I am a beginner and recently installed Fedora in a dual-boot configuration alongside Windows on my laptop. After the installation completed, I restarted the system. The Acer logo stayed on the screen for a very long time without booting, so I performed a forced shutdown by holding down the power button.
Now, my laptop appears to be stuck in a No-POST / No-Display state:
Laptop Model: Acer Aspire V15
Setup: Dual-booting (Fedora + Windows)
Current Behavior: When I press the power button, the keyboard backlights turn on and the cooling fans spin, but the laptop screen remains completely black. No backlight or display signal appears.
Troubleshooting Steps Already Attempted:
Performed a full EC / Power reset using the bottom battery reset pinhole (held for 10 seconds, waited 2 minutes, reconnected AC power).
Tried forcing BIOS access by tapping F2 repeatedly upon turning it on (screen remains black).
Tested with an external monitor via HDMI (no signal detected).
Performed the flashlight test on the display (no faint image visible).
Since the force-shutdown occurred while GRUB / the Linux kernel was taking over EFI hardware control from Windows, it seems the embedded controller or BIOS NVRAM is trapped in an improper power state or bad video initialization loop.
Since my laptop still has an intact warranty seal over the bottom chassis screw, I have not opened the case to manually disconnect the main or CMOS battery.
Has anyone encountered this firmware lockup on Acer hardware post-installation, and is there a known key combination or software recovery method to force a display re-initialization before taking it to a technician?
I had a similar issue with an Acer laptop, but this was entirely within Windows. Same kind of issue, dead screen, unresponsive to getting into the BIOS. Seems to be utterly crap GPU firmware.
I switched it on, kept it alive and forced the internal batter to go entirely flat. Hit the reset pin underneath. Insert power, let it come up to some decent charge and then a good 30 seconds leaning on the power button.
It’s quite common - I’ve had it at least twice on this laptop. I can only assume ACER are cutting corners to the point where their products are beyond poor.
I just pulled it out from the drawer it lives in, to actually see what it identifies as, and for the third time it’s doing exactly the same thing. Powers up, no display. At this point it’s bin fodder to be honest - I’d not bother to prop a door open with it. It’s a Switch Alpha 12 apparently. It’s also utter garbage.
The acer systems have known issues with booting linux, where you need to set specific permission in the bios. I have no idea if that is the case four your system.
Thank you so much Steve! I am currently letting the laptop run on battery until it goes completely flat to try your exact reset steps.
Quick question: Once the screen hopefully comes back on, is there a specific GPU driver or BIOS update recommended to prevent Acer’s firmware from locking up like this again?
Thank you Villy! I will definitely keep this in mind once I get the screen back on. Right now I am performing a full battery drain to resolve the black screen / No-POST lockup. Once display is restored, I’ll enter BIOS to set the UEFI trusted file setting for Fedora as you suggested!
Not that I found - I updated to the latest BIOS the last time this happened and assumed it would be fixed. As I’ve just found out, it’s no better.
To be clear, this (at least my situation) has got nothing to do with Fedora or Linux. This Acer I have has only ever seen windows, and thus I don’t believe it’s a software bug - it’s firmware from Acer. You seem to have had it happen to you when installing Linux and as it sounds identical to the issue I’ve had three times now, I think you were simply unlucky.