Help! bsod

Technology
#1

Help please. My Acer Aspire 8530 has died! I have shut it down and unplugged it. Running Windows 7.


Symptoms:


System running slow and sluggish. Mouse a little unresponsive. Getting quite warm (sits on a little 3-fan platform) when just running Firefox (four tabs - gmail, SFN, FB & Google home page). System froze. Attempted reboot, nothing. Tried to start Task Manager (using Ctrl + Alt+ Del). Nothing. Pressed power button until unit powered down. Left it for 10 minutes then powered on again. Went to ChkDsk and so let that run. Nothing abnormal that I noticed. WIndows wouldn't load after ChkDsk finished. Got the blue screen with following error message:



STOP: c000021a (Fatal System Error)


The initial session process or system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x00000000 (0xc00000001 0x001003r0)


The system has been shut down.


I made recovery disks when I first got the machine but would hope there is something else I can do, as I imagine I will lose everything including subsequently installed software if I use the recovery disks. I did a back up a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully I can access most stuff.


If anyone can help, I would appreciate it. I am using a little Acer Aspire 5252 which I bought as back up but it has very basic software, and no Word or anything.

#2

Unfortunately that error message only gives us a little information, but effectively tells us that there was an unexpected/sudden power down, which you already knew ;-). On windows , if this happens to you and you then experience disk corruption on the start-up , you can often select "Last Known Good", which sometimes will get you going again, but with the loss of some installed settings etc. I suspect the system shut itself down to protect the hardware as it was running to hot. You might try another fan direct air underneath the laptop if the machine is in a warm location.

Is you three fan stand metal? Does it also get very hot?

Your system should not become that hot, especially as you have an additional cooling slab. I would install this util, and keep and eye on the temperatures over time. Also use the task manager to see if there is anything running that is pushing you system really hard, as just using Firefox certainly shouldn't.

Do you have a lot of tray icons that you could remove?

Do you have other applications that start up when you start the machine?

Make sure you have your anti-virus upto date, and run a full scan on your machine. Just because your not busy using your machine, doesn't mean somelse isn't !

HWmonitor

Lastly make sure you have a good tested backup of all you important files. This good all indicate a failing machine

#3

Thanks for the reply, Jan. I had in fact already done that, because it is, as you say, easy enough to do. I bought one of those special little brushes, cleaned out everything but it still heats up even when just running Firefox with 3 tabs only . Fortunately, I have a couple of back-ups, and a smaller Acer 5253, just like the big screen on this one!

#4

Hi Sheila,

My Aspire showed the same kind of problems after 2 years+ of use. It got overheated more and more frequently and thus I opened it up and took out the pile of lint and dust blocking the processor fan's air exit. Problem solved!

It's really quite easy to do on those Acers, but in case you need guidance you better google for the maintenance manual of your specific model and DL it (preferably to another computer so you can read the PDF while servicing the Acer) ;-).

Good luck!

Jan

#5

Sshh Bill. I never play games! (Well hardly ever). Would love to try Linux or Ubuntu, just never had the courage to install and try out. Will run back up of all essentials first, before doing that. Wondering about the overheating though. Have recently got a little platform with 3 fans, and that does seem to be helping.

#6

Just tried re-booting and it worked! Would still like to know what caused the BSOD though. It has been suggested that temperature could have a part to play.

#7

Sheila, all is not lost... use your 5252 to research alternative re-boot methods... as you know there is quite a variety, had a similar prob with my daughter's laptop the other day... which suffered problems in transit from the UK.

Check out it with Nick...he's the GURU

#8

Get a Mac!