Trouble with Acer laptop

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tf34mech · #1 Post by **tf34mech** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 3:13 pm

I have a IBM but I also have a Acer that I am having trouble with. Does anyone know of some other sites dealing in laptop repair. It will start to boot but I get a General Fault Protection error. I tried to run some tests in UBCD but it just shuts down. I can run Mint CD but if I put in the windows xp disc it will shut down a few seconds into it. I have tried each stick of memory one at a time. Any ideas? It is a Acer Aspire 3000.
Thanks
Sean

#2 Post by **ZaZ** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 2:39 am

So you've got XP installed already? Can you install Mint?

tf34mech · #3 Post by **tf34mech** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 5:03 pm

XP is the oem acer install and I tried to do the acer restore at boot and it starts gets around 25% it will shut down. I checked the adapter and it is putting the right amount of voltage and tried with and with out the battery. I was kind of hoping to avoid installing Mint because I want to save the data on there. I have ordered a laptop to usb adapter and when I get that I will back up the data and try to install Mint. Mint runs great with out any problems which I dont understand. Maybe hard drive going bad?
Thanks for the help.
Sean

tf34mech · #4 Post by **tf34mech** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:16 pm

I just tried to install Mint from the cd and it gets to 94% and shuts down. I tried this twice. I am assuming it is something with the hard drive. I put my temp probe for my mulit meter on the cpu and it reads 70 degrees Celcious. I tried the Mint install with the CPU cover off to see if it was getting hot. What does a laptop cpu usually run in temp?
Thanks

#5 Post by **ZaZ** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 1:51 am

Just from afar I'd say if you can run Mint fine, but it fails to install, the hard drive seems a likely candidate. Perhaps you want to buy one form somewhere it's easy to return should it not be the case. CPU temps can depend on a lot of things. AMD chips generally run hotter than Intels.

#6 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:52 am

Please don't buy a hard drive until you run diagnostics on it. I am not sure if Acer has some type of diagnostic program like PC-Doctor, but the hard drive manufacturer most likely would if Acer does not. I have seen flaky RAM prevent many an install as well. A couple of rounds of Memtest86 would not hurt.

tf34mech · #7 Post by **tf34mech** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 2:59 pm

I ran Memtest 3.3 and it shuts down on test 4. I tried each stick of memory by itself and in different slots with the same result. I am going to pull the hard drive and see what brand it is. I am going to try and run one of the hard drive tools in UBCD and see what happens.
Thanks for the help.
Sean

#8 Post by **Harryc** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:52 pm

Well, I can save you some time. Leave the hard drive out and run memtest86 again. If it still fails you do not have a hard drive problem, or even if you do, it is not the main problem. It could be heat related. Does the fan run?

tf34mech · #9 Post by **tf34mech** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:14 am

Yes I ran mem test with out the hard drive and the same thing happens so I dont think it is the hard drive or at least like you said not the all of the problem. I dont think it is heat because I can turn it on after it shuts down and it will shut down again but at different time intervals. I am thinking a motherboard problem. The fan does run. Could it be a DVD drive issue? I also tried starting with the wireless card removed just to see. Thanks for all the help.
Sean

#10 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:31 am

The DVD drive is easy to eliminate, just remove it and try again with memtest. If it were me I'd probably try to clean and reseat the fan/heatsink on the CPU with Arctic Silver thermal grease before looking into a replacement systemboard. Check all connections on the board as well.

tf34mech · #11 Post by **tf34mech** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:55 pm

That is a good idea. I have nothing else to loose.
Thanks
Sean

Trouble with Acer laptop

Trouble with Acer laptop

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