(SOLVED) Laptop screen stays black when restarting after critical battery status

[MattNewbie]

Dear Community,

yes, this was probably due to my own stupidity...

I shut down my laptop (Asus EEEPC) after the battery status was "critical" with a few minutes left.
I had removed a micro-SD (properly, i.e. via the "disconnect" icon) just before
Next time I restarted, the screen stayed "black", although with some whitish background, quite faint, but reacting to the screen brightness key combination (Fn /F6 and F5).
So I don't think the screen itself is dead (but of course I cannot be 100% sure).
After some fiddling and playing around I connected the laptop to my desktop screen via cable and the sign on screen appeared after the BIOS (i.e. as before), but only on the desktop screen
After sign on, screen goes black (mouse pointer visible) for a long while. The background picture on the desktop reappears, but nothing else. No icons, nothing apart from the mouse pointer.
When I try to move the pointer (arrow) to the laptop screen (i.e. to check if it would try to move to the laptop screen if somehow I was in "Dual screen" mode), the arrow can "disappear" beyond the desktop screen (i.e. to the left).
I tried Shift + Alt + Backspace but it did not help
I found something about Strg + Alt + F2 but as my name says, I am a Newbie...
My humble assumption is that it could have something with the battery power management? Or, if the laptop screen is dead, is there a way of checking this (i.e. via BIOS?)
Thanks in anticipation for your help, pls kindly bear in mind I am a newbie...

Matt

[Cosmo.]

At first find out, if your screen is dead or alive.
Enter the BIOS setup. Is it visible?

[shedyed]

We might not have the same hardware, but those symptoms might be indicative of the CMOS battery about to die (this is the tiny battery that lets you get as far as the BIOS, if you're lucky) but if you weren't it will just give enough juice for the tech to see error messages e.g Replace CMOS soon, or Boot error code nnnn. Might be a good time to fire up your search engine to look for name-of-your-laptop-and-model followed by the text of the error message. Some models are very popular and you get a YT video clip in the search results. Otherwise, try an alternate search.

Either way, let this forum know if you were able to get further with resolving the issue.

[MattNewbie]

At first find out, if your screen is dead or alive.
Enter the BIOS setup. Is it visible?

Dear Cosmo,

thanks for your suggestion.

BIOS is about three quarters visible on the Desktop monitor (about one quarter is not visible on the LH side) but as far as I can see, going through the various menus, nothing about screen. Info about RAM, CPU, WLAN and so on. So I get it's a bad sign but would that explain that on the desktop, I can see the sign-on screen?

There is however a small difference: today, the battery icon is visible (on the sign on screen).

In the field where I normally input the password, I can also, apparently, change the "environment", options are "Cinnamon"; "Cinnamon" (Software Rendering) and "Fluxbox"

When I input the password, same as yesterday, after a long while, only the background picture appears, the only thing I can do then is CTRL/Alt/Backspace.

I could try this "CTRL/Alt/F2 to "get out" of LM but I am at a loss as to what to use as commands...

Thanks for your suggestions if you have any. But if the screen is dead, well, that would be the end of it, however, there was no sign of weakness at all...

Thank you!

[MattNewbie]

We might not have the same hardware, but those symptoms might be indicative of the CMOS battery about to die (this is the tiny battery that lets you get as far as the BIOS, if you're lucky) but if you weren't it will just give enough juice for the tech to see error messages e.g Replace CMOS soon, or Boot error code nnnn. Might be a good time to fire up your search engine to look for name-of-your-laptop-and-model followed by the text of the error message. Some models are very popular and you get a YT video clip in the search results. Otherwise, try an alternate search.

Either way, let this forum know if you were able to get further with resolving the issue.

Thanks Shedyed,

Do you think I would see already an error message on the "desktop screen"? So far I have seen nothing in that direction. However I can try your suggestion, may be hardware issue rather than software, you never know...

Thank you!

[Cosmo.]

Matt, you misunderstood me.

My question was related to the laptop screen. In your starting post you said, that you are not absolutely sure, if it is dead or not. We should at first clear this up. The reason why I asked for the BIOS setup screen is the fact, that on this point no OS is involved. If the laptop screen should be dead, than I think, that the game for the laptop is over. But this would be your decision, of course.

[MattNewbie]

Thanks Cosmo,

BIOS Setup is visible on the desktop screen I connected to the laptop (as I cannot see anything on the laptop screen). Laptop screen stays black. No BIOS appearing on it... I think this is what you wanted to know?

In the meantime I tried a hard reset as per Asus site and also did a CMOS Reset (take out RAM, and shortcut the CLRCT or whatever it is), but no change.

If the laptop screen is dead though, why can I not do ANYTHING (access software beyond the sign on screen etc...) when using the desktop monitor (when connected to the laptop)?

Thank you.

[Cosmo.]

If it makes sense to continue with a dead screen is questionable.

But anyway: Boot a live system and check the usage of the external monitor there.

[MattNewbie]

Hi all,

I am not sure what did it but the laptop is working again as before except maybe for a few settings changes.

Possible solution: I did a hard reset again: Disconnect Power Charger, remove battery, press power switch for 40 seconds or more (as per Asus Site) and reconnect to power WITHOUT PUTTING THE BATTERY BACK IN (which I guess was the main difference to previous trials) and it worked again. I then shut down the system as usual, put the battery back in, left the laptop to charge overnight. This morning I disconnected the charger and started on battery only and the laptop started again, screen on.

I then got a BIOS (American Megatrends) message I had never seen before, giving me the choice between F1 and F2. I chose F1 and only set up the right time. May have to fine tune going forward (for ex., Wi-fi starts by default as soon as the laptop is switched on).

In retrospect I think my mistake was to let the battery power run down too low, but based on my limited IT skills I'll never know for sure. In the end it looks more like a hardware problem so, "lesson learnt"...

Anyway thanks all for reading, thinking about this issue and making suggestions and wish you all a nice week-end!

Matt