warranty repair and they replaced the mainboard... It has worked fine for about 1 month... Now I can't connect to my wireless network... Tried everything and it seems like the wireless adapter has crapped out... Back to ACER again?!?!?!?! :x I'm not happy with the poor quanlity of this unit...

 

Yesterday, when I tried to use my A1-AOA150, the last day of the year, I had a great surprise, my toy was dead. Only the green light and the fan noise with the black screen.
After searching the forum I got across with the flash bios updated procedure.
The first time I tried it didnt work because I had made a mistake. When I renamed the file I picked the wrong file. I renamed the file 3309 to ZG5IA32.FD when the correct is rename the file 3309.FD. After correcting that my AOA-150 was back to life again as magic. Thanks, thanks, thanks and Happy New Year for everyone.
Sergio.

 

Glad your machine is working... Since my last post my Acer has worked flawlessly... Apparently the new mainboard Acer gave me includes a newer and more robust BIOS...

 

Hi, listen I might just have the answer for you because the same thing happened to me about two weeks ago. After nearly 1.5 years of trouble-free use, including rugged camping trips (photography use), physical drops, taking to work (taxicab), etc one day it suddenly died. In my case it happened shortly after an incident where it was exposed to a strong static shock while running.

Symptoms exactly as you describe: green power light, black screen, slight fan noise, no response -- with battery or AC adapter the same.
I tried to have it replaced on warranty but in my case it had expired so no luck, and was about to try taking it apart -- but I can tell you that is not easy even after the screws are removed, and likelihood is you won't see anything fixable anyway even if you don't physically break something.

The problem is the BIOS corrupted -- in my case by static shock, maybe in yours by that RAM upgrade? In any case the solution was provided by a poster on "Tom's Hardware" forum (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/26845 ... spire-dead) -- look for the posting by user "plasmastorm". He describes a fix that involves re-flashing the BIOS. I was skeptical but desperate so I tried it and lo-and-behold the little machine came back to life! It is fine now!

He gives a link (http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/no ... e_110.html) for obtaining the latest bios file (v3309.zip). This contains a number of items, the two important being an executable called FLASHIT.EXE and the bios file (3309.fd). These must be placed on a FAT16-formatted USB disk (does NOT need to be made bootable). The 3309.fd file must be renamed ZG5IA32.FD. (That is apparently essential, but I don't know how "plasmastorm" came to know it. Just do it; it works...)

If you can set up the above USB recovery stick, you're ready to bring the dead AspireOne back to life (maybe). Plug it into the Acer, make sure the Acer has both battery and AC power attached. Then, while simultaneously depressing FN+ESC you press the power button and keep the Fn+Esc keys depressed for a few seconds until you see the power button LED blinking. Now press the power button once, and wait a few minutes (don't interrupt what it is doing). You should see some activity on the USB disk's led. The BIOS is being rewritten. After a while the power button will stop blinking and at that point (if all goes well) the machine will reboot itself.

It worked for me. I was very impressed and grateful for the advice and I hope it works for others because I see now that this problem does crop up occasionally.

Good luck.

 

I just unbricked my dad's AAO150 by the usual flashing from a USB disk. Thanks for the help, forum! Good thing I was prepared for this, having read up on all possible problems up front a long time ago (I have an identical unit myself).