AAO Model#: ZG5 possible screen\other issue

Ladies and gents,

First, please forgive my lack of the proper terminology. I read through the topics here, and didn't find anyone discussing the same problem, as best as I could figure, so I'm starting a new topic.

I have a 10.1" Acer Aspire One ZG5, with a solid state HD 6GB. About two weeks ago, while reading an article online and with my hands clear of the keyboard, the screen shut off (straight to full black) as well as the left side indicator lights (power indicator remained on). Attempted to adjust the screen brightness settings to no avail, and could not find any indicators that it was responding to stimulus, other then the power button (still can turn on\off, with indicator light). Since then, when turning on, the fan will still turn on for a period of time before turning off.

I purchased said netbook as a former display model, and its been good to me until this point. I'm fairly sure its out of the warranty period, and all the documentation for it is in storage as I've been traveling about for a good bit now. I've been warned about getting most notebooks (and the Acer's in particular) to most computer repair shops, due to the complexity\eccentricity of the internals.

What do you all think is wrong, and is this something experienced by others? More importantly, is this a shop-type repair, or something that one can do-it-yourself (I have some knowhow with computer guts, but not a lot)?

Thank you for your time.

 

First of all you can test graphic adapter it self. You can do that by connecting external monitor to VGA connector and changing output from graphic card to this port by pressing Fn+F5. If this works you can start suspect LCD it self. There is emergency BIOS update procedure explained somewhere in the forum - think BIOS options are similar for 8.9" model and 10" model. In some cases it gave good results...