Acer Predator Helios 300 Drivers
Maya Malbon
So over the weekend I purchased a brand new Predator Helios 300 Laptop from Best Buy, model #: PH315-55-795C. This model comes with the i7 12700H processor, RTX 3070ti GPU, 16gb RAM and a 1tb SSD. Things however went pretty bad with it pretty quickly though, and I'm trying to understand how and why, and how to solve it when my new one arrives, seeing this one ended up bricked, more info on why to follow.
First however, I am not a fan of Windows 11, and wanted to roll it back to Windows 10 Pro, for which I have a full retail license key. I did a full fresh install of the OS, and all was going well until I let Windows update do it's thing, and it downloaded some display drivers, one called Intel Display, and the other was an Nvidia driver, however I'm pretty sure the former is the issue. On reboot, as soon as Windows loaded, the screen would go black, backlight off, no picture whatsoever. Thinking I had a corrupt windows install (I was having trouble with wifi and the Windows OBE setup crashed after logging into my Microsoft Account and didn't finish properly, but Windows was running fine), I went ahead, wiped the system and reinstalled Windows 10 pro again. The same results ensued, again, after the Intel Display Driver installed.
In troubleshooting, I found that I could connect an external display, via USB C in my case, and get image to show up there without issue, still no laptop display however. I tried changing screen modes, i.e. duplicate or extend displays, turning the backlight on and off, nothing. During this time, the whole system had a hiccup, like the whole thing would freeze momentatrily, and unfreeze after a second or so constantly. I poked around some more, and found something in the display settings that interested me. Under refresh rate, I had the option of choosing "240.003hz" or "60.001hz" as options. Setting the display to "60.001hz" brought it back and the hiccup on the system went away. However, unplugging the external monitor caused the display to revert back to "240.003hz" and turn off again.
At this point, I engaged Acer Support via the phone for help, and here's where things went bad to worse. The tech on the phone had me shut down the system and then hold the power button down for 15 seconds, then initiate a reboot, and enter the bios. Well, holding the power button down as directed apparently bricked the entire machine, no longer could I get it to even post, I'd get a blue power LED, and a quick flash of backlight, and a puff from the CPU fan and that's it, nothing more.
What I'd like to know is if anybody has seen this problem before? Is there a specific driver that is known to cause the issue and can be replaced with a correctly working one? Also, what does holding the power button down do, and why could it brick the machine?
Further, I mentioned above I was having wifi issues: I could connect to a network, but it wouldn't detect internet there, though it was intermittently working. The only network I got reliable access from was my phone's portable hotspot. This was a common issue with both the OEM Windows 11 Home installation and my Windows 10 Pro install. Anybody have any thoughts on that as well? I tried the drivers from Acer's support site and a package directly from Killer Networking (Intel?) as well, same results, connected to network, no internet.
i know this is kinda old but i also had the same issue.. you can't update the intel display drivers.. also you can't let Windows Update it for you either. if this happens you will get a blank screen on restart, unless you plug it into a monitor or you had display output to your nvidia card beforehand.. to fix this issue you must install the intel graphics from your acer laptops drivers and download page.. i had to learn this the hard way and wiped my system thinking it was corrupt or something..
Hello friend, what was the driver you downloaded? Or what page did you download it from and what version, I have already tried a thousand ways, I have Windows 11 and the model is that same ph315-55-795c
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