Crashing over and over....help

plastic surgeon

plastic surgeon

plastic surgeon

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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.
 
If you have a USB drive that the netbook can boot from (most have this function), use this guide to make a bootable UBCD USB drive. Or, if you have an external CD/DVD drive, just burn off the UBCD iso and boot from it on the netbook. Within that there is a memory test called memtest86+ which you can leave to run and errors will appear if there's a problem. There are also hard drive tests on that too; you need to select the relevant test for the manufacturer of your hard drive.
 
I second using some memory and cpu testing programs, just make sure you keep it as cool as possible when doing that as it can put stress on it temp wise, if that doesnt solve the issue i would suggest taking the covers off and have a check if there is excess dust in the fans and cooling system, can of air duster could help at this point, also while you are in there check that all the connections are on securely, before doing that though earth yourself on a radiator or something (just touch some bare metal on the radiator to remove static)
 
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.
 
If you read my post again and click the link, you'll see you can put the downloadable disc image onto a spare usb stick and boot from that to test the netbook.

There should be a licence sticker on the netbook. That's the part of the OS you should worry about, the install can be reinstalled if needed. If you need to back stuff up, I suggest removing the hard drive if possible and plugging it into a PC if you have the facilities. It will probably be a SATA drive, so you'd really need a desktop PC to do this unless you have an external sata hard disk caddy.

I'd get round to testing the RAM first, as I believe that will be the most likely cause from your description.
 
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.
 
When you say it did 4 passes, do you mean you competed for complete cycles, or just passed the first 4 tests. (Test 5 is a common test to throw up problems). How long did you leave it mem testing, you said yourself the fault is intermittent and unpredictable.

I would leave it mem testing for at least 4-6 hours minimum.
 
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?
 
Yeah, the tests repeat after a point, so im guessing you passed 4 complete cycles.. Thats not "bad", but for an intermittant problem more testing can sometimes be needed.

I wouldnt worry too much about the stuck on loading PC DOS, while it should work, that doesnt indiciate a disk problem imho, You could try prime95 from within windows, that will give a pretty good test of both the CPU and the memory. That said I've had systems that have primed for 16 hours before failing, and that particular machine was an intermittent crasher (yet it always failed exactly the same test within prime95, at 16 hours 15 minutes.... every time!). That machine had a FSB wall, and its error was so "uncommon" that it made crashes that were totally random and unpredictable.. except when prime testing :).
 
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