Aspire Laptop black flickering screen won't start

[Braedonh]

Hello, I've had an aspire v series laptop for about 2 years now and recently I've run into a problem where when I try to start the computer up it will come up with a black flashing screen. It will eventually start up but it takes a very long time anywhere from an hour - 4 hours. Once it starts up it works fine but obviously I'd like to have this fixed.

Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[mauxie]

pull the battery before you hit the power button(bad batts can interfere)
pull the battery, pull the cord, push and hold power button for 30 seconds(drains the cmos battery
which could be weak) reassemble and power up.

will it let you restart after it comes to life?
if so, you could test your hard drive(usually an option in your bios)
if you have two memory cards switch them(bad memory)
on restart hit f8 and select startup repair.

try these and post back

 

[rish2k248]

pull the battery before you hit the power button(bad batts can interfere)
pull the battery, pull the cord, push and hold power button for 30 seconds(drains the cmos battery
which could be weak) reassemble and power up.

I tried doing the 30 sec power button thing but it did not seem to help. I tried connecting to an external source by HDMI cord but nothing happened.

 

[mauxie]

pull the battery before you hit the power button(bad batts can interfere)
pull the battery, pull the cord, push and hold power button for 30 seconds(drains the cmos battery
which could be weak) reassemble and power up.

I tried doing the 30 sec power button thing but it did not seem to help. I tried connecting to an external source by HDMI cord but nothing happened.

does the machine go into power on self test?
can you get into the bios (tap f2 at startup)?
the symptoms you are describing sound more like basic hardware than display.
do you have install media on dvd? see if the computer will run from that.
also, if you have multiple ram cards, try swapping them.