Acer aspire 5051 cursor sticking and system lagging-help!!!

Hi,

This is my first post and I'm far from being a computer expert do please bear with me. The problem is that my laptop was working fine and then yesterday morning it wouldn't boot correctly (stuck on vista login screen). It eventually worked but the cursor was sticking and the it was impossible to type in. What is more, the light on the laptop shows that the laptop is charged but the actual battery icon onscreen says that battery is at 0% (but plugged in and charging). Having spent some time searching for an explanation online (on another computer of course) I am worried that it may be a problem with the motherboard.....? Or is it just a RAM issue? Am confused and would LOVE LOVE LOVE some help before I think about getting it fixed.....

Can anybody help?

Chris.

 

It could be a number of things, considering it's an acer, it could very well be the mother board:/
I would try turning it off, unplug and take out battery, opened the memory cover on the bottom and take out the memory sticks/stick and the put them back in(this is called re-seating the memory).
Put the cover back on and boot it up without the battery in.

Tell us what happens when you do this

 

Thanks-that worked perfectly when I booted it up without the battery in...however, when I then put the battery back in and booted it up again its gone back to sticking. Does this mean my battery is gone and I need a new one? Any suggestions? Or will I just have to use without the battery form now on in???
Chris

 

As far as the battery/meter being off, if the system was on the shelf for some time, it's likely that the battery needs to be calibrated against the meter - that's why it's showing a different charge level.

This is an HP Cal procedure - it should work for yours, but you might check your own notebook support site to see if they have their own.

Calibrating the battery while Notebook is in use

A calibration cycle requires that the battery be completely charged and then completely discharged. During the calibration cycle, the power management properties must be disabled to allow the battery to completely discharge.
Follow the steps below to calibrate the battery power meter readings.

1. Connect the AC adapter and allow the battery to charge to 99% - 100% of capacity.
2. Disconnect the AC adapter from the notebook PC.
3. Click Start and type Power Options in the Search field and press Enter .
4. Select Create a power plan from the left sidebar.
5. Click in the Plan name field and type Calibrator . Then, press Enter .
6. Select Never for all topics in the On battery column.
7. Click Create to accept the values and force the battery to consistently discharge.
8. Allow the battery to discharge completely until the notebook PC shuts down.

NOTE: The battery power meter is now calibrated, and the battery level readings should be accurate.

9. Connect the AC adapter and restart the notebook PC.
10. After calibration, return to the Power Options dialog box (Step 3) and select your default power plan setting.


Calibrating the battery while Notebook is not in use

A calibration cycle requires that the battery be completely charged and then completely discharged. The calibration may take one to five hours, depending on the age of the battery and the notebook configuration.
Follow the steps below to calibrate the battery power meter readings.
NOTE: Do not use the PC during the calibration cycle.

1. Shut down the notebook PC.
2. Connect the AC Adapter and charge the notebook PC until the battery charge light is green, indicating that the battery is completely charged.
3. Turn on the notebook PC.
4. Press F8 several times when the system logo appears (or whichever key you use for accessing the Advanced Boot Menu)
5. When the Windows Advanced Boot Options menus displays, use the Up and Down arrow keys to select Safe Mode and then press Enter .
6. When the Windows Advanced Startup Menu displays, select the Startup in Safe Mode option.
7. Disconnect the AC power adapter from the notebook PC.
8. Allow the battery to discharge completely until the notebook PC shuts down.

The battery is now calibrated, and the battery level reading on the power meter should be accurate.

As far as everything else, what you describe is consistent with system resources getting to critical levels. You can check by looking at your CPU/RAM performance graphs in the Task Manager when things get slow. Most likely you've got way too much running in the background for your installed RAM configuration. The first clue is usually typing or mouse movement - you can type faster than characters appear onscreen, and mouse movements become jerky. If you only have one internal HDD, it happens more often and it's worse because when your system gets to critical RAM levels (available RAM is very low) your system uses the HDD as a virtual RAM device. You can probably notice your HDD LED on all the time during the symptoms as it tries to keep up with system requirements and requests.

If you have a 32 bit system, you can use a program called Memory Boost to help you narrow down the offending programs that are hogging memory, and it also allows you to reclaim RAM used by the system that isn't given back. You can download a full trial version too - Memory Boost is at this link: Memory Boost

Memory Boost allows you to set upper and lower critical available RAM limits and give you a warning when it's low so you can reclaim RAM used by the system and not given back when programs and services are shut down. Systems never give back the same amount of RAM as they allocate for a program or service; hence, over time if you don't reboot often, available system RAM gets to critical levels and things grind to a halt, and can even freeze for a period. It can also happen if you have too much running in the background. MB allows you to avoid RAM shortages, find which programs / processes are RAM hogs and lets you shut them down also. I've used it for years, especially before I upgraded my desktop to a full RAM configuration. Before it got a lot of use since I use RAM hungry programs a lot, and only had 512mb of RAM.

 

Thanks. Tried the above to calibrate the battery but it is tricky because whenever the battery is in the system barely works-this is the main issue for me really. It strikes me as strange that the laptop works fine when just connected to the mains (using it now!) but as soon as the battery is in it is terrible. Do you think it's simply a case of buying a new battery......?