Acer Aspire 5100-3019 strange blue screen with white broken lines while playing certain games, DVDs, and videos

I have an Aspire 5100-3019 and I am having a strange problem while playing certain games or watching videos either online or through Media Player 11 or sometimes while watching certain DVDs. Sometimes while playing certain games, watching videos online, or playing certain DVDs, my computers hard disk will suddenly stop responding, the HD light will turn off and stay off, and after a few seconds the screen will turn blue with white broken lines for a few seconds and the computer will shut down and start to reboot. Then the computer will beep and display a fixed disk error message and the screen will change to a blank dos screen with the blinking cursor in the top left corner and will do nothing else.

I then have to press and hold the power button to manually shut off the computer and then power up the computer again. After this it will boot up and run normally again.

The strange thing is it only seems to do this with certain games and at very specific points while playing certain DVDs and online videos. And it always does it at exactly the same points in the DVDs and videos and sometimes at exact points in certain games. I know it isn't the DVDs or game disks because the work perfectly in my DVD player and my desktop. And as I said before it also does it while watching online videos which means it can't be a disk problem.

I have also checked and confirmed that all of my display and disk drivers are the most current and there are no updates avaiable for any of them.

I have seen posts online from others who have the 5100 series and they have reported the same strange blue screen.

Acer tech support was useless and they could not tell me what was causing the problem or how to fix it.

This seems to only happen whenever the computer is doing anythig graphics intensive. As I don't recall it ever doing this while running an application or performing any other similar type of tasks. Just while gaming or watching videos or DVDs.

It is one of the strangest problems I have ever encountered with a computer and I just can't explain it or figure out how to fix it.

Has anyone else had this problem and if so have any of you figured out what is causing it and how to fix it?

I would really appriciate any help on this since it is driving me nuts.

 

Have you tried updating the video drivers?

 

don't bother trying to solve this problem. a lot of aspire 5100 owners have experienced this issue. i have completely updated drivers on my computer, and occasionally, i'd still get the messed up screen, prompting a reboot. as far as i know, there isn't a way to fix this issue. thankfully, for me, it's relatively uncommon.

 

Yes, As I said above all of the drivers on my computer are the most current including the video drivers.

 

It sounded like a video error until you said that it reboots, i would do a test for bad sectors on the hard drive. If that dosn't show anything I would open the back cover and blow out the heatsinks, and perhaps put new thermal goop on the video chip

 

This is one of the most common faults for the 5100. Its all down to the IDE controller on the mainboard. Every now and again it just decides that the HDD is not there and freezes. These boards also have problems with the vga cards which also cause the same symptoms. Either way you need a new mobo. Acer Tech should know about this, its been around long enough! hope this helps

 

Thanks Penryntech,

I Have To Admit I Suspected That It Might Be The Mobo Or The Disk Controller. Don't You Long For The Days When The Disk Controller Was A Seperate Replaceable Unit And Repairs Or Swapping Parts Was Much Easier.

 

hi i think i may have some light to shed now i have found your post , i am having this problem after i upgrade ram to 4 gb i get this exact same thing blue screen broken white lines , i assumed the memory is faulty (maybe not),
im not a techie as such but i have mucked round building destkops for myself and others for the last 13 years , this being my first laptop
ok i think the problem is overheating,if you look underneath where the vent is for the ram, its the long thin vent , there are only 8 holes to ventilate out of a possible 40 yes 40 , i believe if you remove this panel and carefully open the vents that are pre marked but not cut out , it would go along way to solveing this issue

 

i had freak shut-down thing going on with my laptop and used a cooling pad which help. infiniti is correct the holes where marked out but never bunched out.
i spent some time opening the holes out and making a cooling pad(don't like spending when i can make it)with the fan pulling air through these slots a bouns to this was it also draws the air through and past the cooling fins for the CPU and GPU.
so now even when playing DVD's my temps never go above 45deg and the ram stays cool which was a annoying just to the right of touch pad.it got very hot to the touch.
cooling pad not pretty but 100% effective and comfortable when on lap.
some sponge and some cardboard tubing and some gaffer tape.im happy

 

I thought I was the only person having his issue, techie mates keep mentioning bsod and memory corruption and state as its new to return the computer - is there anything else i can do? I get the blue screen with about ten rows of white lines which look like barcodes across the screen, with automatic switch off and when rebooted displays do you wish to start in safe or normal mode. Also would the type of software used make a difference ie free updates etc, or do you require to buy genuine software each time?

 

There has been a new twist that might be related to this problem. Last night i was playing a game on that computer and the same type of crash happened but this time when the computer went to reboot the display switched off. Then the computer let out one long beep and two short ones. It then continued to reboot but the screen never switched back on no matter how long I waited.

Now it won't switch on even if i try completely powering down and switching back on the computer. It just gives one long beep, two short ones, and then continues to boot but with the screen switched completely off. I can hear the Windows Vista chime after a while so I know that the hard disk is booting and windows is loading but i can't see anything.

I called Acer and they told me that since the computer is three months out of waranty they won't fix it under waranty. And they want $499.00 for a new motherboard if that is the problem. That's almost as much as i paid for it when I bought it new. I was just laid off from my job last month and I can't put out that kind of money to fix it. I also think that they shoud cover the cost since these models are known to have motherboard issues and the computer is barely over a year old. From what other people have told me this problem might well have been in there since the computer was built and if that is true then the computer might have been a ticking time bomb right from the start.

I told Acer that this problem might have been in the computer since it was built and that it might have been a defect in workmanship or materials but they still won't budge.

Has anyone else experienced this strange addition to the problem and have you figured out a cheaper way to fix it? Or does anyone know where I can (if neccesary) get an OEM motherboard for this model much cheaper than $499.99 I might know someone who can install it if I can find one.

Thanks

 

I had the same Problem with my Acer Aspire (Vista 64bit) half a year ago.
Now I build in the two 2GB-RAMs again just for fun - and now it works!!!

Obviously any updates did solve the problem.

Acer Support (1,99 Euro / min) did not help me at all -
they just told me that the Apie 5100 would NOT support 4GB-RAM.

By the way I would NEVER BUY a Acer again - they even don't support rthe customer with Recovery-DVDs, so I lost my Windows XP and could not recover it.

 

Welcome to the Acer forums RobertDerDeutshe

Acer clearly like most notebook builders do not provide Recovery DVD's anymore. It is up to the user to burn the recovery DVD's at first boot. And you can burn multiple copies if you want.

So don't come with the old " Never buy Acer again" because of something you ignored to do or whatever.

Does not go down well with the oldies here anymore. Seen it too many times before.

Cheers,
Theo