Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58: 2-Minute Black Screen Before Acer Logo + dGPU-Only Mode No Longer Works
TL;DR: My Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 stays completely black for ~2 minutes before the Acer logo appears, then boots into Windows and works perfectly normally. The only major issue is that dGPU/NVIDIA GPU-only mode no longer works. Looking for people who have experienced this specifically and whether BIOS/EC recovery or BIOS reprogramming fixed it. Please don’t suggest basic CMOS reset, power reset, battery drain, etc.
Full issue
Hey everyone,
I have an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 with a very strange issue.
When I press the power button:
- The screen stays completely black for around 2 minutes.
- There is no Acer logo during this time.
- After roughly 2 minutes, the Acer logo finally appears.
- Windows then boots normally.
- Once Windows loads, everything works perfectly fine.
- No random crashes, freezes, BSODs, or other obvious problems.
- The NVIDIA GPU works normally in hybrid mode.
- However, dGPU-only / NVIDIA GPU-only mode no longer works.
The fact that the black screen happens before the Acer logo is what makes this particularly strange. It seems more like something happening during POST/firmware/hardware initialization rather than a normal Windows driver issue.
I’m especially interested in whether this could be related to:
BIOS/EC firmware
BIOS corruption or a bad BIOS state
NVIDIA dGPU initialization
MUX switch / GPU-only mode
POST taking an unusually long time
Motherboard-level dGPU/MUX circuitry
BIOS Crisis Recovery
BIOS reprogramming
I’ve already gone through the usual basic troubleshooting, so please don’t suggest CMOS reset, power reset, battery drain, holding the power button, etc. I’m specifically looking for deeper troubleshooting or people who have encountered this exact behavior.
Has anyone with an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-58 experienced:
~2 minutes black screen → Acer logo → Windows works normally → dGPU-only mode doesn’t work?
If you fixed it, I’d especially like to know whether BIOS recovery, BIOS reprogramming, EC firmware recovery, or motherboard repair solved it.
Thanks!