Acer Aspire 5738G Crashes & lockups

The Problems:

1- Random blue screen crashes with strange sound coming from the hard drive, not related to the laptop load or stress or temperature
2- Hanging at Acer logo screen and not being able to boot for several times till the bugger thinks that he wants to boot

The already tried solutions:

1- Fresh windows installations from different sources
2- Different sets of drivers for every part of the laptop, different bioses both modded & OEM
3- Stress testing the CPU/GPU & testing the RAM with no errors
4- error checking the harddrive for bad sectors with no bad sectors
5- High ULTRA DMA CRC COUNT ERROR & the value is at the threshold 200/200

Acer service center:

They took the laptop for almost 2 weeks now and according to them AFTER fully wiping my 500 GB of non backed up data even when I told them not to because I know that there is no software/HDD sectors problem that require full freakin whipe, that there is nothing wrong with my laptop & that I am "imagining things"

So since this is my last purchase of Acer Crapware anyway, it is up to me to figure out what on earth is wrong & how to bloody fix it now after my data is completely gone so that a bunch of ignorants think that wiping a HDD data and installing windows is the magical solution to any problem Sigh .....

I am suspecting the HDD cables are responsible for all these problems & I suspected that due to the huge ULTRA DMA CRC ERROR count

Questions:

1- Could it be anything else ?
2- If it aint anything else, is it easy to change the HDD cables in the laptop like it is in desktops & are there any certain specs I should be looking for while purchasing one ?

 

There are no HDD cables- it's a push/pull socket like the one for DVD drive so it's not something that can be easily replaced.
Just to be on the safe side- can you post full SMART status from i.e. HDTune health tab (it had a free version)
It's not that I doubt what you wrote about no bad sectors but SMART can hint at other things one just has to see that.

 

well ... I will get the laptop from acer tomorrow so I don't have a SMART status report available but I checked all the values there is nothing wrong with any even the load/unload cycles are around 50,000 cycles not even remotely close to the 600,000 life cycle of the HDD even after the long bad sectors check non of the SMART values changed

so what you are saying that this is a MOBO problem ??? because if there are no cables then it is a built-in socket in the MOBO ?

 

It can be related to the drive connector in which case it may be both on mobo or HDD side. It would be useful if you could cross-check this by using the HDD from 5738G in another laptop or some other drive in your 5738G.
That way we would know for sure where the problem is.
Hopefully it will turn out to be HDD not the mobo.


BTW It's standard Acer procedure to recover Windows on HDD while wiping it out. It tends to solve a lot of problems and they always do that unless the problem is very distant (like bad/stuck pixel)

 

hmm..... well I can put that hard in my old Fujitsu laptop it also have a WD blue scorpio but 160 gigs .... but the thing is I can't trigger the effect so it could be a month long procedure .... is there anyway I can trigger that effect ???

 

That should work provided that Fujitsu also uses SATA drive.
If you put some stress on the HDD- i.e. repeated anti-virus scanning ULTRA DMA CRC COUNT ERROR should start rising.
So if CRC gets higher while Fujitsu is running in Acer- the mobo is at fault, if not than the 500GB needs replacement.

 

I will give it a shot first thing tomorrow when I go get my laptop .... & hopefully it is the harddrive problem .... also there is something I forgot to mention thanks to the amazing design of the Acer's the HDD is right under the overheating CPU so usually my HDD operates in temps 50~60c which is quite an extreme for a HDD so if the HDD was the problem could the temps be the reason ??? and if I managed to change it is there a way I can cool down that HDD ??? can I apply thermal paste on it or something like CPUs & GPUs .... (I have my CPU undervolted already)

 

I know that feeling- my previous laptop had the same design flaw however none of two drives that I've used in it died although both worked in mid 50s most of the time.
I don't think there's any place left for something resembling a radiator there.
I've had a spare HDD hatch and I have tested if removing the metal underlining and making it perforated will help- it didn't.
What about a laptop cooler with a fan in the center that would blow air at the mid-section of the notebook (so to speak)?

 

I tried a laptop cooler but due to the fact that my laptop has absolutely no air intake vents the bottom is completely solid that rendered the cooler useless :S

Adding up to my problems I just checked my old fujitsu and it has another amazing design where it is easier to reach the GPU & CPU than the HDD :O there is no harddrive bay so if I want to try the HDD in it I have to completely dismantle the thing ..... sigh .....

I always thought the end user shouldn't be doing such stuff and it is the OEM problem right now I don't know what to do .... some people told me to just live with it like that but it is impossible I can't have my laptop telling me when to use it

 

It's not something you can ignore as data integrity may be at stake.
It's a computer not a Russian roulette after all.
If you can't find your way out of this maybe it's time to go ahead of things.
Go buy a nice cheap 7200rpm drive (Samsung SpinPoint MP4 640 GB -7200rpm, 16MB, Serial ATA/300).
If it solves your problem you will have solved it and upgraded at the same time.
If it doesn't-you'll own an external drive for back-up which you definitely need at this point.

 

Computer hardware here is insanely expensive I mean like INSANE I bought this laptop for almost 700 euros while in my opinion it is not worth than 400~450.... our custom duties on this stuff is insane so a new harddrive will usually cost around 500~750 EGPs which is almost 100~150 euros which I can't afford atm. with a 50/50 chance of solving my problem ... I am seriously thinking about filling a law suit against to our Customer Protection Council which will actually be cheaper than fixing the laptop which gave me nothing but problems ever since I bought it with absolutely no help from the OEM/Service center/Retailer

I can't even believe that I am in a situation where ""I"" have to figure out what is wrong with my device because the OEM center can't or dunno maybe too lazy to figure out

EDIT: On a side note will changing the HDD from AHCI to IDE in my bios be of any help when I receive the laptop ?
EDIT2: If I manage to get a new HDD how can I transfer my recovery partition ?

 

Look for a known good but used hard drive to test with. 160G or something small.

Also, note that you could have had an intermittent connection to your harddrive due to minor corrosion that worked itself out in shipment and there is no problem for Acer or you to find. It happens.

 

Ok now I have an even bigger problem I think whoever ignorant at the service center destroied my recovery partition now when I try to recover usin ALT + F10 says HDD recovery validation falied

 

Try recovery DVDs- assuming you've burned them.
It may not be Acer's fault though- if there's a problem with an interface and CRC errors go high it may have different effects- including what' you're seeing.

 

Thanks a lot for the help Downloads it is really appreciated ... I just had it with this laptop it was nothing but problematic ever since the day I bought and I finally found the solution to all my problems .... it is in my Sig

 

Yeah that should solve it
It's for the best- notebooks are meant to work not to be a DIY course of drilling and/or soldiering.

 

well can't agree more on that I hope that PB which is technically another Acer but a cheap alternative would do a better job than its predecessor