Laptop with XP crashes twice a day - Please HELP

[Guest]

Hi all,
Imagine the frustration when the laptop crashes & you dont know the reason?
Well mine's been happening a lot lately, atleast twice a day. It is going to
be a long post as I have tried as much as I could without taking the laptop
apart. So please provide suggestions after reading through the full post.
Thank you.

My specs are:
AMD sempron 2800
512 MB RAM
Combo drive
40 Gb hard disk etc etc.

The problem is, without warning, the laptop just POWERS OFF. It does NOT
shut down. Its like somebody suddenly removed the power to the laptop as I
mostly use the laptop without the battery. Initially I thought it could be a
power issue. But then I saw that it happens even when I am running on
battery. So I asked a technician to look into it and he said that it could be
a heat issue. So he cleaned everything and he said that there was a lot of
fluff blocking the air vents and close to the processor. Everything was fine
for a couple of weeks when it started again. This time he took the laptop
again and cleaned it and gave it back to me. But it has still hasn't solved
the problem. I also installed a 3 FAN system under the laptop with NO
difference.

Sometimes when I have switched it off all night and I turn it ON in the
morning, it does NOT get past the boot screen. It immediately powers OFF. I
have tried almost everything and nothing seems to work. When I go into event
viewer to see if there are any reported conflicts, there seems to be nothing
out of the ordinary.

When it powers off, if I try to turn it back ON immediately, it NEVER gets
past the boot screen. If I leave it for about half an hour and then try it,
it boots normally - which should indicate that it is a temperature problem. I
have now installed Everest Ultimate Edition and monitoring the temperature.
The CPU core temp never rises over 48 deg and the HDD temp never rises over
42 deg.

ember that before installing the EVEREST ultimate edition, I had installed a
program called "Speedfan" I think. It was giving me 4 temperature readings,
when EVEREST is giving me only 2. The 4 readings Speedfan gave me were: CPU,
HDD, ACPI1 and ACPI2. CPU and HDD were in 40s most of the time. ACPI (dont
remember which one among the two) was always in the 60s range. Although I
dont know if that has any connection to the problem as the laptop also
powered down after a cold boot (after leaving the system turned off all
night), when it did not even load Windows logo during startup. Immediately
after POST, it just hung for a few seconds and powered down.

Recently, I realised that the system powers down within a few seconds if I
enter BIOS. I also went into Acer tech support and downloaded the latest BIOS
and flashes it, but NO difference at all.

I then downloaded the EUROSOFT PC-CHECK software to see if there is
something wrong with the hardware. It is a bootable CD and as soon as it
boots into the CD, within few seconds, EVERYTIME it powers down.

I know that it is a very strange problem, making me think that the
motherboard is probably fried. Please somebody give me some assurance.
Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas, please let me know. I have to write
my thesis and I scared as hell to trust this laptop.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Sridhar

 

[Malke]

Hi all,
Imagine the frustration when the laptop crashes & you dont know the reason?
Well mine's been happening a lot lately, atleast twice a day. It is going to
be a long post as I have tried as much as I could without taking the laptop
apart. So please provide suggestions after reading through the full post.
Thank you.

My specs are:
AMD sempron 2800
512 MB RAM
Combo drive
40 Gb hard disk etc etc.

The problem is, without warning, the laptop just POWERS OFF. It does NOT
shut down. Its like somebody suddenly removed the power to the laptop as I
mostly use the laptop without the battery. Initially I thought it could be a
power issue. But then I saw that it happens even when I am running on
battery. So I asked a technician to look into it and he said that it could be
a heat issue. So he cleaned everything and he said that there was a lot of
fluff blocking the air vents and close to the processor. Everything was fine
for a couple of weeks when it started again. This time he took the laptop
again and cleaned it and gave it back to me. But it has still hasn't solved
the problem. I also installed a 3 FAN system under the laptop with NO
difference.

Sometimes when I have switched it off all night and I turn it ON in the
morning, it does NOT get past the boot screen. It immediately powers OFF. I
have tried almost everything and nothing seems to work. When I go into event
viewer to see if there are any reported conflicts, there seems to be nothing
out of the ordinary.

When it powers off, if I try to turn it back ON immediately, it NEVER gets
past the boot screen. If I leave it for about half an hour and then try it,
it boots normally - which should indicate that it is a temperature problem. I
have now installed Everest Ultimate Edition and monitoring the temperature.
The CPU core temp never rises over 48 deg and the HDD temp never rises over
42 deg.

ember that before installing the EVEREST ultimate edition, I had installed a
program called "Speedfan" I think. It was giving me 4 temperature readings,
when EVEREST is giving me only 2. The 4 readings Speedfan gave me were: CPU,
HDD, ACPI1 and ACPI2. CPU and HDD were in 40s most of the time. ACPI (dont
remember which one among the two) was always in the 60s range. Although I
dont know if that has any connection to the problem as the laptop also
powered down after a cold boot (after leaving the system turned off all
night), when it did not even load Windows logo during startup. Immediately
after POST, it just hung for a few seconds and powered down.

Recently, I realised that the system powers down within a few seconds if I
enter BIOS. I also went into Acer tech support and downloaded the latest BIOS
and flashes it, but NO difference at all.

I then downloaded the EUROSOFT PC-CHECK software to see if there is
something wrong with the hardware. It is a bootable CD and as soon as it
boots into the CD, within few seconds, EVERYTIME it powers down.

I know that it is a very strange problem, making me think that the
motherboard is probably fried. Please somebody give me some assurance.
Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas, please let me know. I have to write
my thesis and I scared as hell to trust this laptop.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Sridhar

This is not necessarily a "strange problem" but it is a hardware issue.
Heat is not the only thing that can cause hardware problems. Since you
can't even run a hardware diagnostic, the cause could be:

1. Bad RAM - try different RAM
2. Bad processor
3. Bad motherboard.

The only way to deal with this on a laptop is to send it to the laptop
mftr. for repair/replacement.


Malke

 

[Guest]

Hi Malke,
This page wasnt loading before, so I replied in the Hardware forum saying
that I havent received any replies. My apologies.

Thanks for your inputs. Unfortunately the laptop is no longer under warranty
and Acer is going to charge me a hell lot of money to do anything with the
laptop. So I am in a kind of fix right now.

I used Eurosoft's PC-Check and once it worked just enough to complete
the motherboard test and it did NOT find any problems. Immediately after
that, the laptop went dead. Since yesterday I am trying to boot into the same
program to run the Memory test and the laptop is not staying ON long enough
for the test to complete. So now I am stuck.

Another thing that I have noticed is that if I go into BIOS or if I am
booting into the diagnostic software, then within a few seconds the laptop
goes dead. But if I boot into windows, it stays ON for a quite a few hours
before it dies.

So I am really sure where to go from here other than having it sent to the
manufacturer. Please let me know if you have any more thoughts.

I apologise again for the multiposting.

Thank you

Sri

 

[Guest]

Another thing that I have noticed is that if I go into BIOS or if I am
booting into the diagnostic software, then within a few seconds the laptop
goes dead. But if I boot into windows, it stays ON for a quite a few hours
before it dies.

So I am really sure where to go from here other than having it sent to the
manufacturer. Please let me know if you have any more thoughts.

I apologise again for the multiposting.

Thank you

Sri

I know that my thought may sound a little (?) silly, but how old is the
battery pack? The Li-ion batteries have a life expectancy of 400 charge and
discharge cycles as an average rule, and you may have noticed its current
quality by extended time of discharge. The thought in spite of being aware
your observations regarding the difference in time before "crash" going BIOS
and XP (?). That one could point to another (hardware) problem rather than
temperature.

I assume you have checked the "device" powering the notebook when you "- use
the laptop without the battery" for its operation and connections.

And thinking of it: Have you watched the notebooks power LED for any erratic
behaviour at the time of crash?

Presumably have you as well tried Safe Mode to note any change in behaviour.

And yes; Temperature seems to be an issue regarding the AMD sempron 2800
:
http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?
catid=26&threadid=83599&enterthread=y

Regards,
Ka2H

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply. I had been away and had not checked the post until
now.
I use the laptop most of the time without battery as it is plugged into the
wall socket all the time. So my guess is - its not the battery. Since it also
happened with the battery and without having the power plugged into the wall
socket, I am assuming that it has nothing to do with the power either.

Since it crashes immediately after POST and as soon as I enter BIOS setup
EVERYTIME, probably means that there is something wrong with the hardware.
About the power LED's, there is nothing absurd or anything; if it is
switching off before loading Windows, then after the POST screen, the system
just hangs at a blank screen before bringing up the Windows logo and stays
there for about 20 seconds and then "puff", power LED is OFF, hard disk LED
is off, and the system is OFF everything at once. If it is inside windows,
then it will hang for about the same time about 20 seconds - where nothing
will move, mouse or keyboard and everything goes OFF together.

Same stuff is Safe mode too, where sometimes I cant even get to.

So all this seems to lead to the same conclusion that maybe something got
burnt in the hardware irreversibly.

If somebody has some other ideas please pour it over.
Thank you very much.
Sri

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Thank you for your reply. I had been away and had not checked the post
until
now.
I use the laptop most of the time without battery as it is plugged into
the
wall socket all the time. So my guess is - its not the battery. Since it
also
happened with the battery and without having the power plugged into the
wall
socket, I am assuming that it has nothing to do with the power either.

Since it crashes immediately after POST and as soon as I enter BIOS setup
EVERYTIME, probably means that there is something wrong with the hardware.
About the power LED's, there is nothing absurd or anything; if it is
switching off before loading Windows, then after the POST screen, the
system
just hangs at a blank screen before bringing up the Windows logo and stays
there for about 20 seconds and then "puff", power LED is OFF, hard disk
LED
is off, and the system is OFF everything at once. If it is inside windows,
then it will hang for about the same time about 20 seconds - where nothing
will move, mouse or keyboard and everything goes OFF together.

Same stuff is Safe mode too, where sometimes I cant even get to.

So all this seems to lead to the same conclusion that maybe something got
burnt in the hardware irreversibly.

If somebody has some other ideas please pour it over.
Thank you very much.
Sri

I would agree, this points to hardware failure, requiring professional
service. Unfortunately, this can rapidly exceeed the cost of a new laptop
if the system is out of warranty, because so many things basically require
replacement of the system board.

So, get an estimate *first* and before you take it in, spend a few minutes
pricing new, comparable laptops. You'll probably find that they have come
down considerably.

HTH
-pki

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply. I had been away and had not checked the post until
now.
I use the laptop most of the time without battery as it is plugged into the
wall socket all the time. So my guess is - its not the battery. Since it also
happened with the battery and without having the power plugged into the wall
socket, I am assuming that it has nothing to do with the power either.

Since it crashes immediately after POST and as soon as I enter BIOS setup
EVERYTIME, probably means that there is something wrong with the hardware.
About the power LED's, there is nothing absurd or anything; if it is
switching off before loading Windows, then after the POST screen, the system
just hangs at a blank screen before bringing up the Windows logo and stays
there for about 20 seconds and then "puff", power LED is OFF, hard disk LED
is off, and the system is OFF everything at once. If it is inside windows,
then it will hang for about the same time about 20 seconds - where nothing
will move, mouse or keyboard and everything goes OFF together.

Same stuff is Safe mode too, where sometimes I cant even get to.

So all this seems to lead to the same conclusion that maybe something got
burnt in the hardware irreversibly.

If somebody has some other ideas please pour it over.
Thank you very much.
Sri

The crash "pattern" of the Acer can be considered having lack of consistency:
- "Sometimes when I have switched it off all night and I turn it ON in the
morning, it does NOT get past the boot screen" - i.e. cold "machine" /
circuitry.
- "When it powers off, if I try to turn it back ON immediately, it NEVER gets
past the boot screen. If I leave it for about half an hour and then try it,
it boots normally" - i.e. warm - and cold "machine" / circuitry.
- "The technician cleaned it and everything was fine for a couple of weeks
when it started again." - i.e. warm - and cold "machine" / circuitry.
- Eurosoft's PC-Check most often don't and once worked just enough to
complete the motherboard.
- "- go into BIOS or if I am booting into the diagnostic software, then
within a few seconds the laptop goes dead. But if I boot into windows, it
stays ON for a quite a few hours before it dies." - - i.e. warm - and cold
"machine" / circuitry.
- "Same stuff is Safe mode too, where sometimes I cant even get to."

This could point to a power (supply) problem like:
- A soldering joint failure ("cold solder"), which could have been touched
when the technician cleaned the "machine". The nature of these failures is
temperature related in the sense that that they can make (sufficient) contact
when they are cold and open (or increase the resistance) when they are warm,
or quite the contrary. They normally occurs in joints between
components/circuit traces, carrying heavy current surges. They can be
identified (with sharp eyes or / and a magnifying lens) by dis-coloring, a
crack or verfied by measuring with a multimeter. Can be re-soldered.
- A problem with the power jack (as you are mostly using the AC/DC adapter)
or the power switch, another place for a soldering joint - or a worn failure.
Can be identified by wiggling (carefully!) the connector or switch.
Re-soldered or replaced.
- A problem with the power supply. Identified by measurments.

Regards,
Ka2H