Screen stays black after bootup

Hi guys,

I have an Acer Aspire 5520 laptop that I have been using for 3-4 years. Besides overheating and short battery life, I hadn't had any problems until today. Yesterday it was running fine, but today the screen stays black when I boot it up. The screen doesn't turn black - it stays black as if I hadn't booted up at all. I haven't installed any new software. I haven't dropped it, so it should have no recent physical damage. It had 2 GB RAM and about 100-150 GB free space, so that shouldn't be a problem either. I haven't had any malware problems recently.

When I boot it up, it makes the noise it always does when booting up - fan running, and a few clicks coming from the CD drive. The BIOS light flashes normally. No strange beeps or anything. I have to close it manually afterwards. I'm thinking the display card has failed somehow, but is there any way I can know for sure or fix it?

I tried to run it after unplugging all USB drives, the mouse and the cooling pad. I ran it while charged and when not getting charged, but it still doesn't work.

I use W7 by the way, if it's relevant in any way.

Try plugging it into an external monitor. If the desktop shows up then it is something directly relayed to the screen. Also try taking a flashlight and shining it on an angle across the screen. If the backlighing is out then you will see an a faint image.

Tried the flashlight thing, saw nothing. I don't have a monitor so I won't be able to do that for the time being. However, I can take it to school on Wednesday and connect it to a video projector. Would that do the job? Also, anything else?

The projector will be fine. Just remember you might need to switch to the projector using the FN key and find the key that has the graphic that looks like a screen for it to work. Thia will let us know if it is the screen or the video chip on the motherboard. Either way not a really cheap thing to repair.