Acer 1501LMi just randomly freezes

Hello,

i have the Acer 1501 Lmi with amd64-bit 3000+, 2x256mb and 60gb harddrive.

The laptop just randomly freezes while i am in windows (either windows xp home or windows xp home + sp2). I sent it back to the acer repair center but they said nothing was wrong with it. But i still have the random freezing problem. Just out of nowhere the whole machine stops working.

I read many forums and i heard that many more people have problem with acer laptops. all different kind of problems but also including this one.

Is this just a flaw of the manufacturer or is it something i can fix maybe?

 

Do you have any usb/firewire connected to your laptop?


==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

no i do not have anything in the fireware or usb ports.

i'm now gonna install win xp pro + sp2 with the latest amd drivers. Last night i did a memory test in DOS for 17 hours but i couldn't find anything. Laptop kept running though.

I'll keep you updated

 

We had some minor problems with the laptop and the battery, which were causing some sound dropouts, but no freezes. You can check it out here: http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=17630 . It's quite a long thread!

Do you got v1.06 of the bios? Did you noticed any patterns on the freezes?

==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

i have the latest bios drivers.

It looks like most of the time it crashes when i'm doing windows updates (but not every time). Today i also did a stresstest on the laptop with Heavyload (a stresstest program). After 15 minutes i stopped and it didnt freeze.

I also tried to install another version of windows without installing any drivers for the laptop. So basicly a clean install of windows xp professional. i also unplugged by internet cable and i launched the sp2 installation (from a cd i have). While installing the laptop froze again.
I rebooted and uninstalled it again and tried to do the sp2 again. But now it says its missing some installation files (but when i look for the file its just in the temporary unpacked folder so it should work).

The download file from sp2 is not corrupt because a few hours ago i did a new install on my desktop pc with that installation file.

 

Seems a strange problem. If not a virus or bad hardware, then maybe try reinstalling windows from Acer cds (without been connected to the internet), install SP2, connect to the internet and do a windows update, and if you still got problems then RMA it again.

BTW, did you do a full disk scan for bad sectors?

==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

Well, i probably reinstalled it about 15 times now. with the acer discs, with english language version, dutch language version, windows xp corp, windows xp home, without internet, with internet etc. etc.

But i didnt do a diskcheck (although Heavyload also tests the harddisk). Can you recommend me a program that can do good disk checks?

 

hmm, none actually, but maybe a surface scan with the windows xp scandisk utility, will be good enough.

Since you did all those stuff, it seems that the machine is broken somehow. The real hard thing is to convince acer technicians for that.

==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

i maybe have some good news. On another forum someone said that he fixed this problem by removing the AMD 64-bit drivers and the onboard wireless lan drivers.

I uninstalled the drivers and have xp home + sp2 installed. Everything is working fine now. I'm gonna test this setup for 1 or 2 days and if it keeps running fine i will see if it still runs fine with the LAN installed. If that will be the case i know it has something to do with the CPU drivers and if its not the case i know it has something to do with the LAN drivers [ ]

Or.... it will just crash within 2 hours from now and i'm back at the beginning again.

I'll keep you updated.

P.S.
anyone knows why there are even drivers for the cpu?? With normal cpu's i never heard of any drivers. Is this new with the 64bit chips?

 

Well, in my system, wireless + cpu drivers works fine. Cpu drivers are necessary to enable powernow so that your laptop spends less power. Only thing so far I know which might cause trouble are some firewire or USB devices along with powernow. But anyway, check it out and tell us.

==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

till now its really working well! I still haven't installed both the drivers. I will keep this setting for 1 or 2 more days to see if it will crash (although it already should've crashed if this would not be the problem).

After that i will install the drivers and see if it keeps working.

Everytime when i did a windows update or sp2 installation i had the retail drivers installed (coming from the recovery disc with the laptop). Maybe that was the issue, that it couldn't handle the updates with those old drivers (because i deleted them before installing the sp2 on this current setup). So it could be that it will work perfectly even with those drivers installed, but the only difference is that the drivers are being installed after the updates.

I'll keep you updated on the progress.

BTW, is the standard harddrive from the LMi 5400rpm? Cause the person i bought this laptop from said it was a 7200rpm drive. I tried to find programs to check the rpm speed but i could only find programs for checking the bandwith speed of the harddisk.

 

My 1501 came with a 4200rpm drive.

Here is the speed of that drive, using TDTach:

http://users.otenet.gr/~ariskk/web/toshiba_4200rpm_60gb.jpg

I switched it for a 7200 rpm one, here is the speed of it:

http://users.otenet.gr/~ariskk/web/hitachi_7200rpm_60gb.jpg


==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

hmm...


i got 93mb/s burst speed and it varies from 34MB/s to +- 17mb/s in the graph. so it looks like its not a 4200 nor a 7200 i think... something in between.

 

I think you can check the model of the hard disk, from the bios. Then do a search on the internet to find it's home page. There you'll see all specs.

==============================
1.
Gigabyte 7DXR+, Athlon XP 2400+, AMD cooler
512DDR Ram, 200GB + 80GB WD JB + 40GB WD BB + 40GB IBM DeathStar-ready to die (click click clicks).
DVD , CDRW, 350Watt HEC AMD approved PSU, 1000VA Mustek UPS
212G Allied Data wireless PCI adapter
Prolink PixelView PlayTV Pro card (sucks)
Soundblaster live! Value
Running XP Pro & Linux

2. Laptop
Acer Aspire 1501LMi, Athlon 64 3000+ DTR, Ati 9600 (M10), 512 DDR333 (now 2x512MB Kingston), 60GB hard disk (upgraded to 7200rpm), WinXP / WinXP 64 bit beta

 

After a few days of running completely stable i installed the latest AMD 64-bit CPU drivers located here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html .

After about 2 hours of running the laptop with the drivers installed it freezed again.

I have also posted my inquiry at the AMD tech support forums (post is located here if you are interested: http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=46374 )