Acer Aspire 5315 Power problems

I have a acer aspire 5315 which is only 2 months onld, have been using it on a regular basis, roughly every day. Went away for a week and didn't use the laptop, when i came to use it , it wouldn't boot up. pressed the power button and nothing happened, eventually after 10 minutes it came on and boot ed up. I shut it down and tried the power button, which worked straight away this time. I'm finding that if i leave it more than about 24 hours, it will take about two minutes after the power button is pressed before it actually does anything. The exact process is when i press the power button the green power light comes on and the dvd drive light comes on, but it will not start reading from the hard drive for about two minutes, eventually the hard disk light starts flashing and it boots up. I wonder if any one else has this type of issue and is there anything i can do. it is still under warranty but have heard Acer area nightmare with fixing things, and don't want to create a problem if I can fix this myself. Any help would be much appreciated. THANKS jon

 

this was a common occurance with certain versions of the BIOS...

it happened most often with version 1.34, but also occured with other versions too...

download and install the latest BIOS from
support.acer-euro.com

i think the latest version they have publicly posted is 1.43...
that should solve your problem. i used 1.43 until i came across a beta release of 1.44... and i never had the cold boot issues that you are describing.... for more info on the history of this problem see the 5315 CPU UPGRADE thread... in the first post near the bottom of the links is a link to the COLD BOOT ISSUE...

that take care of your problems

 

Hey Bigozone, Thank you very much for the advice. I have managed to update the bios to 1.43 now, it took awhile but i got there and its showing 1.43 in the acer settings tab as 1.43. Also read the stuff on the cold boot issue. Well i'm going to leave the laptop turned off now for 24-36 hours and see if it boots up ok. Thanks again for the advice and hopefully you won't hear from me in 24-36 hours time.

Cheers

Jon

 

the real test comes from leaving the PC fully powered down for 12 hrs or more.. then try to power up.... if if boots first time then your problem is likely solved...

if you have to boot twice just to get the ACER screen then your problem is still there...

what version of BIOS was your machine running before the update?

 

it was running 1.33. It was odd becasue the computer was fine for two months, and then i leave it for a while, in fact i might have left it in sleep mode and then it wouldn't start up for like 10 mins. i read some of your advice on other posts at the time and tried removing the battery and pressing the power button for 30 secs etc, but eventually it just came on itself. After that i have been trying it every 36 hours or so and it is just lighting up the power light in the bottom left and the dvd drive, it takes a good 2 mins or so and the the hard disk light comes on and it boots up fine. Anyway, i hope the bios upgrade will fix it, otherwise i will have to call on your advice again. So fingers crossed. thanks again btw.

 

if you run into other problems,, feel free to ask

 

Hey there just got in from work and tried booting up my laptop. Its been off for 20 hours now. So i pressed the power button and the power light came on and the dvd light and the fan started for 2 seconds, then the fan went off, it took about 20 seconds with just the power and dvd light on but no activity and then the hard disk light came on and it started ok. So its not instant but a bit quicker than before. Should i be worried about this or is this a normal booting up procedure. I'm just worried that if i leave it off for a week or so it will take ages to boot up again or the problem might get worse. Any advice would be most appreciated. thanks.

 

the more i think about what you are describing, it sounds less and less like the cold boot issue we were experiencing due to certain BIOS versions..

the main thing that would help me understand what's happening is to know how long after pressing the POWER button before the ACER screen comes up

 

Thanks for getting back to me. Ok heres how it goes.

if computer has just been on for a while and then i shut it down and then restart it up.

1.Press power button
2. power light dvd and hard disk light all come on instantly
3. Acer big logo screen displayed in less than 5 seconds
4. Loads windows Vista loading screen about 3 seconds later
5. After 5 to 10 seconds windows vista login screen comes up.

If computer has been shut down and left for a while, i.e overnight, or even if it has been left in sleep mode, this willl happen.

1. press power button
2. power light and dvd light come on but no hard disk light come on
3. 20-30 seconds later hard disk light will come on
4. Acer logo screnn is then displayed 2 or 3 seconds after the hard disk lighht comes on but before that there is no power to the screen and nothing else happens
5. Once acer logo appears a couple of seconds later windows vista loading screen appears and then it loads as normal.

hope thats enough info, i really can't figure out why there is the change in boot up times depending on how long the computer has been off. Your recommendations would be welcome

Thanks

Jon

 

the fact that it is taking over 30 seconds to display the ACER boot screen is telling me that there is some hardware that is causing the DELAY in the PowerOnSelfTest (the test before the ACER logo comes up) due to your problems with the CD/DVD drive i'd start there,,, there is ONE screw to the lower left of the WIFI CARD.... that screw is the only thing holding the CD DRIVE into the laptop... while you have the laptop apart to add RAM... remove that screw, and then slide the dvd drive out of the system...

then replace the bottom cover after upgrading the RAM,, and see if you still experience the delay in boot-up...

see the attached thumbnail at the bottom of this post... the screw with the crappy red circle around it is the one that holds the DVD in..

 

Hey thanks for the advice, i don't really wan to open it up as i'm not to sure what i'm doing and don't want to make any more problems, its only 2 months old so is still under the one year warranty. So i think i will monitor it and if it gets any worse will return it to acer, which i know will be a pain in the *** but they might be able to do something.

Just one other thing i was thinking, when i hadn't used it for a week i'm pretty sure it had been left in sleep mode, and was in its case (a laptop bag) for a week in my cupboard, is there any way it could have over heated or soemthing similar??? Just a thought.