Laptop freezes after some time

[Girish]

I have an Acer Aspire 5740G. Specifications are as follows:

Intel Core i5 430M @ 2.27GHz

4 GB DDR3 RAM

ATI HD 5650 1 GB

 

Since some time now, it has started freezing after roughly 60 to 90 minutes of usage. I thought this could be because of certain Windows updates, so I did a system restore to go back to the state it was in before when it was working fine. But it still freezes after a certain time. Point to note is, I can still move my cursor, but everything else on the screen at that time stays frozen. I have to hard reboot it every time.

 

I'm not even running any resource intensive applications. After 60-90 minutes, whether I'm browsing or watching a movie, it just freezes. The whole screen turns into a still picture that I cannot click on and do nothing about.

 

Also, I noticed this problem after I got my laptop back from the service center where they replaced the LCD. Could they have f*cked something up?

 

I just want to make sure whether this is a software issue or a hardware one. If it's a hardware related issue, then I will have no choice but to take it back to the service center since it's under warranty. I'm kind of hoping to avoid that since last time they took one month just to replace the LCD. I don't want to be without my laptop for another month.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

Edit: Forgot to add, my internet security is up-to-date and I have ran a full scan of my system, so it can't be a virus issue.

Edited December 1, 2010 by girishb

[d00d]

It should have nothing to do with the hardware change. Out of curiosity, where did you get the repair done? A repair shop, or through Acer's warranty department?

 

This error is usually the memory (if it freezes with the mouse still moving). Have you upgraded it recently? If its brand new and you haven't touched it, inspect the seals around the memory bay underneath the laptop. Its possible a dodgy repair shop would have switched out the factory memory for some 3rd party crap.

 

If its under warranty though, I'd take it back. Testing involves opening the memory bay up and testing the sticks of RAM one at a time, and I'm sure that'll void your warranty.

[Girish]

It was an Acer authorized service center. I didn't want to void the warranty and hence, I got the LCD replaced from them only.

 

And nope, I haven't upgraded the memory. Other than the LCD change, everything else is just the same as when I purchased it. If the memory is the cause here, then I guess it would be better if I took it back to the same service center.

 

Just wondering, could there be any other reasons?

[d00d]

There could be a lot of other reasons, but that would involve several smaller issues occuring at the same time to produce this issue. Go by Occam's razor - the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one.

 

And if it was several smaller issues, it'd have greater implications of what could be wrong with your laptop. Either way, you'd have to send that laptop away; in a week, or in a couple of years (outside the warranty period).

[Girish]

Sigh. I was kinda hoping to avoid sending it to the service center. Acer's support is pathetic. But I guess I don't have any other choice.

 

Thanks for your help, though. I'll let you know if anything happens.

[AmyJones]

I have heard of this happening alot with intel graphics cards, do you have one of those?

[anus]

Download Memtest and run it and see if it finds any errors, bro.

[Girish]

Download Memtest and run it and see if it finds any errors, bro.

Hey, good suggestion. Did not occur to me at all. I'll do it as soon as I get back from work.

 

@AmyJones: Nopes, I would never buy anything with Intel video cards. It's got a 1 GB ATI HD 5650 in it.

[Stinky12]

The problem right now is you have no idea what is causing your computer to freeze.

There can be two sides to this and it's either hardware or software.

 

If it's software, Acer as well as other companies won't give a damn since they can't predict what the user do to their machine

If it's hardware and it's still in warranty, call Acer, send it back and let them check it out.

 

Backup important data and do a factory restore. If the problem still exist, then it's a hardware problem.

 

 

[anus]

So how did it go, bro?

[Girish]

Ahh sorry, forgot to post.

 

I downloaded MemTest, but unfortunately, I did not have a blank CD to create a bootable disc. So, I downloaded another memory testing software from here. They suggested I run it for atleast 20 mins. I ran the program for 30 mins and it did not find any errors. When I find some time, I'll let it run entirely till it completes the test. It takes a loooooong time.

 

Also, today I used my laptop for about 150-180 mins and it didn't freeze. Still, I have a few things that I noted and would like to point them out:

 

1. My Kaspersky Internet Security constantly (like every 5 mins) restarted by itself. During this time, when I pointed my cursor towards the Kaspersky icon in the taskbar, it used to say "Service Part of the program was unloaded from the computer memory" and then, it used to restart. I thought this might be something to do with me using a beta version. So, I decided to perform a product update from Kaspersky's site.

 

Here's the second problem:

2. I was using Firefox 3.6.12. For some reason, my download kept getting interrupted with an error saying that the source file could not be read and hence, it was unable to save the file. This used to happen after 10-15 MBs of download. So, I tried changing the source by trying to download the same file from HotFile and FileServe. But I still ended up with the same error. This had never happened before as I was able to browse websites without any issues.

After trying at least 10 times, I decided to switch browsers. And voila, Google Chrome downloaded the entire 110 MB file without any problem.

 

After all this trouble, I finally updated my Kaspersky to the latest version and I haven't encountered the first issue on this latest version... yet.

 

So, what do you think? Could any of my previous issues have been related to some fault in the memory? Or was it just because of the beta Kaspersky and the Firefox?

Anyways, I still intend to run that memory test just to be sure that my RAM is fine. And, in the meantime, I'll try using my laptop for as long as I can without restarting and check if any of those issues re-occur.

[Girish]

Sorry for the double post, but my laptop seems fine now. It's been running for 4 hours now and no hang ups or freezes at all. The only things I changed in between was rolling back all Windows updates and changing Kaspersky from a beta version to a released version. I'm guessing one of these two must have caused the freeze-ups.