Specs: Acer E5 574G 52QU running Kubuntu 17.04 and Windows 10 dualbooted. i5-6200U, 8GB RAM, GTX 940M.
What happened: Last night, running Kubuntu, watching YouTube. Video freezes, then resumes with no sound. I get a popup notification saying that KWin crashed. I close Chrome in confusion. The system freezes, and along the left edge of the screen appeared some very minor red artifacting. I do a hard reset, and upon reboot, the fans turn on, hard drive makes noises, all like normal, but no display whatsoever. No splash screen, no POST. I leave the laptop on in order to run down the battery overnight and go to sleep. Wake up this morning, still no display.
Things I've tried today:
-Removing battery, holding power button to discharge static.
-Reseating RAM.
-Moving RAM to a different slot.
-Powering on without RAM.
-Powering on without HDD (grasping at straws here)
-Powering on with a bootable USB
Under all of these circumstances, there is still no display. The activity LED on the USB didn't light, so it's not even recognizing it.
Anything I haven't tried?
Although Acer screens tend to die, that shouldn't cause software issues like this. Your graphics card probably burned out, although I'm not sure why that would affect sound, especially on YouTube. The good news is you have a discrete card so you can replace it. The bad news is it may be dead integrated graphics, too.
It [i]may[/i] be possible to remove the graphics card and run it on integrated graphics only. What is probably happening is your BIOS is detecting a broken graphics card and just getting stuck - I've had this happen on desktops. I'm not sure if that would work, but you already did everything else you could.
That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. I initially assumed it was the RAM because it was - I assume - running on integrated graphics, using the RAM as VRAM, because that would explain the artifacting. Unfortunately, community documentation on this laptop is very, very sparse so it might not be worth it to attempt to remove the GPU.
I might just have to take it into a shop.
I was thinking you had two sticks of RAM and you tested with each one but I guess not. This is actually quite possibly a RAM problem. Busted RAM will cause software crashes and - especially in iGPU mode - graphical problems. And, on boot, your BIOS will simply refuse to POST from a bad RAM stick. Since it's Acer, I'd imagine they cut some costs and didn't bother implementing any diagnostics.
My first fix would probably just be getting a cheap compatible RAM stick from someone to see if that's the problem. That would be the cheapest solution, if it works.
Alternatively, could be busted dGPU, or busted iGPU, or simply a burned out motherboard (I've had all three happen...)
I just realized I have an old trash laptop that's just new enough to have DDR3. I tried that and it still wouldn't POST. So I suppose it can't be RAM that's the problem.
[editline]25th August 2017[/editline]
The GPU isn't removable, it's BGA on the mainboard and mounted under a very fiddly heatpipe.
You should just rma it.
[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52614590]You should just rma it.[/QUOTE]
Past warranty, but yeah. I don't think there's anything I can do.
[QUOTE=AtomicSans;52617528]Past warranty, but yeah. I don't think there's anything I can do.[/QUOTE]
Well, to be exact you could buy a $156 motherboard replacement off of eBay, send the motherboard to Louis Rossman for repair, or bake it in an oven / hit it with a heat gun to see if it revives for a few weeks. (Since it sounds like a dead systemboard)
But to be honest it would be cheaper to buy another computer.
Yeah. I'll just get a used Thinkpad or something. I never got any use out of the dedicated GPU anyway, I ran Linux on it so I couldn't play any games.
And I can cannibalize the HDD for my desktop, so it's not a total loss.
Update: it's suddenly working again, now that my Thinkpad is in the mail. I'll use it in the meantime but I don't trust it at all.
Overheat may be probable, though as most have suggested things like that usually are caused by a failing GPU chip.
And while yes, you can use a heat gun to try and reflow it, it usually dosn't last very long (if it works at all)
Have you tried connecting a secondary display to it? Or do you not have a port for such?
[QUOTE=neonwhite;52696270]Have you tried connecting a secondary display to it? Or do you not have a port for such?[/QUOTE]
99% of laptops do, most (even older ones) should have HDMI. Only issue is that not all of them will output directly after POST. Some require you to do a key combination (usually a function key, or WinKey + P).
Also, alot of laptops will flash the capslock/scrolllock lights (if you have lights on your keyboard) when the gpu is fucked.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
