Acer Aspire laptop freezes and gives weird Memtesy 86+ message

[Chevalr1c]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

Im not sure if this is relivant or not. but in my experience, the build quality of some of the older Aspire series laptops are a load of bollocks.

one of the most common problems seem to be the GPU overheating which i think you are experiencing given the pic of that 'white screen' similar to what this guy had on his old Packard Bell



It does that 'whitescreen' thing from 0:17-0:30 where he is forced to do a hard reset by holding down the power switch.

the problem is, Instead of the heatsink inside making direct contact with the CPU/GPU they have a 0.02mm thick thermal pads like you get on some graphic cards when you remove the stock cooler and long story short - these thermal pads dont do a very good job.

however there are these small copper shims available on ebay or at some specialist repair shops that you can buy and put it between the CPU/GPU which bridges/fills the gap and makes sure the HSF is making direct contact with the heatsource.

I used to have a problem with X1600 Mobility Radeon in an older laptop that used to over heat and cause the laptop to go into thermal shut down. because BenQ who made the laptop, used the same crappy thermal pads instead of making it so the HSF makes direct contact with the CPU/GPU. However I bought a copper shim for it and after that i never had to worry about it overheating or thermal shut downs again.

Thanks, but I have cleaned the laptop several times, over the years. The thermal pads have all been replaced by thermal pads by Akasa, thermal paste has been Thermalright Chill factor III for roughly the last year. The temp monitor in the Nvidia Settings manager has never reached alarming values (it was like 80 Celsius, and only when at load).
And it does not seem to explain the problems with Memtest86+ as described in the OP, nor the unresponsive keyboard/touchpad. I could try your suggestion though.

So people have suggested the following:
- get a (cheap) stick of RAM to verify the working of the RAM and DIMMs
- get another power brick
- improve the GPU VRAM cooling drastically, somehow.

@CaptainFailcon: you posted before I posted this so I had to edit to add the quote for clarity.

[Chevalr1c]

After re-reading the thread, I am considering to just retire the laptop, unless solution 1 and 2 in the post above are still worth trying.

P.S.: I decided to give Phanbuey's suggestion of adding in a cheap RAM stick a go. If it is a no-no I can still try to sell the new stick and it is but 10-15 Euro so why not?

[mtosev]

I have seen better laptops for 300Eur than that old Acer.

[de.das.dude]

looks like the mobo is on its last days.

[Chevalr1c]

Originally Posted by mtosev

I have seen better laptops for 300Eur than that old Acer.

Most likely true, as I have seen nice 15.6" notebooks with a Pentium B9xx or P9200 for like 380. However, because usage of my laptop has decreased severely since last 1.5 year I don't think it is worthwile to buy a new one. I am mostly behind my desktop, and the amount of campus PCs has increased at the university I attend to so I keep the money on the bank for now.

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

looks like the mobo is on its last days.

Most likely. But the lappy will be 5 years old in the autumn so that is not little for a notebook especially one that has been used very intensively in its first 3 years. I think it is to be expected.


Now I really made up my mind and just retire the machine. Thanks for the assistance folks.

[brandonwh64]

Originally Posted by Chevalr1c

Most likely true, as I have seen nice 15.6" notebooks with a Pentium B9xx or P9200 for like 380. However, because usage of my laptop has decreased severely since last 1.5 year I don't think it is worthwile to buy a new one. I am mostly behind my desktop, and the amount of campus PCs has increased at the university I attend so I keep the money on the bank for now.



Most likely. But the lappy will be 5 years old in the autumn so that is not little for a notebook especially one that has been used very intensively in its first 3 years. I think it is to be expected.


Now I really made up my mind and just retire the machine. Thanks for the assistance folks.

I have to agree, If you do not use one much then I would not buy a new one. I picked up a used laptop off the B/S/T section (cant remember which forum) for 80$ shipped and all it needed was a hard drive and battery. It now works like a charm with decent onboard GFX for long trip gaming such as CS 1.6, HL1, GTA games and EXC.

[Chevalr1c]

If I start to think I will definitely need one, I for sure will check the B/S/T forum

[mtosev]

btw here is a nice Fujitsu for 320Eur+19.99EUR shipping to NL (if maybe u are interested as the price is really low)
http://www.computeruniverse.net/prod...h530-p6200.asp
Product Description Fujitsu LIFEBOOK AH530 - 15.6" - P P6200 - no OS - 2 GB RAM - 320 GB HDD
EAN 4051554383497
Dimensions (WxDxH) 37.8 cm x 25.2 cm x 3.8 cm
Weight 2.5 kg
Processor Intel Pentium P6200 / 2.13 GHz / 3 MB Cache
Networking 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 , Gigabit Ethernet
Display 15.6" LED backlight 1366 x 768 / HD
Battery 6-cell - up to 6 hours
Operating System No OS
Memory 2 GB DDR3
Colour Glossy black
System Type Notebook
Optical Drive DVD SuperMulti DL
Environmental Standards ENERGY STAR Qualified
Graphics Intel HD Graphics
Storage 320 GB HDD
Not bad for 320e

[Chevalr1c]

No sorry, as stated above I don't wish to buy a laptop now. Neither new nor 2nd hand. If the need arises (with certainty, so not a might-be-handy) then I will look for one.

[de.das.dude]

go for an APU if you need one to fool around with. those are massively cheap and fun too.