Netbook freezes randomly

I have owned the 751 model for 3.5 months now. My netbook has been freezing at random times all throughout this time period. At some point, it appeared that Google Chrome was the culprit, and after switching to IE, the issue somewhat stabilize. Once internet browsing was stable, then it seemed that when the netbook went into standby mode, it would suddenly just turn itself off.
Today, I disabled hardware acceleration on the GMA500 video device. Since that time, I have experienced no freezes. The netbook no longer enters standby automatically, but will when invoking it via FN-F4, or shutting the lid.
I see that Intel has a newer version of the video driver than I've got - the new version being 6.14.11.1012 (currently driver is 6.14.11.1007). My question is whether or not I can apply the driver from Intel directly, or do I need a modified version from ACER? I am beyond the return period at Costco.....I had too much time invested in the machine already anyway, but am looking for advice on this. If I update the driver, will I be able to re-enable the video acceleration? Thank you in advance for any comments.

 

Sorry guys if I don't feel like browsing through 44 pages of the same stuff. I looked through the first couple of pages before, and just read through the last 3 pages. So I don't know if this has been covered or not.

Are y'all guys having the problem soon after starting the 751h, or if its been running for a while? My problem is prominent when I left it on overnight and throughout the day, and I get home that afternoon. as soon as I open internet explorer, it struggles until it freezes. However, after turning it on after its been off for a while (if I turn it on for the first time that day) I don't get any problems.

Maybe its just not meant to be on all the time. I'm used to my desktop that only gets turned off if I do an update that requires a restart or if the power goes out.

 

On my Acer 1410 and on my HP G71, I've been able to use intel.com to identify and install drivers that the intel.com program identified as being needed.

My 1410 has never frozen, I began watching this thread when I had a 751 (for one day), which I sold to a friend in order to bump up to the 1410.

 

Not wishing to be the bearer of bad news, but I've seen two E3H motherboards now with the same random freezing problem - my own, and a co-worker's. Also, her original memory is a Crucial PC2 6400, and mine is a Samsung PC2 6400. Both units were bought new and factory packaged.

I'm back to the idea of venting and thermal dissipation. Using the unit without an external cooling fan in a warm room produces a freeze about once every half-hour. Using the unit with an external fan in a cool room produces a freeze about once every nine or ten hours, or more. Using the unit with an external fan in a cool room with the memory lid removed produced no freezes in nearly three days of continuous operation. What we're looking at may be certain memory products that resist thermal issues better than others.

 

I've sent mine for service but they said that they didn't find anything! I will send them the netbook once it freezes again. What a #$$#@!# service dept?

 

Does anyone have the impression that technically aware individuals from Acer actually read and occasionally post into any of the aspireoneuser forums?

 

After months of monitoring the freeze issues on this site and experiencing the same on my machine I sent it back to Acer Australia. I included as much information as I could with records of freezes. And a request to not return it until it was fixed. While it did take some time the machine was retured with advice the mother board had faulted and had been replaced. They did not even bother bringing the HDD back to original and left it as I sent it in. It has now has worked perfectly for a month now with no hard ware lock up at all. Skye used to bring it down in minutes.

My money is on the mother board issue that seems to make a machine intolerant to ram differences. A concept first raised in this forum early October by 'Fauxpas'. I tried a new Hdd, drivers and all the rest. Finally concluding it was hard ware.

Acer Australia are also developing an Linux based USB 'jump drive' bootable fault finder. While It did not actually work for me, Acer technical did contact me for feedback. It seems development was well on the way. Acer's service back up in Australia is very good. At least from my experience with a couple of machines.

 

Sorry, but could you clarify what you mean by video driver for the Acer A0751H? Maybe I am misunderstanding you. I've looked at the Intel GMA 500 driver and the version is 7.14.10.1095. Are you referring to something else entirely different?

Generally, if you want to try a new driver and it doesn't work, you can go into Device Manager to roll back to the previous driver. You might have to start in Safe Mode if the new driver really messes things up first, however.

 

New motherboard version

I just got my netbook back from Acer service. The paperwork states that they reloaded the software, so I had to restore my settings and reinstall software. However, the motherboard version is now E3G, and there is an orange sticker next to it that states, "New PCB." No freezing so far.

 

Re: New motherboard version

Good info!

Keep us updated.

 

I've had my Acer since September. It's been freezing on and off since then. I could never get through more than a few hours without it freezing, and somtimes it was just a few minutes. Basically the same problem that many seem to be having.

After reading Martin's post, I installed AA1FanControl set the max to 50 and the min to 40, and I've been using my Acer for 2 full days with NO FREEZES! I'm sold. I could always get it to freeze by leaving it on a table with a table cloth for an hour or two which restricts the air flow. It's been sitting on the table for the last 8 hours and been working fine.

I would recommend anyone having the random freeze problem to give this a try. Hopefully it helps some.

Sean

 

I have an Aspire One 751, 2Gb of Ram, XP home edition version 2002 sp 3 (Italian). I have managed to track down the problem to intensive usage of the mouse scrool wheel - I can systematically make it crash in MSWord, selecting a big chunk of text and scrolling with the wheel up and down quite fast.

I have updated all the drivers to the latest version available from the acer us download site, and, have set in the mouse driver (control panel, system, hardware, hw management, mouse and other pointing devices, advanced setting) the sampling rate to minimum (20 / s) and the buffer size to maximum (300 packets).

So far I have not been able to freeze the pc.

Will keep you posted if something else shows up...

E.

 

I bought two of these machines when Radio Shack put them on sale at Thanksgiving. Both of the machines had the same bios installed as well as the same manufacture dates and motherboard codes (E3H). I upgraded the bios on both machines. One has been flawless and the other has the freeze issue. In an effort to resolve the freeze issue on the one unit I have tried running Vista (the original operating system), Windows 7, the fan program as recommended above, swapping the ram in the machines, swapping the hard drives in the machines and nothing has resolved the problem on the one unit. I sent it back to Acer this morning. I would have exchanged it at Radio Shack but there are none available. The other machine has run fine since day one and I have since installed Windows 7 which runs great. My recommendation if you have this issue is to just send it back for a motherboard replacement, all of the other solutions are just marginal patches that may or may not stand the test of time.

Lance

 

I am very glad someone found my workaround useful.

 

I bought one of these during the Radio Shack black Friday sale and I also have the freezing problem. I had upgraded to Windows 7 first thing, and always had the freezing problem. I restored it back to Vista and was unable to make it freeze (if I installed the demo of the game "Peggle" it would always freeze within a level or two). I then used a program called "DriverMax" to extract all of the default drivers from Windows Vista, reinstalled Windows 7, and then installed the drivers from Vista (all of them). So far, I haven't been able to make it crash (but its only been a couple days of light use). As an added bonus, the extracted driver for the Synaptics touchpad enabled the pinch to zoom and other advanced features in Windows 7. I'll try to give an update as to whether or not the system stays stable.

 

Keep the irony to yourself. You don't have to be a technically aware individual to see that this netbook freezes!!! Anyway I didn't send the laptop to Acer service yet, but to the service of the shop I bought it.

 

I found this http://netbooks-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/278/kw/freeze/p/1/c/36/r_id/166 in Acer support Usa. It suggests that you should update bios and if the freeze problem remains then you should send the netbook for service.
I didn't send mine directly to Acer Greece service because I didn't read good opinions about them. So I've sent it to the service of the shop I bought it. Unfortunately they didn't find anything (yeah right...) so I told them to update the BIOS as suggested by Acer Usa. The technician agreed to update the BIOS, but he told me that the same netbooks sold in United States are different from the netbooks sold in Europe/Greece etc. Is this true? I will post again when I get it from service with BIOS updated.

 

Keep the irony to yourself. You don't have to be a technically aware individual to see that this netbook freezes!!! Anyway I didn't send the laptop to Acer service yet, but to the service of the shop I bought it.[/quote:3l2j5juw]

Please read and quote accurately. I (Aspergerian) didn't write item-A above. I did write item-B.

 

So it looks like using the Vista drivers in Windows 7 didn't solve my problem (although the system is much more stable). I used a graphics stress test program, and it consistently freezes the computer up after just a minute or two. It looks like this one is going back to Radio Shack, and I'll see if I can get an exchange, maybe I'll win the 751h lottery this next time and get one that doesn't have the freezing problem.

As far as the BIOS version goes, mine came with 3206 and has always had this freezing issue. I even updated to the latest one (3210) and I've had no luck. While this may have solved a freezing issue with an earlier version of this netbook, I don't think its the freezing issue that this thread is related to.

 

Well, I ended up buying cmeide's memory (Hynix HYMP125S64CP8-S6 AB) to see what would happen as I really didn't want the hassle of returning the unit for a mother board replacement. I was very hopeful, but unfortunately I had a freeze within the first hour of use, again during a scroll operation. So even though cmeide and others have had good results with this specific memory card, I did not. My best results were with the PC2-4200 533Mhz memory that never froze while I was using the machine but would freeze while idle about once every week or two.

See my other post at the bottom of page 43 about my different memory results.

So for me it seems clearly to be a motherboard issue of some sort that only Acer can solve. Software drivers and configuration options as well as various memory types certainly change the frequency of freezing but nothing thus far has totally eliminated it. My range of results lie between several times an hour to only idle freezing once every week or two.

If I didn't like this little laptop so much I wouldn't have taken this as far as I did or spent so much time and money trying so many different options but I really had hoped for a solution I could control short of returning the unit to Acer. Unfortunately, no such solution is in sight.