[flane]

I've recently cracked the screen on my Acer Aspire 5515 laptop -- the left 1/7 of the screen is still visible, but nothing else is. I'm trying to connect it to an external monitor (Philips Magnavox 105 S, from 1999). This works fine for the first 30 seconds or so -- the monitor displays all the usual loading images I get on my laptop -- but when I get to the blue Vista welcome screen (where you select your user name), the monitor suddenly goes black, with a blue box in the center that says "DPMS Off Mode." Can anyone help me understand what's going on, and how to fix it? Thanks.

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Hey flane,

Wow man, same thing happened to me a little while ago.. I basically passed out and fell on top of my laptop. I replaced it a few days ago.. much less expensive. The message you are seeing is produced by the monitor, not by the computer, it has to do with your video card trying figure out what signal to send the video to.. or something. It's annoying when you can't even reach your OS to set settings

There actually should be a button on your keyboard that can set this up before the OS loads.. it looks like a laptop next to another square (representing a separate display...) I can't find a good picture of an Acer Aspire 5515 keyboard, but I'm guessing it's an F5 shortcut. If not, look around the other F keys. Once you find it, fiddle around with it once plugged in and turned on, you should figure it out. Check back if you find it or not, we like to know, and in the meantime, I'm going to try to find the name of this key, so I don't sound like such a dork when trying to explain it..

If you are thinking of replacing the screen yourself as well, we can help. It is actually a fairly easy process I'd say.. and you save loads of money rather than having a repair shop do it..

Cheers,

-Jason

EDIT: Hmm.. It seems to be either a video/projector or lcd/vga conversion key.. I'm not sure to be honest. Either way, you may need to add the FN key to the algorithm to make the switch. Let me know what you find out.

Edited by OpenOutcome, 19 January 2010 - 02:12 PM.

[OpenOutcome]

Hey flane,

Wow man, same thing happened to me a little while ago.. I basically passed out and fell on top of my laptop. I replaced it a few days ago.. much less expensive. The message you are seeing is produced by the monitor, not by the computer, it has to do with your video card trying figure out what signal to send the video to.. or something. It's annoying when you can't even reach your OS to set settings

There actually should be a button on your keyboard that can set this up before the OS loads.. it looks like a laptop next to another square (representing a separate display...) I can't find a good picture of an Acer Aspire 5515 keyboard, but I'm guessing it's an F5 shortcut. If not, look around the other F keys. Once you find it, fiddle around with it once plugged in and turned on, you should figure it out. Check back if you find it or not, we like to know, and in the meantime, I'm going to try to find the name of this key, so I don't sound like such a dork when trying to explain it..

If you are thinking of replacing the screen yourself as well, we can help. It is actually a fairly easy process I'd say.. and you save loads of money rather than having a repair shop do it..

Cheers,

-Jason

EDIT: Hmm.. It seems to be either a video/projector or lcd/vga conversion key.. I'm not sure to be honest. Either way, you may need to add the FN key to the algorithm to make the switch. Let me know what you find out.

Edited by OpenOutcome, 19 January 2010 - 02:12 PM.