Laptop randomly hanging, need some advice.

[Nerph-]

Hey all,

So, I've come to the computer forums in need of some help/advice. I bought a laptop 9 months ago (Acer Aspire 5755G) and to be frank I've had nothing but trouble with it. I've had to send it back already 2 times due to harddisk problems, but now I have a new problem and I'm not sure where to begin, let me explain the issue:

After a random period of time, my laptop will just freeze/hang. So I can be in the middle of listening to music and the screen and music will hang, I can be watching a film and the screen and sound will hang, or it can just be idle with the lid down and when I open it up the screen stays off when touching the touchpad or pressing any keys. So yeah, long story short, it freezes. There is no hard disk activity any more, and I need to hold the power button down to turn it off, and then turn it on again. It usually doesn't happen within the first say, 6 hours the laptop is on. It's mostly between a 6-24 hour period of the laptop being on when it will decide to randomly freeze up. Scrap that, it just happened after the laptop had been on for 30 minutes.

Now, I've checked my CPU temps and they are around the 48°C mark average straight after rebooting from it being hung, so I'm thinking it's not an overheating issue.

So my question to you guys is, where should I start checking? As far as I am aware from previous experience with computers/laptops hanging, it can be a RAM issue, motherboard, graphics card or hard disk issue, so I really don't know where to begin.

Now I can't really send it back for repair (again) until I can pinpoint what the exact issue is, I can hardly tell Acer to just leave my laptop on for ~24 hours until it hangs.

Some extra information: The laptop has 2 graphics cards, the onboard Intel HD Graphics 3000 and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M, drivers are up to date.

Should I run ram tests first by booting into memtest86? Disable one of the graphics cards and let it idle and see if it still hangs? Where should I begin?

Hopefully I've given enough information for people to help with some advice, but if you need to know something please post and I'll let you know.

Thanks in advance to any one willing to help <3

edit: I actually plan to call a consumer advice thingy (no idea what the proper name is) and ask if I have any right to ask to return my laptop and get a refund as this thing is prone to having problems and I'm tired of it, but incase I don't have the right (it's still under warranty) then I'll have to send it back for repair.

[chaud]

Start with memtest. Might need to do one stick at a time.

[Nerph-]

Urgh, I hate opening laptops -_- Desktops are fun to open and replace things, laptops however...

memtest first it is.

---------- Post added 2013-02-18 at 09:21 PM ----------

Okay, ran memtest with all RAM in and it found no errors, I'm guessing I'd only need to test each RAM seperately if I'd found errors with them all in...?

So if that's correct, whats the next step?

[chaud]

You can do that, as once in a while it will only show up when testing single sticks.

[Nerph-]

I'm a bit weary about opening my laptop up as I'm worried Acer will then claim the warranty is void because of it, but I'll do it as a last resort action if I haven't found the problem yet.

Apparently my laptop likes to turn itself off now too, I woke up this morning and it was on as I'd left it all night (to see if it would hang), I come back upstairs an hour later and it is just completely turned off, like someone had pressed the power button or something (but no one had). It wasn't because of Windows Update either, I checked. This thing has a fucking mind of it's own.

The shop got back to me that they want me to send it to them and then they'll send it to Acer and talk to Acer about a possible replacement, I told them if I wanted it to be sent to Acer (most likely just for "repair") that I could do it myself quicker but just sending it to them directly. I'm insisting on a direct replacement laptop or my money back now, this is just ridiculous.

[Deleted]

Hey,

I can only tell you what I would do in your shoes, I ll omit the 'build a sophisticated system than launches the laptop aiming straight on Acer Support' seeing how much I like them. Step by step:

1) Check Event Viewer (Start -> type 'Event Viewer' in the 'Search Programs and files' field), preferably all Windows logs but specifically Windows Logs -> System, checking for Errors by date. Helps if you remember more or less when each crash or hang occurred. That might help in pinpointing the problem if Windows manage to record the hang/crash before it occurs. A hang is not always registered, it solely depends on what kind of hang/crash it is, but if it does register for you, it might give you an idea
2) Download and install Speedfan (almico.com/sfdownload.php) going to the S.M.A.R.T. tab to check the Hard Disk health.
3) Check Ram with Memtest (Since you ve already done it, you can safely skip this step)
4) Download and install HWMonitor (cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) and have it running for a while to check the temperatures and voltage.
5) With HWMonitor running, download and install Prime95 (files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103) and FurMark (ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/) and run them both at the same time. Prime95 stresses the CPU while FurMark stresses the GPU. While running, check HWMonitor for temperatures. If the system hangs/crash in the first seconds/minutes of this, you 'll know if it's an overheat (by checking HWMonitor) or a defective GPU or similar, requiring more investigation (hell might even be system not getting enough power from the charger, then again if that was the case, the laptop battery would not charge or take forever to complete one). If it manages to run for 10 minutes or more, you can probably exclude the above.
6) If you reached this step things get complicated. I ll just add this step although I ve seen it happen only ONCE in 60 laptops or so. Disable the Wi-Fi card and connect the laptop through lan and check stability by leaving it on for a couple of hours. It sounds totally stupid but I 've seen a Sony system hanging and crashing due to a Wi-fi card gone bad after the laptop fell down once. Can't hurt to test it though.
7) If none of the above worked, it can only be a motherboard gone completely wrong OR a system/driver error. I would try a new Windows installation by allocating disk space using Computer Management (Start -> type 'Computer Management' in the 'Search Programs and files' field), go to the Disk Management under Storage and right click -> 'Shrink Volume' to make 20-30GB of space. Download Windows 7 or Windows 8 Enterprise (30 day trial) from the official microsoft website (or somewhere there anyway) OR download windows 7 home premium from msdn (if still doable) or from any torrent site (piratebay etc). If using a torrent site, I m not suggesting to download a 'pirated' version by any means. Just an untouched msdn windows 7 home premium (which is what your laptop should have in the first place) that you can activate using the key located in the bottom of your laptop. Burn the .iso to a dvd and use it to boot your system and install Windows in the newly created 20-30GB partition made above. That way you can dual boot in the 'old' acer windows system and the newly installed one. When installation finishes, just download and install nvidia drivers so you won't go blind from the resolution (unless Windows manages to auto-detect the GPU), and use the system for a couple of hours and see if it hangs or not.

Last step is a huge pain in the *** but no1) I seriously don't trust Acer drivers and applications on a system stability 2) It seemed to work for this guy to begin with: sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/248532-random-freezes-crashes-everything-stops-working-sound-lag.html

Good Luck!