Acer Aspire 7720G Boot Problem

Hi

I bought an Acer Aspire 7720G laptop with the Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor, 3GB RAM and 250GB HD last week and experienced a strange problem on both it and its replacement i got with it being within its 28 day guarantee still.

Both would not boot up first time after being left off over night or for an extended period of time. The LEDs for the battery and the power button would all light up, and i could hear that it was on, but the screen would just remain blank and the keyboard and mouse would not respond. The only solution was to hold down the power button until it turned off and then turn it on again at which point it would start normally; none of the methods mentioned in the guide about getting it out of hibernation and power saving modes worked.

I shut both down via the start button and let it close fully on its own. There were no other unusal occurrences and when the thing was on it would work just fine.

Ruled out a virus as i didn't even hook up the second laptop to the internet and there was only one common programme i installed on both prior to the problem's appearance and that was the game "rFactor". This could well be it, but thought i should check with you guys before i get my 3rd laptop in a week with some potentially faulty hardware.

This was my first laptop and i'm not too sharp with computers either so i'm half expecting it to just be something stupid that i've done, but please don't refrain from making look like a fool if it is my fault!

Any help on this would be much appreciated.
Thanks

 

first of all WELCOME to the ACER FORUM...
and i can tell you that this is not something you have done... it's something stupid ACER did... shipping laptops with BIOS files that were not properly tested!!

the good news is:: it's very easily fixed.... read the post by Elbubi (see below) for more specific info on doing a BIOS FLASH...

it's a known issue with certain BIOS versions for that motherboard.. my PC is based on the same board and i've experienced the problem with bios 1.34 & one time with BIOS 1.40...

update bios to 1.43 or higher (if you can find higher, allways use the newest unless you have a GREAT reason not to)

 

Bigo is 100% right.

I own a 7720G too, and have also experienced your same issue with v1.34 and v1.40.

Enter here => http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_7720.html and download the latest bios version available.

Then use winflash utility to update bios, and try to shut off as many aplications as you can before executing it. This should solve your ugly cold boot issue.

Good Luck and Kind Regards

 

Nice, cheers for the help guys.

Feel slightly bad about forcing £25 out of PC World now when it wasn't their fault.

Thanks again.

 

take the money as a fee for your troubles.... maybe that will help ease your concious!!

no problem,, that's what we are here for...

WHAT VERSION WAS THE BIOS??? 1.34?

 

Hey,

Cheers for taking the time to post an answer to this question. I to bought an Aspire 7720 about 3 weeks ago, and have been getting gradualy more and more annoyed by it's temperamental booting.

As stated by the original poster, sometimes it wouldn't boot from sleep after being off for a while...... sometimes it would....... seemingly random.

Mine was shipped with version 1.35, have just updated to 1.43 - fingers crossed, it's booting as I type!!

Twice, mine has also given a blue screen of death during boot from total power off...... this was however after having to force a switch off during the failed boot from sleep. It said (briefly) something about a memory dump then closed down.

Again, it was fine when booted again, so perhaps it was just a dodgy file that had been written when I powered it off while the screen was blank (does that make sense?)

Anyway, chers again for the help.... it's annoying if it's a known issue that when I emailed Acer support their only reply was:

· This seems like a software issue, phone technical support at 50p per minute!!

Charge me to speak to you about an issue you know is your fault - nice one!

I didn't phone them, I googled it, and stumbled across this site...... A bunch of helpful non profit making nice people that are willing to help.

Pat on the backs all round

 

thanks for the pat on the back...

we're here to help... and ACER should provide free support for new units... 50p a minute is crazy...

thank goodness for NBR and GOOGLE!

 

Hi
I 've got the same laptop and have the same problem and the current laptop is my third one (2nd replcement). I bout the first one on the 24th of aug.
I was trying to update bios as advised previously but due to some reason it does not work. the version i have on mine is 1.35.
The error message comes up when doing it on windows is " Insydeflash can not load the driver. Please close all applications. If you are running this in vista, please run as administrator.

I can confirm that there was no programmes running while i was doing the update. (don't know if any programmes running in the background?). And my user account is an administrator one.

I tried this on safe mode and get the same message.

I also tried to update bios on "safe mode with command prompt" but when i run the if50.bat file it comes up with this command
C:\cl50143a>fla**** cl50143a.fd /fe /b

fla***** is flash it as one word

can someone please help me how to upde the bios please.
Thank you

 

boot from a BOOTABLE CD with the WIN98 boot floppy image...

once booted from the win98cd you are at a dos prompt...

run the dos flash progam for here...

it will work that way..

 

Hi Thank you very much for quick reply.

Can you please explain how to make this win98 bootable cd using vista. I am a new user of vista and does not know much about vista.

 

right click the bios flash file in question and select run as administrator . do this in normal windows mode

 

wintron is right...

it's not an administrator account that is required....

you must RIGHT CLICK On the WINFLASH file, and choose RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR.

 

Hi Guys, this is George from Argentina! I have the same problem (before and after downgrading from vista to XP). I will upgrade BIOS, just one question, the file (v 1.43) is shown under Vista, can I apply it to my XP? I think so, but need you assistance to confirm it.
Best wishes from South America!!!!

 

yes you can

 

Thank you wintron! I will update it when back home today. Any suggestions? winflash or boot disk? Many thanks, George!

 

under XP i've used flash it over 50 times with no problems...

just kill all running tasks.. (anti-virus, firewall, anything running in the systray)

 

yep winflash it . try to close as many applications as possible beforehand .

 

Will it help to start on safe mode (in order to kill running programs) or not?

Thanks!!

 

do not use safe mode... just boot normally

then press CTRL ALT DEL to open TASK MANAGER........ and end open programs

 

Hi "labochapelada", and welcome to this great forum

I do own a 7720G too, and if you look at my location you might get surprised

Just do what Bigo says, boot up normally and kill as manu apps as you can (anti-virus, anty-spam, etc, etc), then just run winflash.

I do usually use DOS method, booting from a Usb flash drive, but that´s only cause I´m a freak

Kind Regards and Good Luck getting rid of that ANNOYING failure!!!

 

i normally use msconfig and i uncheck anything on startup , restart , then run winflash . then i use msconfig again to enable my startup items . but if you want you can follow bigos advice .

 

Confirm that I flashed BIOS in my 7720 (v1.43). ACER drivers, which included specific files (kinda winflash) to do the job on DOS or Win. Ntb tested and working fine, overpassing cold boot issue!!!

 

congrats... there may be a 1.44 comming out sometime soon,, but it's almost identical to 1.43,,, so you shouldn't need to flash the BIOS again for a few months anyway....

 

I have a 7720G as well and have already taken 1 back as I had to reboot every time I started it and my new 1 is doing the same! My bios was 1.40 and I hope this update now fixes my problem. I thought it was because of the cold weather!! Thanks ever so much for this though guys and just out of curiosity can cold weather cause startup problems from a cold boot?

 

Well you guys are officially the dogs dangly bits!

Bought a 7720 Sunday, boot problems right away, wouldn't even boot to windows setup first time, repeated boot problems as day went on.

Same problems Monday morning, hung on blank screen on first boot. shutting down via power button and rebooting worked fine. Contacted PCWorld tech support, they had no idea's other than take it back for replacement.

Laptop replaced Monday evening!

Inital boot to windows set up hung again! Second boot worked fine.

Tuesday morning 8:30am, same problem, boot failure 1st time, shut down using power button, reboot and everything ok. Googled the problem, found your site, flashed bios by 8:45am, seems to boot ok now, hopefully tomorrow morning will be the final nail in the coffin of this problem.

Cheers for the help and as I said, you guys are def the dogs bollox!

 

i have to agree ...

i had exactly this problem, but was very lost how to fix it..

but step by step read your posts and voila

And guess what my bios before i flashed it to 1.43 was 1.17 i kid you not !!!

many thanks again

 

Hello everybody.

I had the same problems with the cold boot issue and the bios flash fixed that. It now seems though, that the wifi does not activate first time. I need to restart the laptop in order to get the wifi orange light to come on and stay on?

Anyone else had this problem? More importantly, anybody managed to fix this problem?

I've since flashed my bios to 1.45.

Cheers guys,

Paul

 

Just want to reiterate that you guys are indeed legends and Im so glad that I stumbled across this site through google. Ive had the same cold boot issue with my 7720G, unfortunately PC Worlds "Tech Guys" or should that be "Non-Tech Guys" have one solution to every problem - system restore. Even when I couldnt get the bios update to work because of the administrator issue, I got similar advice - system restore. PC World have bought out all support for Acer laptops sold through them however their own staff have hardly any knowledge and seem under pressure to hang up the phone. Glad this site is here, keep up the good work.

 

Hi,

This is my second 7720G, I tried the winflash tool and after a couple of seconds the machine died, kput, killed!

I am scared to do it again on my new machine, I have bios 1.40 and get the ocasional boot halt,

any suggestions?

Thank you.

Simon.

 

hi Elbubi and all the other guys
I found this site by actually reading a page detailing a description of installing a bios. However I think you did this blindly with no screeen!!!?!

I'm new to this forum and I've been having the issue of my laptop switching off on me. Its now finally just decided to switch off and wont come back on. If I press the green button It lights up and the battery light at the front does along with the light and a 'bulb' icon next to it. The laptop does 'sound' like its operating but I see nothing on the screen, no audio and no keyboard, trackpad response

I'm completely lost now - I'm trying to avoid taking this to PC world for the moment if its something I can at least try myself. Should I go about creating the boot disc for my laptop and if so do you have the weblink detailing the instructions on how you did it please?

any help you could provide I would be MASSIVELY greatful for. I literally just finished an 8 week transformer animation project, and altho I backed up a short while back (mainly because of this repeated switching off issue!) I have still lost a good chunk!

thanks
ant
www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk

 

hey all..
Can anyone help any further with this please? I created a boot disc by downloading the bios for Windows Vista from the acer website elbubi linked to. I then unzipped the folder & found the following files in it:

CL50145A.fd
FLA.exe
if50.bat

I put these on a blank disc with another file I called autoexec.bat

in that file I wrote if50.bat

so in total 4 files.

I ran through the blind flash setup which a user called RobbieG1983 typed up but it doesn't seem to do much. Holding down fn & esc as I power on the machine results in the fan coming on full speed and the machine sounds like its going to boot up and the cd drive initiates but it doesn't seem to do much beyond that. any ideas ppl may have would be really appreciated

ta
ant

 

Hi,

I am also having this "blank screen" problem with my laptop (I think the BIOS is either v.1.32 or v.1.34)... I had been leaving it for a while and eventually it would give up and switch itself off. Then it would boot up the next time (scanning itself for problems etc.) and work fine.

Reading forum posts on over-heating and so I hoovered it out and for a few days I had no problems... however, when I'd had it on for a while everything on the screen turned yellow with lines for a few seconds then cut out and has resorted to the "blank screen" problem.

I can't get past theproblem, even if left on for any length of time. It is approximately two years old... I'm worried about BIOS flashing from boot up in case it fries it...

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

 

Hope someone get this after so long. I have the same problem with a laptop i have just bought. done the same as above with the four files but was told to press fn+esc after a few second and then wait for 5-10 mins for stuff to happen but nothing deos.