Suicidal Netbook

What I have is a very annoying issue that is plaguing me. My wife and I both have Acer Aspire One's that are AoA150 running windows xp. Hers is slightly older, say about 9 months so it's well out of the initial warranty. It recently started having some issues so we thought rolling back to a recent restore point might help. It didn't, that led eventually to a Restoring the System to factory specs, that didn't help. I've even reflashed the bios. Nothing has helped. Now I am a former Computer Tech and been trying to trouble shoot this the best i know how and nothing has worked so far.

The system will boot without error or flaw into windows and will run. What occurs is at random intervals when browsing the web or sometimes even just running an installer or other program the machine just stops. You still have video, often you can still move the cursor but there will be no response, the wireless will disable and the only recourse is to power down. I've tried reloading drivers and the system usually fails. I've never been able to give up on fixing a machine unless I can see no way at all of saving it, and my wife is resigned that nothing will fix her netbook. This is starting to dog me something awefull but I gotta figure this one out, so any input would be a godsend.

 

It sounds as if you have the incorrect wireless network driver loaded. Download the proper Artheos drivers from Acer uninstall the previous version and reinstall the new driver.

 

Been trying to update it from my thumbdrive but no matter how I try to do it it just hangs on loading the driver with a full bar. I'll see if uninstall helps but trying to uninstall anything else so far has been hanging too.

 

If you try anything even in device manager, uninstall wireless, disable, even scan hardware the system hangs and can't respond. And now it says no driver is installed for this device

Anyone ever seen the likes of this?

 

Mine's a year old and knock wood has run like a clock, except for warranty replacement of a Hecho en Mexico power cord cracking open.

You indicate it's not always internet, but fails on some offline operations, too. In your shoes, I'd be inclined to run the eRecovery and then run Windows Update, being sure to include the updated Atheros and RealTek drivers there that Microsoft shows as "optional." I got rid of McAfee off the bat, which to me would be one suspect for interfering with XP. I use Revo Uninstaller in "advanced" mode to uninstall software I don't want from OEM installs, and then CCleaner to get rid of additional useless files and registry entries. That done, if it occurs again, I'd suspect hardware.

 

Forone: That is exactly one of my current strategies. We've tried the recovery and reloading of windows and we both noticed McAfee's excessive use of resources so we got rid of it. Currently though every time we try to Run the Update or even manually install or uninstall any drivers the system just freezes. At times we can get the machine to boot and run well enough to get online for a bit before it freezes and other times it freezes up after it boots just setting idle. I've ran chkdisk and everything turns out fine. My wife even opened her case and looked everything over and checked some connections and so far we can't find anything out of the ordinary. I may crack it open and take a detailed look at the Cap's and chips. I even tried to flash the bios with the updated 3310. Loaded the Usb thumbdrive with the .fd file and the flashit utility and followed the instructions(Hold Fn + Esc then hit power etc.) And Haven't seen any difference. I have noticed in an Acer technicians manual an approach that looks like booting to a dos prompt and running the batch file, has anyone tried that to an effect?

At this point I am getting obsessed with trying to fix this, and I am fairly sure it's hardware related. On another attempt at reseting the system to factory settings my wife mentioned a message about several .lnk files missing or some such. Could the restore partition be corrupt?

 

Did you add RAM to your AAO? Most times, random hangups and crashes are due to a failing RAM module. Just another option that could help.

 

The thought had crossed my mind. I haven't added any ram yet but I may have some laying around with my spare parts, not sure, haven't done much laptop work so most my spare parts are tower stuff. Any diagnostics you'd recommend to verify failing ram? I know I have used some in the past but the name eludes me.

On the positive side, I've managed to flash the bios, said it was 3301 and now it's 3310. I've also managed to remove McAfee and run some of the updates. It'll boot now into windows and I have got the A1 fan control installed, but it's occurring to me that my wife's A1 isn't sounding like mine in regards to the fan I believe. Even with the fan utility running. I'd have thought if hers was overheating it'd power down or not boot 'till cool.

Still a work in progress though, I'm determined to fix or at least autopsy.

 

I don't know if I have any more suggestions, but do watch out for the A1ctl. I initially installed version 0.4 on my AOA150 a year ago, worked great, then tried the most recent "final" version that was redeveloped for more recent Acer models, and it didn't work. I went back to version 0.4 and am happy with that. (I haven't experienced any reason to update my BIOS and have read about too many BIOS "adventures" here to want to try it.)

 

Hi there,

My first thoughts were overheating as any intermittent problems I have had in the past with a laptop have been down to that. Especially if her fan sounds different to yours.

Try hoovering out the fan, could be some hair caught in the spindle which is slowing it down.

Also, with regards to installing and un-installing drivers, have you tried to do it in safe mode? I know some drivers don't like being uninstalled when they are being used. Might be worth a try.

With regards to RAM verification, there isn't really anything you can do other than trying a nother stick and seeing if it make a difference.
I wouldn't think that you would have a hardware issue in so far as caps and chips being the problem, as this would gerneally mianifest itself all the time. But might be worth checking your wireless card to see that it is seated correctly and not loose enough that it can work loose during use!

Hope that helps, and keep us informed as to how you get on!

Paul :mrgreen:

 

So here's where we stand currently;
I am leaning towards a failing/failed thermal unit thats causing the A1 to overheat and kill off hardware. We blew the fan out good but I didn't like the way the fan spun, not real easy, kinda flicked back on itself some like it was a smooth spin. Also ruled out the ram by replacing the 512 stick with another 512. I even rolled back the bios to 3309 and installed the aa1 fan control utillity and the a1 fan untility. Monitoring the heat I noticed something, just booting up idle it'd get around 50+ easy and the more the wireless ran the hotter it'd get. Now even with the fan trying to run it's not spinning up much or even generating any real airflow i can tell. And as it sets idle, happens quicker with much stress the system freezes up. One of the first signs is the wireless, it'll shut off, you can see the light go out, and if you catch it quick enough the task manager will respond but all to often you'll see it stop registering the cpu or ram under performance, the cpu will generally vanish 1st. So i figure as the heat is building the devices start failing as no real airflow is being maintained. Now I have a acer aspire 3050 that is only crippled do to a busted power plug on the mobo and low and behold it uses the exact same wireless card it seems so I might be able to rule out the wireless but I am really leaning on the heat. At times you can even surf for a few minutes before the unit is overwhelmed.

So now I suppose I'll see if I can't rule out the wireless and see what can be done about the fan etc. Any thoughts? Don't think I know of any diagnostic to verify a fan for sure but running some of the same fan controls on mine I can see and hear it's effective.

 

Hi there,

I would tend to agree with you that the airflow is the problem.
First off I would try replacing the fan itself, not sure how eas it is to get out and replace, but that would be my first port of call.

It is probably a cheap unit with sleeve bearings which have worn out!!

If you can monitor the temperatures I would try switching the netbook on and time how long it takes to voer heat without doing anything or by setting up a know wifi routine and then try the same again but cover the fan inlet to see what difference it makes.
That will give you a crude idea of how much effect the fan is having on the situation. If the time doesn't change then your fan is goosed and not cooling the netbook down!

Cheers

Paul :mrgreen:

 

While I don't think A1ctl (v. 0.4) temperature gauge is "correct" as to the core, I do use it to monitor overheating - mine idles at 53 with very little fan use. I set it to kick the fan on at 65. It never gets there.

I have a 2002 vintage Dell laptop I like to keep as a backup unit. Its fan groans and starts lagging every few months. The cure is electrical contact spray - the pure solvent (no lubricant) that used to be for tape head cleaning, that comes with red plastic tube to focus the spray. It very volatile, evaporates completely after a couple of minutes, and clears out any gunk obstructing either fan motion or the electrical switch. (I spilled some wine into the Acer on/off switch and keys some time ago and it restored that from completely dead brick to good as new without disassembly.)

 

Alright, sorry for the lengthy delay, holidays and health have conspired against me I'm afraid.

Did some extensive dissection of the problem and here's what I've come up with thus far;
- Left the machine off for a night/day, and booted it with no battery plugged in and with the bottom access open, ran fine for some time before as usual the machine crashed.
- Tried rebooting and once it'd heated to it's stop point it'd only reboot to start running and with only slight load it'd crash again and again and again.
- Dismantled the unit and completely removed the thermal module for detailed inspection. On examination it was noticed the fan itself didn't properly spin freely, it'd almost jerk back and forth and even with air forced over/through it'd only jerk back and forth almost looking like it was spinning but even under manipulation from a pick it'd only move slightly and still would not spin.

I must note that after the initial boot it took a pretty good load of video and surfing etc. to heat it to the point it crashed. So I can only assume the fan wasn't moving enough to cool the unit and while it didn't overheat enough to damage or cause bsod it was enough to fault the hardware temporarily. No other damage was apparent, and I'm hoping if I can order a replacement thermal module I can replace it and get this machine back up and running. Although my wife is already campaigning for a new laptop, I doubt she shares my faith in repair, or at least sees this as an ample opportunity to get herself a new laptop.

Unsure of when I'll be able to replace the thermal module but hopefully I can eventually if for no other reason than to verify my hypothesis.

 

Did you ever find a fix? I am having same problems and have tried everything.