TravelMate 4280 - working but blank on boot

I have a TravelMate 4280, ~19 months old.
XP pro, SP3; upgraded to 2GB RAM

The last couple of weeks it has displayed nothing at all when booting.
The first thing I see, after what feels like a long wait, is the Acer logo-ed screen briefly, followed by 'Windows is loading' (again briefly) and then the User Selection Screen.
It then works as normal.

Obviously this is not much of a problem for day-to-day computing; however I have it set up to dual-boot with Linux (that acerdata partition made setting it up a breeze!) and the Grub selection menu is one of the things hidden under the blank screen. So too is the selection screen that allows forced booting from a CD. I can get into the BIOS but that is, again, black, so pretty useless (It beeps at me when I press keys it doesn't like!)
My main concern is that at some point I'll need to try & do some troubleshooting for some other problem - they always crop up! - and won't be able to access the tools I need.


I have checked that the settings of Fn+F5 and Fn+F6 are correct.

I have tried searching the 'net, but if there are any other problems like this out there they are buried under the mounds of info on computers that boot but remain blank throughout.

I have also attempted to use Acer's email support, but I cannot figure out which of the half-a-dozen numbers on the back of the machine are the serial number - none of them match the length or format it appears to be expecting. Both their site & the pdf manual are silent on the subject .