# [SOLVED] Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner



## silo20b

Hi,

I have an Acer Aspire one running XP. I recently booted the computer up which then in turn shut itself down. When i now press the power button i am presented by a black background sreen which says "Acer Empowering People" in large white writing in the center. This same sreen also has "Press F2 to enter setup" written at the bottom left in smaller writng. Immidiatly after this screen goes off i am presented with a black screen with a small, white, horizontal flashing line at the top left. This screens stays on permanently, does not re-loup, reboot, or load anything further. The only way to turn the notebook off is by holding the power button down untill it goes off.

Can some please help. I have searched online for solutions but seem to be hitting dead ends.

Thanks in advance


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## [email protected]

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

I'll try to help you until a laptop expert happens to notice your posting...

This symptom usually means a hardware problem. Remove any and all external devices plugged into the various ports, like USB devices, etc. Remove all the removable plug in devices...like the hard drive, the DVD/CD drive, and PCMCIA cards. Remove the battery. 

Plug in the AC. Power up. Do you get a different error screen?


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

Many thanks for the fast respove. However i do not have any plug and play devices connected. I have also tried to power up without a battery (just AC) andstill recieve the same problem.


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

response (not respove)


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## Dematrix

please confirm. when you press f2 to enter setup....does it stay in setup. or does it power off automatically? if it shuts down automatically when in bios setup....there may be an issue with battery or cpu getting hot meaning the fan is not running to cool the cpu which will shut itself down.

you mention that you tried running without the battery...so it only seems fit that it may be the cpu....you can try removing as much component such as memory cards...cd rom drive...erc. they are all can be removed by removing screws ant ect from the bottom of the laptop....i would research on you laptop manufactor site and fpget instructions onhow to remove the rams and cdroms.

then try to turn laptop on and see what happens... my guest from the past is a fan not running or cpu is getting hot and shuts down the system.


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## silo20b

The system does not power down when in F2 bios and remains on as normal. There is no cd drive to unplug as it is only a 10.1" notebook and the only hardware that I am able to access is the hdd and ram. I was hoping to be able to access the recovery console but as previously mention the system does not boot far enough to engage this. My idea now is to load a bootable recovery console onto a flash drive and boot using that. The only problem is I do not have an xp disk to create one from as the system came preloaded with the OS on (even if I had a copy of xp I would not be able to use it due to "no cd drive". Would anyone know where I can download a ready made copy of the recovery console so that I can just simply "copy and paste" it onto my flash drive and boot straight from that?


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

I have ran a few vaious scenarios to try and diagnose the problem but have still have not solved anything. Here are the results of the scenarios (When i have removed the battery i have just used an AC adapter to power up).

HDD only removed -	Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corperation

For Atheros PCIE Ethernet Controller v1.0.0.5(01/22/09)

Check cable connection..!
PXE-E63: Error while initializing the NIC
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key



RAM only removed	-	No boot screens at all.Powers up but just a continual 
black screen with no writing or flashing captions



Battery only removed	-	Same symptoms as original problem.



HDD + Battery removed	-	Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corperation

For Atheros PCIE Ethernet Controller v1.0.0.5(01/22/09)

Check cable connection..!
PXE-E63: Error while initializing the NIC
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key



RAM + Battery removed	-	No boot screens at all.Powers up but just a continual black screen with no writing or flashing captions



HDD + RAM removed	-	No boot screens at all.Powers up but just a continual black screen with no writing or flashing captions



HDD + RAM + Battery removed	-	No boot screens at all.Powers up but just a continual black screen with no writing or flashing captions


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## [email protected]

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

OK, try this. Install the HDD. Turn on and enter BIOS by pressing F2. Check in there to see if you have 'boot from network' activated. It should be off. Or you can un-enable the built in NIC. If you can't find it, there is usually a choice where you can boot with BIOS defaults. Choose that if you can't find the other setting.

This won't hurt anything and you can always return to your current setup.

Found this on another forum:


> PXE is the network boot, so if it's going to that you can go into the BIOS and tell it to only boot from usb, then cd, then hdd and make sure "boot from other devices" is off.


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

I have found the "Boot from network" in bios and it was activated so i disabled it and rebooted but the problem still persists.


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## [email protected]

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

Ouch. OK, I've heard these Acers sometimes need to be powered down, unplugged, batteries removed, and left to sit to reset. I'd recommend an hour. There might be instructions in your computer users guild about how to remove the CMOS battery or some way to reset it. 

After doing that, go back into BIOS and make sure that 'Boot from Network' is still off and then try to boot.

Sorry that no laptop expert has shown up to help...guess they're all busy.


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

OK, ill try that and repost in an hour or two with the outcome.

Thanks so far for your help


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

I have tried what was suggested but the problem still remains


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## [email protected]

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

Well, this is beyond me at this point. I'd suggest a trip to a local PC store that has a good reputation with laptops. If you want to hang around here, someone might be able to come up with some other tests. Sorry


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## silo20b

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

No problem. Thanks again


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## [email protected]

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

I've sent a PM to the moderator of the laptop section of this forum. Perhaps he'll be able to get you some help.


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## reventon

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

That error you are mentioning at the start means that it is not detecting your Hard Drive.

I see you have tried taking the hard drive out and replacing it already. I would do it again and make very sure that it is properly seated. On another forum just yesterday an user had exactly the same problem because the drive wasn't properly in place.

If that fails, do you have a desktop? If the laptop drive is SATA you will be able to connect it to the same plugs as a desktop drive. Hopefully your desktop will detect it.


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## silo20b

Thanks for the response. I have tried reseating the HDD numerous times to no avail. I have also taken the HDD out and connected it to my desktop (which the desktop picks up fine) and ran various virus scans to clear the HDD of any anomalies but the problem still occurs when I connect it back to the laptop. I have tried tried to install a clean version of windows through a USB DVD Ron (booting from USB) and that does not work. Also I have created an XP recovery console on a flash drive to see If I can repair it through that but again no result.


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## Starfish2483

*Re: Black Screen with flashing line at top left corner*

try to create a system restore disc?
Create a system repair disc


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## silo20b

Many thanks to all for your comments and help. I have tried to fix this without the loss of any data from every angle but kept hitting dead ends. I have managed to fix the problem by reluctantly formatting the HDD through my desktop and installing a clean version of windows and drivers etc which now seems to work fine. I can only assume that I have obtained a virus somewhere in the previous installation as all is working fine now.

Again thanks to all.

Kind regards

John


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