Acer A0A 110 has a black screen during boot up along with a black cursor

sw3etpinay · 12-08-2010, 05:58 PM

Early this morning, I turned on my Acer laptop and during bootup it seemed normal.
After it passed the blue Acer logo, all I could see is a black screen and a black cursor outlined in white in the shape of an X.
Thinking it would be a one time thing, I turned it off again.
Sadly, it still was a black screen.
Anyone ever experienced this? If so, how did you fix it?

EDDY1 · 12-08-2010, 06:06 PM

Seems like you somehow ended up with x desktop.
Right-click on screen to view apps or options.
Then post back

sw3etpinay · 12-08-2010, 06:11 PM

Hello again, I tried your right clicking method, and it does nothing.
The only thing I could do is move the cursor but that's it.

markush · 12-08-2010, 06:27 PM

Hello sw3etpinay,

boot with a live-CD, mount the / partition of your Linux and look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log (at the end of the file). If it is an X-server issue you will find the informations there. If you don't get it, please post the file here.

Please provide more information, which distribution are you using? which windowmanager? did you change something at your laptop recently?

Markus

gd2shoe · 12-08-2010, 07:07 PM

Something changed recently. It sounds like your desktop manager isn't coming up. This could be a hardware or filesystem issue (or a mere configuration change).

Did you update your system recently? Did you drop it?

I'd also recommend using a live cd (knoppix, or Ubuntu) to diagnose this. Run memtest from the boot: prompt and run fsck from the command line (use the '-n' option for now, until we know what we're dealing with).

sw3etpinay · 12-08-2010, 10:02 PM

Thanks you guys, I'm going to download Ubuntu right now and get back to you n_n.

sw3etpinay · 12-09-2010, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gd2shoe

I'd also recommend using a live cd (knoppix, or Ubuntu) to diagnose this. Run memtest from the boot: prompt and run fsck from the command line (use the '-n' option for now, until we know what we're dealing with).

Okay so I JUST finished downloading Ubuntu, and tried running it.
But I have no idea how to "run memtest from the boot"
Help please?

gd2shoe · 12-09-2010, 01:47 AM

I don't have a current Ubuntu disk. On mine, you boot from the CD, select English, and then pick "Test Memory". The program runs in a loop. Run it all the way through at least once (pass=1). From Knoppix, you're presented with a "boot:" prompt that you enter "memtest" into. Same thing.

sw3etpinay · 12-09-2010, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gd2shoe

I don't have a current Ubuntu disk. On mine, you boot from the CD, select English, and then pick "Test Memory". The program runs in a loop. Run it all the way through at least once (pass=1). From Knoppix, you're presented with a "boot:" prompt that you enter "memtest" into. Same thing.

Hm, right now I'm rebooting it and the Ubuntu logo comes up and then for a few hours now it still remains a black screen but this time a blinking white _

EDDY1 · 12-10-2010, 05:45 AM

If this is your graphics card this is what I found:
Intel 945GME Express integrated graphics

http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showcat.php/cat/187
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/inde...t-1024011.html

This one really stands out:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/UxaTesting

thorkelljarl · 12-10-2010, 06:23 AM

The useful questions have been asked...

Again, what linux distribution are you using? What, if any, changes did you make or observe just before this happened? As you try to fix the problem tell us what you have done and what you recieve for error messages.

Posting back with sufficient information gives everybody more to work with for a solution.

If you press "Enter" at the Ubuntu boot splash(purple screen, keyboard icon at the bottom), can you get to the Ubuntu boot screen to find memory testing?

Memtest86+ is on many live-cds, including Ubuntu. if you can, you might try to open the back of your laptop and remove all but one memory module, then run Memtest86+ for several hours. Repeat the process with any other modules.

It can be difficult to isolate such a problem to either a fault in your hardware or an instance of linux going off the rails, so try to be systematic and thorough in what you do and what you post.

EDDY1 sets you on the right path for trouble shooting your graphics chip, but it would be good to test the hardware with a live-cd of some version of linux that should boot with this Aspire, maybe a linux for netbook(Ubuntu Netbook?). Google will tell you more.

onebuck · 12-10-2010, 07:16 AM

Hi,

Just a caution!

Be sure to have the system power removed when removing or installing memory.

gd2shoe · 12-10-2010, 07:15 PM

Memtest is EXTREMLY minimalist, and will work with ANY video card, without drivers. The Ubuntu boot splash is also designed to work anywhere. If they don't work, you either have a hardware issue of some type, or a bad CD.

(Note: this is reguardless of X11 setup, which is not running at all for this test!)

Please tell me you at least got the Ubuntu boot options. If not, please try your disk in another machine to make sure it was burned properly.

(I hope I'm misunderstanding you. It sounds like hardware failure.)

Kenny_Strawn · 12-11-2010, 10:20 AM

I have this same problem with Ubuntu 11.04 Alpha 1 and my AOA110-1545: It is not an X issue at all. The blinking cursor is at the GRUB or whatever level, as it appears just after the BIOS loads. However, turning it on several times usually corrects the problem.

gd2shoe · 12-11-2010, 06:14 PM

Quote:

all I could see is a black screen and a black cursor outlined in white in the shape of an X.

Sounds like X11.

Quote:

it still remains a black screen but this time a blinking white _

Could be a grub problem. If so, I'm guessing the Ubuntu logo mentioned was resident in video memory (stuff like that sometimes gets displayed during boot.)

This is one of the reasons I suspect hardware.

Kenny_Strawn, I don't know what causes your issue, but it's probably different than sw3etpinay's. When I had that problem, it was a weird conflict between my BIOS and my partition table. His problem seems to be getting progressively worse, while yours is static.

If it's a problem with the hard drive (assumption), continuous usage or booting could cause further damage or total failure. Backup your data now. (hopefully you already have)