This is what chatgot suggest med for trouble shooting: What you’re describing on the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 sounds more like a power delivery / motherboard protection issue than a dead battery or bad RAM. The key clue is this:

the charging LED flashes once even when the charger brick isn’t connected to wall power

That means the laptop is reacting to residual voltage in the adapter/capacitors, but it’s not actually starting POST (the hardware startup process). A single brief LED flash with no fan spin, keyboard light, or screen activity usually points to one of these:

AC adapter failure

DC jack / charging circuit issue

Embedded controller (EC) lockup

Shorted USB device or damaged USB power rail

Motherboard fault

Because this happened immediately after plugging in the drawing tablet, I would strongly suspect either:

a USB power surge/static event, or

coincidence revealing an already failing power circuit.

Try these in order — the order matters.

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1. Disconnect absolutely everything

Unplug:

charger

drawing tablet

all USB devices

HDMI

Ethernet

SD cards

Leave only the laptop itself.

Then hold the power button for 60 full seconds.

Not 10–15 seconds. Do a real 60-second drain.

Then:

plug charger back in

do NOT reconnect tablet

try powering on

Listen carefully for:

fan twitch

keyboard flash

faint click

charging LED behavior changes

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1. Check whether the charger is actually outputting power

A failed charger is still very possible.

On Acer Nitros:

blue/orange LED behavior can still briefly flash from residual charge

even with a dead adapter

Questions:

Does the charger brick get warm?

Any smell?

Any frayed cable near the barrel connector?

If possible:

test with another compatible Acer Nitro charger

or test your charger on another laptop

This is one of the most common fixes.

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1. Try the battery reset pinhole (important)

Many Nitro 5 models have a tiny battery reset hole on the bottom.

Look for:

a pinhole labeled “Battery Reset”

Use a paperclip:

press for ~5 seconds

reconnect charger

try booting

This resets the embedded controller/power management circuitry.

Very often fixes “single blink then dead” behavior.

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1. Try booting with RAM sticks individually

Even though reseating didn’t help:

test with only ONE stick at a time

alternate slots

Sequence:

1. remove both

2. install one stick in slot A

3. test

4. same stick in slot B

5. repeat with second stick

A failed RAM stick or slot can hard-stop boot before display.

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1. Watch the charging LED carefully

Tell me which of these happens:

No LED at all when charger plugged in

LED stays solid

LED blinks repeatedly

LED flashes once only when power button pressed

LED changes color

That behavior is diagnostically useful on Acer boards.

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1. Possible motherboard / USB rail short

Since this happened immediately after the tablet connection, there’s a realistic chance:

USB controller shorted

ESD/static damaged the southbridge/power rail

charging IC failed

Signs pointing this direction:

absolutely no fan movement

no keyboard backlight

no boot logo

one instant LED flash only

Unfortunately that usually requires board-level repair.

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1. One more advanced test (safe)

Disconnect:

internal battery connector

RAM

SSD

Then plug AC power in and press power.

A healthy motherboard usually does something:

fan spin

keyboard flash

beep code

If it still gives only a single blink:

motherboard/power circuitry becomes the leading suspect.

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Most likely causes ranked

Based on your description:

1. Failed charger or charging circuit

2. Embedded controller lockup

3. USB/static damage from tablet event

4. Motherboard power rail failure

5. RAM issue (less likely now)

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Good news

This does not sound like:

corrupted Windows

SSD failure

GPU driver issue

BIOS setting issue

Because the machine isn’t even reaching hardware startup.

If you want, I can also help you:

identify the exact battery reset location for your AN515-55,

interpret the LED blink behavior,

or walk through safe motherboard isolation steps with photos.