I took apart my Acer Aspire 5 A515-54 laptop to get some info from the motherboard. After putting it back together, the screen wouldn't work at all—though the motherboard seemed fine as I could connect an external monitor. I thought maybe the issue was with the screen ribbon cable, so I disconnected and reconnected it multiple times, even while the laptop was powered on. Eventually, the laptop just shut off completely and wouldn't turn on again; no lights, nothing. I chalked it up to possibly shorting something out due to messing with the cable while it was on.
Now, I've got a replacement motherboard that works, but the screen is still blank. I played around with the cable again (this time with the power off), but it still won't show anything. Strangely, the laptop would power on after I plugged in the charger, indicating maybe a glitch, but the screen remained dead. I got another cable thinking that could fix it, but still no luck. I'm suspecting it might be the screen itself, as I never took it apart.
Now the laptop won't turn on at all, except for the orange charging light when the charger is plugged in. I'm worried that my issues have somehow destroyed multiple motherboards. Can just having the battery connected cause this much failure even when the laptop is off? How do I diagnose what electronic component on the motherboard might be bad? I have the motherboard schematics but they're pretty confusing. Any thoughts on why the screen might have died so suddenly and what I might do next?
1 Answer
It sounds like you might have shorted something by not disconnecting the battery first. There's still power in the laptop even when it's off if the battery is connected, and slight misalignments can cause shorts. If you're lucky, there might be a fuse on the motherboard that blew, and replacing that could fix the problem. Fuses are small components, often labeled, and they prevent further damage from shorts.
Got it! Note to self: always disconnect the battery first. What exactly is a fuse on the motherboard and how would I identify it?