# Acer Aspire laptop freezes and gives weird Memtesy 86+ message



## Peter1986C (May 7, 2012)

Hello guys,

My Acer Aspire 7520G-402G32Mi laptop freezes sometimes, with several Linux distros, and therefore did I reapply thernal paste and clean the fan. This was to no avail so I decided to try to run a memory test. I believe I forgot to mention btw, that before I did the thermal grease reapplication, for a couple of times it took several repeated attempts to boot (after pressing the power button, it went on for a sec, off, on for a sec and after a few times it finally booted). This issue seems to have disappeared now though. Memtesy 86+ gives this weird message after a couple of minutes:







Could this be the motherboard? 

I hope I express myself clearly enough, and wish to know your thoughts please.


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## mtosev (May 7, 2012)

try running the windows memory testing tool


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## CaptainFailcon (May 8, 2012)

bad dimm 
any errors from memtext = bad dimm test each stick again


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## Peter1986C (May 8, 2012)

mtosev said:


> try running the windows memory testing tool



Windows is not installed on it, currently.



CaptainFailcon said:


> bad dimm
> any errors from memtext = bad dimm test each stick again



The error count is still 0, but then again it makes sense what you say. I will do this and let you know.


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## mtosev (May 8, 2012)

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/system-repair-disc-windows-7.htm


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## mtosev (May 8, 2012)

now i just gave you the link how to make a windows diagnostic disc


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## Peter1986C (May 8, 2012)

Memtest86+ did a successful run with only the second dimm installed, so now it is time to repeat with only the first installed. There was one thing though, once I rebooted and booted Mageia (in order to do a shutdown) the freezing happened again. However the dialog with the shutdown/reboot/etc. options still appeared when pressing the power button so it was not fully unresponsive. Only the touchpad and keyboard stopped responding.
So I will run Memtest86+ again (I don't see a point in trying the one by Microsoft) and run the test for more than 1 loop just in case. I am not sure what to do if the semi-freezing happens with the other dimm too though.


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## mtosev (May 8, 2012)

how about taking the notebook apart and then reassembling it. maybe something is loose and that is cousing problems


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## Peter1986C (May 8, 2012)

I reassembled the cooling and hard drives, but I did not work on the rest so it makes sense to reassemble the rest too, perhaps. Will do that tonight, I think.


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## Peter1986C (May 8, 2012)

Well some screws don't want to get out, while their "brethren" did so the screw driver is suitable. Does anyone know a good trick to force out screws without ruining the screw heads?


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## CaptainFailcon (May 9, 2012)

Chevalr1c said:


> Well some screws don't want to get out, while their "brethren" did so the screw driver is suitable. Does anyone know a good trick to force out screws without ruining the screw heads?



.... stop there put it back together the powers that BE are issuing a warning  
a "lose" connection won't cause the issue you are having 
-unless the dimm slot on the pcb is going south


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

Allright, later this week I will try to check what RAM slot is faulty.


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

It is doing it with both DIMMs as it seems now.


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## brandonwh64 (May 9, 2012)

Sounds like the laptop is on its way out. How old is it?


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

It is from roughly late summer/fall 2007.


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## phanbuey (May 9, 2012)

ooh nasty.

Sounds like a bad mobo (bad dimms/etc) / shoddy power delivery in the device.  Also the ram sticks could be going bad/degrading.  I would see if it runs with different ram (maybe a cheapo 512mb dimm), and if not, then this laptop needs to be retired.

Its not worth it to replace the mobo, and if it is the power circuitry/battery then its only a matter of time before it stops turning on.  Do you get freezing when on battery or only when plugged in (or does it not make a difference)?


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

both, I believe. But I might check just in case.

Edit: Indeed with both. And when powering the laptop on without the battery and on mains power got me this when booting Mageia Linux:


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## phanbuey (May 9, 2012)

Chevalr1c said:


> both, I believe. But I might check just in case.
> 
> Edit: Indeed with both. And when powering the laptop on without the battery and on mains power got me this when booting Mageia Linux:
> 
> http://www.abload.de/img/photo-00022pykd.jpg



Bad power circuitry.  Do you have another charger?


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

Nope 
Perhaps I could lend it from relatives of mine though.


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## CaptainFailcon (May 9, 2012)

Chevalr1c said:


> both, I believe. But I might check just in case.
> 
> Edit: Indeed with both. And when powering the laptop on without the battery and on mains power got me this when booting Mageia Linux:
> 
> http://www.abload.de/img/photo-00022pykd.jpg



did you test it with the battery and plugged in
the power brick should not have a effect on this
I would locate a known good stick of ram and retest


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

I shall try it with both battery and mains power.


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## CaptainFailcon (May 9, 2012)

that screen shot looks more like a bad graphics driver init because mandrava is old and broken >


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## Peter1986C (May 9, 2012)

Test results for the promised test with both battery and main power:
Because Mageia nagged about the need for booting without KMS support and gave those stripes again after I hit [OK], I thought it would be wise to put a bootable CD with Aptosid (basicly Debian) into it and reboot. It was like power on - power off - power on and booting. I got into the desktop succesfully and decided to use Gparted to check the partition Mageia was installed on. Just after that check (which was successful) the laptop stopped responding again to the touchpad and keyboard. Hitting the power button still worked though, the laptop recognised it as a shutdown command and started a regular shutdown procedure. But when the moment was there to remove the CD and press [enter] to power down the system, it did not respond to the [enter] keystroke. So I had to do a hard shutdown again.


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## FreedomEclipse (May 9, 2012)

Im not sure if this is relivant or not. but in my experience, the build quality of some of the older Aspire series laptops are a load of bollocks.

one of the most common problems seem to be the GPU overheating which i think you are experiencing given the pic of that 'white screen' similar to what this guy had on his old Packard Bell

[yt]SEx6g-xt0CI[/yt]

It does that 'whitescreen' thing from 0:17-0:30 where he is forced to do a hard reset by holding down the power switch.

the problem is, Instead of the heatsink inside making direct contact with the CPU/GPU they have a 0.02mm thick thermal pads like you get on some graphic cards when you remove the stock cooler and long story short - these thermal pads dont do a very good job.

however there are these small copper shims available on ebay or at some specialist repair shops that you can buy and put it between the CPU/GPU which bridges/fills the gap and makes sure the HSF is making direct contact with the heatsource.

I used to have a problem with X1600 Mobility Radeon in an older laptop that used to over heat and cause the laptop to go into thermal shut down. because BenQ who made the laptop, used the same crappy thermal pads instead of making it so the HSF makes direct contact with the CPU/GPU. However I bought a copper shim for it and after that i never had to worry about it overheating or thermal shut downs again.


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## CaptainFailcon (May 10, 2012)

please pleaseeee don't attempt the heatgun trick unless you know what you are doing
always wrap everything in 3 layers of heavy metal foil and don't keep the heat in one spot move it in small circles ...


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## Peter1986C (May 10, 2012)

FreedomEclipse said:


> Im not sure if this is relivant or not. but in my experience, the build quality of some of the older Aspire series laptops are a load of bollocks.
> 
> one of the most common problems seem to be the GPU overheating which i think you are experiencing given the pic of that 'white screen' similar to what this guy had on his old Packard Bell
> 
> ...


Thanks, but I have cleaned the laptop several times, over the years. The thermal pads have all been replaced by thermal pads by Akasa, thermal paste has been Thermalright Chill factor III for roughly the last year. The temp monitor in the Nvidia Settings manager has never reached alarming values (it was like 80 Celsius, and only when at load).
And it does not seem to explain the problems with Memtest86+ as described in the OP, nor the unresponsive keyboard/touchpad. I could try your suggestion though.

So people have suggested the following:
- get a (cheap) stick of RAM to verify the working of the RAM and DIMMs
- get another power brick
- improve the GPU VRAM cooling drastically, somehow.

@CaptainFailcon: you posted before I posted this so I had to edit to add the quote for clarity.


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## Peter1986C (May 11, 2012)

After re-reading the thread, I am considering to just retire the laptop, _unless_ solution 1 and 2 in the post above are still worth trying.

P.S.: I decided to give Phanbuey's suggestion of adding in a cheap RAM stick a go. If it is a no-no I can still try to sell the new stick and it is but 10-15 Euro so why not?


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## mtosev (May 11, 2012)

I have seen better laptops for 300Eur than that old Acer.


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## de.das.dude (May 11, 2012)

looks like the mobo is on its last days.


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## Peter1986C (May 11, 2012)

mtosev said:


> I have seen better laptops for 300Eur than that old Acer.



Most likely true, as I have seen nice 15.6" notebooks with a Pentium B9xx or P9200 for like 380. However, because usage of my laptop has decreased severely since last 1.5 year I don't think it is worthwile to buy a new one. I am mostly behind my desktop, and the amount of campus PCs has increased at the university I attend to so I keep the money on the bank for now.



de.das.dude said:


> looks like the mobo is on its last days.



Most likely. But the lappy will be 5 years old in the autumn so that is not little for a notebook especially one that has been used very intensively in its first 3 years. I think it is to be expected.


Now I really made up my mind and just retire the machine. Thanks for the assistance folks.


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## brandonwh64 (May 11, 2012)

Chevalr1c said:


> Most likely true, as I have seen nice 15.6" notebooks with a Pentium B9xx or P9200 for like 380. However, because usage of my laptop has decreased severely since last 1.5 year I don't think it is worthwile to buy a new one. I am mostly behind my desktop, and the amount of campus PCs has increased at the university I attend so I keep the money on the bank for now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I have to agree, If you do not use one much then I would not buy a new one. I picked up a used laptop off the B/S/T section (cant remember which forum) for 80$ shipped and all it needed was a hard drive and battery. It now works like a charm with decent onboard GFX for long trip gaming such as CS 1.6, HL1, GTA games and EXC.


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## Peter1986C (May 11, 2012)

If I start to think I will definitely need one, I for sure will check the B/S/T forum


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## mtosev (May 11, 2012)

btw here is a nice Fujitsu for 320Eur+19.99EUR shipping to NL (if maybe u are interested as the price is really low)
http://www.computeruniverse.net/products/e90449465/fujitsu-lifebook-ah530-p6200.asp
_Product Description 	Fujitsu LIFEBOOK AH530 - 15.6" - P P6200 - no OS - 2 GB RAM - 320 GB HDD
  	EAN 	4051554383497
  	Dimensions (WxDxH) 	37.8 cm x 25.2 cm x 3.8 cm
  	Weight 	2.5 kg
  	Processor 	Intel Pentium P6200 / 2.13 GHz / 3 MB Cache
  	Networking 	802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 , Gigabit Ethernet
  	Display 	15.6" LED backlight 1366 x 768 / HD
  	Battery 	6-cell - up to 6 hours
  	Operating System 	No OS
  	Memory 	2 GB DDR3
  	Colour 	Glossy black
  	System Type 	Notebook
  	Optical Drive 	DVD SuperMulti DL
  	Environmental Standards 	ENERGY STAR Qualified
  	Graphics 	Intel HD Graphics
  	Storage 	320 GB HDD_
Not bad for 320e


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## Peter1986C (May 11, 2012)

No sorry, as stated above I don't wish to buy a laptop now. Neither new nor 2nd hand. If the need arises (with certainty, so not a might-be-handy) then I will look for one.


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## de.das.dude (May 11, 2012)

go for an APU if you need one to fool around with. those are massively cheap and fun too.


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