5315 randomly shuts down

In the past week, my aspire 5315 running vista premium 32bit has been randomly shutting off for what seems like no apparent reason. There's no warning of the shut down, it just turns off. It does this whether connected to the internet or not, and there isn't any one program that's the common denominator. Also, it doesn't boot up successfully every time (maybe 1 out of every 4 attempts). Instead, it just stays on a black screen with a single white blinking horizontal dash (the character two spaces to the left of the backspace button + shift). The computer had started doing this initially when I installed the latest update through Windows Update. I used System Restore and the problem seemed to be fixed. Then the problem started again a couple days later while watching "Lost" on ABC.COM. I ran Windows Defender and it didn't come up with anything. I've tried running Kaspersky a few times, but the computer shuts down well before the scan is finished (even in safe mode). Any ideas as to what the problem could be?

 

Sounds like overheating issue to me. Do you have the Emangement software installed?

You need this software to help control the cpu fan. I had issues when I uninstall the software with my laptop shutting down 5315-2713. I google alot and found that out.

 

My old HP dv1000 started doing that. I believe it was a short between monitor and the rest of the system.

It bricked a month later...

 

The Acer software doesn't control the fan in your laptop this is done at bios level. The only way you would control the fan (would be indirecty) through the epower management software would be to control the CPU speed at different power settings.

This can also be done using windows built in power managment software.

 

I was having shutdown issues after I did a clean install of Vista and reinstalling Epower fixed it.

It is not installed it is worth a try to see if it fixes the problem.

 

Totally disagree. Emangement has and does nothing as far as controlling the CPU fan.

All it does is allow you power saving choices.

And that is mainy a choice between battery power and mains power.

On mains power ......the fan should run more. Processor is working harder.
On battery power....the fan should run less. Processor is working less.

Depending on your chosen settings.

Thats it.

Cheers,
Theo

 

so overheating is the likely culprit?

 

It could be.

Couple of things you could do.

1. Clean out the vent which kicks out the warm air from the fan. Over time inside of here can get clogged up with dust dirt etc. You can get a can of compressed air and blow inside it. Or you can take the bottom cover off, remove the heatsink and fan, and clean all of the dust from the fins next to the fan, and around the fan area. If you do this option, you will probably need to get some thermal grease to reapply to the CPU, and you may need some thrmal pads for the GPU, or be very carefull with the ones already on there.

2. Undervolt the CPU. This is a good method of reducing temps, reducing the voltage supplied to the CPU lets it run at a lower voltage reducing heat produced. Link below is a real good thread here on NBR regarding undervolting:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824&highlight=undervolting+the+cpu

Beforeyou do these, test your temperatures using hwmonitor, and use a program called orthos to stress test the system to see if it shuts down.

 

What BIOS version are you using?
I can confirm that the earlier ones have fan control issues after waking from sleep if you have the epower uninstalled. Updating to v. 1.43 shuold fix the problems, and I recommend to do a clean install of vista/xp as well (maybe even try windows 7 )

 

I pulled the cover off of the bottom, removed the fan, and found a nice layer of dust covering the vent slots. I cleaned it out and so far the problem seems to be corrected. Hopefully it was that simple of a solution. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll be posting soon if the problem persists... btw, I'm not sure what BIOS I have, but I've updated it within the past 6-8 months.

 

Hopefully that was the culprit and it's not something deeper. It's always worth giving them a clean out every couple of months or so, it's amazing how much crap builds up.

 

Hard drive

 

Thank you I feel better now. I haven't tried running with no Epower after upgrading to v1.43 I may test it when I get my hard drive back.

Another thing also rip the black film off of all the vents helps with heat.