Netbook freezes randomly

The BIOS 3212 is not Ok to me!

It freezes again in the same situations - freeze in google earth - Directx mode less than 5 seconds....

I beleave of the solution is not the software, but hardware .. mother board, or memory, or other device...

 

BIOS Version 3212 alone did not help. I had a freeze shortly after rebooting from the install.

I just uninstalled the Realtek Audio driver, rebooted, installed the latest driver from the Acer website: 6.0.1.5854 for Vista. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium.

After rebooting from the Realtek install, the machine actually seemed a little faster.

I installed Google Earth and have been scrolling around zoomed in at 827 feet for about 10 minutes. I have it "stuck" in an auto pan type mode where it's panning on it's own. It is in Direct-X mode.

Any ideas on something specific in Google Earth that would cause a freeze? Normally if I would walk away from the machine with no application loaded, it would be frozen a few hours later. I'll see if that's the case now. I'm certainly not getting my hopes up since I've been dissapointed before by this thing!

Sean

 

Oh well. It scrolled around in Google Earth for about 30 minutes. I stopped it, zoomed all the way out so I'm viewing the full earth and it froze.

Sean

 

I have tried everything - for as much as I like this netbook (right size, right sound, right kbd and screen) I am ready to dump it.
It is amazing that such a high degree of unreliability is tolerated at shipment time, by either Acer or maybe microsoft.

Has anybody tried it with unix? is it hanging with unix as well? or is it just the magic couple (acer plus microsoft)?
One thing is for sure, the next one will be an ASUS for a change.

PS I am trying now without any power management option, to see if that is making things different.

 

I'm trying to reproduce a freeze on google earth, but this program is toooo slow. U guys can use this program more fast?

I need free programs to test the freezes, because my MS Word is false and I can't send the netbook for repair with a pirate version of Word.

 

Hello. My story is the same as jisse, and with some others of you the freezes were in WORD using the scroll, and viewing some DIVX at full screen, or sometimes even logging in.
i bought my acer 751h with z520 and made everithing to make it works ... with winXP after 20 days i decided to send back.
After 10 days they send me it back telling they changed mother board.
Now (checked with CPU-Z) i have Z530 and not Z520 as it was in the beginning).
The strange thing is that the CPU speed is 1.33Ghz and not 1.60Ghz as it should be with this CPU.

But, to give the right to acer, now the 751h doesn't freeze.
Is there anyone that knows how to use now Z530 at the top opf his performance?
Or CPUZ is telling me something wrong?

thank you every one

 

It looks like the Realtek Audio Driver 6.0.1.5854 and Bios 3212 have made a difference. After the lockup in Google Earth, I've had it running non-stop and it has not frozen. I could always count on it freezing if left on overnight. It's been two nights now and it's still running. Not perfect, but certainly better. I just wish I had had recognized the problems with it prior to the warranty running out!

Sean

 

i have 751H-1948 and the mainboard code is 31ZA3MB0090, after i changed the memory modul that came with it Nanya 1GB 2Rx16.PC2-5300S-555-13-A2-667 to Transcend 1GB DDR2 800 SODIMM CL6 and upgraded BIOS to 3212 i have no freeze experience again (not yet...) :idea:
have been trying some call on yahoo messenger & skype, browsing with chrome
hope this could be last forever

 

My A0751H just came back from Texas today. Its third visit. They replaced the motherboard AGAIN, and set the BIOS at 3210. I did not get the N530 upgrade (damn!), still an N520 motherboard at 1.33GHz. The last time I sent it back it was freezing everytime I turned on the webcam, plus the usual random freezes (shutdown, watching videos, etc). I have been running tests all day (like running the webcam and Prime95 simultaneously for a few hours, webcam and video playback simultaneously, lots of memory and pocessor action) and have not been able to make it freeze. I will run the webcam and Prime95 all night and see if it is alive in the morning.

 

After eleven hours and sixteen minutes of Prime95 and the webcam running, my A0751H-1885 with new motherboard was still running. No errors on Prime95 either. The new motherboard is MBS85060019220FAF92500. One other interesting thing is that the memory module (SAMSUNG M470T2864EH3-CE6, ACER KN1GB0B027915029C51601) has a heat distribution pad on the back that couples to a black sticker on the motherboard. I don't remember seeing that before. It seemed my previous lockups were always a memory issue, a thermal pad would provide better heat distribution and a bit of vibration buffer for the memory module.
I will keep pounding on it but initial indications look a lot better than the last two returns from the repair facility...

 

any way of getting to see a picture of the pad, or even a idea of whether a homebrew version of it could be made or not...a thermal pad for the memory is an interesting idea

brewcrew69

 

If I can figure out how to attach a photo to these posts, I will put some photos up. (Yah, guessing "Img" - insert image. Duh.) Give me a day, busy weekend. My computer is still running well, more Prime95+webcam+playing music with Media Player, for a couple of hours on battery. No problems.

 

http://img32.imageshack.us/i/module3.jpg/
http://img191.imageshack.us/i/module2.jpg/
http://img59.imageshack.us/i/module1.jpg/

Here are some photos of the thermal pad on the memory module.
The thermal pad is about the size and thickness of a stick of gum. Sticky in consistency. I have seen this stuff before, like on stepper motor driver chips. I will try to find a reference.

 

http://www.bergquistcompany.com/thermal ... 2.08_E.pdf

This is the stuff Berg makes. 3M, Stockwell and others all make similar naterials.

 

I installed Bios 3212 and still have freeze problems.

BUT after formatting my HD and installing original Windows XP Home Ed (OEM), I didn't get any more freezes! I run a lot of scrolling tests by hours and 2 days on MS Word and Google Earth and NO FREEZE! And I installed the Win XP Home Ed original to send the netbook for repair... LOL

If I see some freeze, I will update u guys.

 

Such statements make me wonder if the problem is hardware or software related... gee, it all looks so complicated that I wonder if we will ever find a solution to the problem apart from replacing the motherboard (which looks really hard to achieve). :?

Please keep us informed shadz, it sounds really interesting!

 

More one day of tests and no freezes. I only notice that after the scroll test finished (5000 pages on Word with auto scroll), a strange blackout on the monitor occurs when I move the mouse, but it's not a freeze, since I push alt+tab and the screen comes back with normal status.

 

Hi, I came to give my contribution. I also own a 751h with windows xp and now and then he crashed out of nothing. I tried a lot and saw that solving the problem is not one. I wanted to report, that in my case, by updating the sound card driver finally stopped the netbook freeze. Not only that, but choking that occurred during use also stopped. This also worked for another user (i dont remember whom). No need to update the BIOS (currently 3206). So first of all, update the sound driver and do the test (on windows xp. I can not guarantee with vista).

please, try and report if it works or not.

 

hi guys, send laptop to acer and got it back...they replaced mainboard and cpu... CPU changed from z520 1.33 to z530 @ 1.60 with 2 threads!!

lap now is faster and reliable like hell !

THE PROBLEM IS HARDWARE ! send it to acer !




cheers!

 

Hi guys, just feel like sharing my experience with AO751h-52BGw freezes.
To me it looks like that there are several several things makes machine freeze, and there is no common solution, since everybody uses it in their own way. Probably sending PC to rep. is the best solution, but I just don't wanna do that, cause I don't have another computer at the moment, and using mine quite heavily.
However, first thing I did - I uninstalled all the pre-installed crap except OS and device drivers.
Second, I disabled a lot of Windows Services, including Windows Search and Indexing - everything what wish to run "in background".
Than I cleaned up Registry and defragmented hard drive with some free-to-download-use software.
And I installed a Fan Controlling software - the one MUST to kill the noise.
Only after these steps Netbook began to run faster and "smoothly", it was freezing a few times a day before, now the first freeze occurred after 5 days of work.
Than I decided to go further and just today updated all the drivers, including BIOS to the latest ver., that can be found on the Acer's site. I'm not sure it was necessary and I wish I never updated Audio and Bluetooth :geek: ...
Now the last thing - I remove the battery than AC is on ...

Hope this info will help someone....