Weird video issue from booting

I hope this is not a repost of an issue, I've tried searching all over the net and can not find any reference to it. On my AAO, I would say approximately 25-30% of the time when I turn it on, the screen is messed up. What should be the contents of the whole screen is shown in the upper left corner and goes approximately 75% horizontally and vertically. The remainder of the screen is a mirror or what is being shown in this area. It's almost like it doesn't recognize the correct resolution at boot, but the mirroring has me puzzled as to what is going on. This video behavior carries through to windows as well. I have the 3309 bios successfully installed. I have tried getting newer video drivers from Intel. Nothing has altered this behavior.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be wrong?

 

I had the same issue with mine right after I purchased it. Don't know exactly what the problem was but Acer had to replace both the motherboard and the LCD to repair. Send it back to the merchant or return it for another if you can. If you absolutely must return it to Acer, take pictures before you send it and make sure you inspect it after it is returned.

 

Did your experience with this issue get progressively worse (ie it happened more frequently or the symptoms got worst)? I purchased my AAO on eBay through a Live.com deal. I'm not sure if the merchant has a return policy or not, so I may be stuck dealing with Acer. Why do you suggest taking pictures, does Acer have a rep for scratching up the computer or replacing with a different machine or something? Thanks for you help!

If someone has any other information and maybe a possible fix that keep me from having to send it back I'd appreciate it. Right now, it's not a big deal since it does not happen very much and usually all it takes is powering off and then back on and things are fine.

Thanks to all for the help!

 

Sorry for the late response. My AOA pretty much booted with the video problems every time. Occasionally it would boot normally but I didn't want to take a chance and have it malfunction down the road. As far as my experience with Acer goes, please check out this post: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=8560.

 

I'm going to resurect this issue because as of the last few weeks this problem has resurfaced. For quite some time since the last posting everything has been good, but like I said it has come back.

Almost every time I boot my AAO up, the video is messed up. Right from the beginning with the Acer logo and the bios information comes up. I'll try to explain but it's hard to put into words. The right side of the screen (about 3") is always black. Then it looks like the video is scrunched down to the remainder of the screen. However the video stops about 3/4 of the way down and mirrors the top of what is showing. (See attached images for a better idea of what is going on).

I have a AOA150, currently running Win7/OSX and I have replaced the Wifi Card with a broadcom card. I have had this issue sporadically even before I started "modding" it.

I have very few references on the net about this issue so it must not be widespread. It appears that this might be a hardware failure issue but I hope not. I purchased it off of ebay and with the "mods" I do not think that sending back to Acer will be an option.

Anyone's thoughts or experience will be appreciated.

Thanks!

[attachment=0:25ebdhu3]IMAGE_001b.jpg[/attachment:25ebdhu3]
[attachment=1:25ebdhu3]IMAGE_002.jpg[/attachment:25ebdhu3]

 

This problem is not normal, and you should have returned the unit if it's still under warranty. The screen corruption at just the BIOS menu is a give away that there's something wrong since there's no such thing as drivers for that.

 

I know that there is something wrong, but I did not have this issue until after I had upgraded the RAM and other modifications that does void the warranty.

Since it still appears that I am dealing with a defective computer I decided that it couldn't hurt it anymore if I tried to troubleshoot any and all things I could think of. The RAM that I used to upgrade with (even though it worked fine when I first put it in) was a "used" 1 GB stick of RAM that came from a friends Dell Mini 9 that upgraded his machine to 2GB. Like I said, everything was great for months, but then I started getting this issue off and on with on becoming more and more frequent. Well I thought maybe the RAM was going bad, low and behold, when I take the RAM out and only use the on board 512 MB, everything is fine. Multiple reboots over the course of multiple days and everything boots and displays fine. I decided that the RAM was bad and ordered a 1GB Crucial memory stick that was recommended on these boards. I just got that stick of RAM in and installed it. Same issue is back! Either it is another bad stick of RAM and horrible luck or there is something else wrong related to the RAM.

Any ideas that I could try next? I guess if all else fails, this computer can be wiped and i can resort to a Linux Distro that runs on low memory (suggestions?).

Thanks for the help!