I bought this notebook brand new 6 months ago. It's an ACER
Aspire 3003WLCi. Recently I've had a lot of problems with
applications "not responding" and having to be closed. Upon
reboot recently i'm getting the message that one of my
hard disks needs to be checked for conisistency. It does a
checkup of the disk (takes a long time) and then it reports
that "Windows replaced bad clusters in file .... " Does
this mean that my hard drive is failing (has failed?) and
needs to be rebuilt/replaced?
Maybe, bit early to say yet. It could just be due to not
shutting down properly.
Should I contact ACER about this problem (I
think I have 1 year warranty on the machine.)
Yes.
I never just power off the computer. I always fight with it
to close the unresposive applications and shut down using the
regular method (start/shutdown/restart.)
OK, that's definitely the problem.
You dont say which OS you are using, if it came
with XP installed, I've never seen that with XP.
Its pretty common with 98SE tho.
Well, I'm not getting any clicking or other noises.
I don't recall this happening immediately after doing any
changes or installations on the system, but at around the same
time, I have added an Epson C45 inkjet printer and installed
the software and drivers, as well as installing MS Visual
Studio .NET. Again, i don't recall the problems occurring
immediately after either of those events, but it seems to
have all started
happening at around the same time (memory is a bit fuzzy.)
Yeah, I havent seen any problem with MS Visual Studio
.NET producing that result with XP. I have seen quite a
few problems with 98SE and shutdown tho.
Its not strictly speaking a warranty problem if its due to
what you have done to the system since you bought it.
I wont make any further comments until you say
which OS is involved other than to say that this
has some pretty decent lists of the issues involved.
http://aumha.org/win4/a/shutdown.htm
I'm using Windows XP Home, Sevice Pack 2.
OK.
I checked out the website you linked to, and I saw this section:
"PROGRAMS HANG / BECOME UNRESPONSIVE. Sometimes programs don¡¯t
close down correctly, or hang for some other reason during the
Windows shutdown process. This freezes up, or at least
significantly delays, Windows shutdown.
Cant say I have ever seen that happen with XP, any freeze
up on shutdown. I have seen it take longer to shut down than
normal but I have never had to turn the system off manually
unless its got so screwed I cant even initiate a shutdown at
all, and that is very very rare in my experience.
For example, a few people have reported an error message that
EXPLORER.EXE has become unresponsive during shutdown when they
have used Win XP¡¯s native CD-burning capabilities during that
Windows session.
Cant say I have ever seen that either, but thats hardly
surprising given that I never use the native CD burning at all.
If Windows is hanging because it can¡¯t force a program to
terminate, one solution is to disable the automatic end
task logic (AutoEndTask). Use this registry patch to force that
setting change. (Be sure to back up the Registry first.) "
Perhaps I should apply that patch and see if it clears the
problem up any?
Are you actually seeing a hang during shutdown ?
One other thing I forgot to mention, and this could be critical
information, so I apologize for not mentioning before but It
slipped my mind, when I would finally get the machine to reboot
after fighting the nonresponsive applications, i would
occasionally get a Windows pop-up message just before the
machine went down for re-boot that there was some kind of
memory error.
Yeah, that is crucial info.
I wish I had written it down but usually referenced some kind of
memory address and that
there was an error reading, writing or fetching.
The detail usually isnt significant, what matters
is that its claimed ot be a memory error.
I'm sure I will get the error again soon and I will write down
and post here the exact syntax. I guess this could be
underlying the whole problem?
Yes it certainly could. Try the memtest86 ram
diagnostic and let it run overnight etc. Its a pretty
decent test of occasional ram errors.
Well, looks like we're getting to the heart of the problem here...
I downloaded memtest86 and when I ran it it gave me the following
message:
"The system memory manager (EMM386.EXE) has detected an error
caused by a fault in one of the device drivers or programs loaded
in the system."
Thats a tad weird. You sure you're actually booting the memtest86
CD ? There shouldnt be any EMM386.EXE involved since memtest86 is a
standalone program that you boot off CD.
"Due to this fualt the system is probably in an unstable state,
and you are therefore recommended to reboot the computer
immediately. If the problem persists then try to isolate which
program is at fault (if you have loaded several then load them one at
a time
until the fault appears.) Then contact the technical support
department for
that program."
"Advanced Technical Information:
Exception 6 (Invalid Opcode)
DS=0070 ES=0100 EAX=EA0C0001 FS=0000 SS=0100 ESP=00000A34 GS=0000
CS=EA0C EIP=00000004 EBX=00007E18 ECX=0000FFFF EBP=00000A4C
ESI=000028DA EFLAGS=00023293 TR=0018 EDX=000F28D0 EDI=00122934
LDTR=0000 CR0=80000011 CR2=00000000 CR3=00121000 CR4=00000001
CS:[IP]=FF FF 7E 18 18 3C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 3C
SS:[SP]=8870 3202 2995 2743 0018 0023 0083 0001 0A74 0000 0100
0070"
How can I now determine which program is at fault by loading them
one at a time until the fault appears?
Looks more like you arent running memtest86 at all.
Try using the ISO to make a bootable CD.
That is the message I get when I boot from the memtest86 cd. I made
the cd yesterday and I just booted from it again to check and I got
the same message.
OK, then you do have bad ram. EMM386.EXE does a crude
ram check when it runs, so the ram must be very bad.
No need to worry about other programs, none
are involved when booting the memtest86 CD
