Acer Travelmate 4235WLMi Screen Problem

Hi Guys

I Bought a new Acer laptop two weeks ago, and the screen is acting funny. The major problem is just before entering Windows XP. Just before the Initial Picture that shows, just before the Welcome screen.
The problem is a faulty image which is shown below.


This is displayed for about 3-4 seconds, after which the screen goes blank.

The screen stays blank for about 3 minutes, and then i get the following screen.



After which the computer restarts.

The problem is that this does not happen regularly at all, it happens when you least expect it and at the worst possible time. That being said, when it does happen, it happens, just before entering WinXP. Like the video driver is not being loaded, or something, its very weird. The only way i can get the notebook up again, is by holding the power button (during the time that the screen is blank) until it shuts down and then doing a required scan disk, because the shut down was inappropriate.

I have restored to factory setting twice, and this keeps happening. I have updated every driver under the sun, and it keeps happening.

Any Ideas what is going on?

 

I would not attempt to do anything on your own, especially since your new notebook is still under warranty. Just have Acer deal with it so you make sure you aren't using a lemon.

 

Yup, that was what i was going to do anyway. the thing is, it happens completely randomly. If i send it to them, they will look at it, it wont happen, and they will say that the notebook is fine, and send it back to me still faulty.

 

A new development.

If the laptop is running on battery and is then shut down and plugged in to charge the battery but not booted. Then Once the battery has been charged, and the notebook is booted from battery power only, the screen is most likely to appear garbled.

 

I had a problem like that with my 8204 too. I have had my laptop for a year and i never experienced that until just early this year.

On Dec 31, i restored my system to a complete image that i created last April, and i noticed something similar to this happening just after that (on wakeup from standby the display would be garbled or blank. But i figured out that since the machine would start at the login page, if i couldn't see the display and hit TAB once and ENTER twice, i could get it to shut down properly and then i could reboot). Once i did the restore i noticed that My Catalyst Control Center wouldn't work. Once i reinstalled my ATI drivers and Catalyst started working again i stopped having the problem that you describe above.

BUT.. What you said on your last post made a lot of sense. Now that i think about it that screen event also seemed to happen after i had used the machine on battery, put it in Standby (which i always do) and plugged it in to charge. But when i would bring it out of standby, even with it plugged in this would happen. Since i reinstalled the ATI drivers, i have not used it in the above mentioned mode. I'll have to try using it like that again to see if i still have this problem.

Ya, It's a strange one

Y

 

I'm just hoping that, this wont cause further damage to the system

 

I wonder if this is just a windows problem. Might try loading on Suse10.