Crashing over and over....help

plastic surgeon · 7 Mar 2010 at 12:24

I have a net book I bought recently, it is outside warranty, Acer Aspire one, Intel Atom, 1.33Ghz 1GBG RAM, Win XP.
Some days will crash after 2 minutes and crash perhaps two or three times in a row other days will work fine for hours but will crash after a while and have to be restarted, usually crashes at least once a day, also crashes whilst idleing, even with sufficient air flow beneath.
I have considered that either, the heat expelling is insufficient but this would not explain overheating after just two minutes of use, the next is a hardware issue but i dont know where to start or really what can be upgraded or replaced.
I have tried to format and reinstall windows but this has not solved the issue....now i'm sad.

plastic surgeon · 7 Mar 2010 at 12:34

Hi Alex,
No I haven't, how would i go about doing that? I have another lap top and a PC if that is helpful, or can i test it with the netbook hardware?

plastic surgeon · 7 Mar 2010 at 12:53

No, therre is a door on the netbook to replace the RAM, I have been considering upgrading anyway but since i dont have cash to throw around at the moment I would like to tackle the crashing thing first so if its hard drive then it'll be that first, unfortunately the hard drive has the OS built in, how do I go aboutb getting the OS on hard copy, also there is no cd/dvd drive as it is a netbook. Do i have to buy an external drive if i can get a disc? Sorry about the barrage of Qs.

plastic surgeon · 7 Mar 2010 at 13:03

Thanks chaps, i'll get on that right away and hopefully have some results a little later

plastic surgeon · 8 Mar 2010 at 00:10

Hey guys i tried running the RAM test it did 4 passes without detecting an error so i think we're good there, the hard drive test fails to begin, gets as far as..
Starting PC DOS....
then nothing, perhaps the Disc is knackered. I have backed up the netbook so some help with a decision as to whether i should buy a replacement drive or if there are other options i ought to consider would be well received.

plastic surgeon · 9 Mar 2010 at 13:14

Ahh that might be an issue

I ran the test for 4 hours and the test details seemed to be recurring so i assumed that it was repeating and that 'pass' refered to a repeated cycle of testing so stopped at that point, however I shall run a further test tonight. Is the test supposed to complete and then stop automatically?