Jarbob Tracker

Re: Acer Aspire R7 Randomly Shuts Itself Off - A Power Shortage Issue?

Jarbob — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 08:40:24 GMT

Thank you all for your posts! I’m happy that I’m not personally during something stupid to affect the R7 shutdown issue, but at the same time I was also hoping that I was – this means this is not an isolated issue of a few units.

As promised, I spoke with Acer’s Customer Support and BestBuy. If you didn’t read my previous post, I was transferred to a Level 2 representative after describing the issue to a Level 1 representative. The Level 2 rep said that it sounds like a hardware issue, which Acer covers under warranty. She suggested sending the R7 to Acer’s repair center in Texas, USA. I believe she said that Acer would cover all expenses, including shipping, but I’m not entirely sure. I was going to ask for clarification, but she told me that once Acer receives the unit, it will take about 7-10 business days before it arrives back at my doorstep, so I opted to not to send it in for repairs. My reasoning is that I DON’T doubt that Acer could fix the problem, but I am a student and I simply cannot go even a day without my computer. So, even though I can’t send in my unit, would anyone else be interested? From my understanding it is completely free for hardware issues (software is another story – you’ll have to talk to them because I don’t know the details), but it would probably set you out about two weeks without a laptop.

Later that day, I exchanged my 2nd R7 for a 3rd. I went to a different BestBuy in town, hoping that a different location would have had a different batch delivery of R7’s – more specifically, R7’s without the shutdown problem. The Geek Squad representative said that BestBuy always orders their electronics in bulk, but only when their supply is low. This makes sense, though it doesn’t help us to know if Acer has recognized and fixed the problem already. Either way, I explained the shutdown to the rep, and he was completely shocked, as were the reps at the other BestBuy location. Both locations said that they have had very few people come in with a shutdown issue on any computer, and NEVER on an R7. So, I considered some possibilities: I live in a city with a little over 1 million people. Even though the R7 is new, there must be at least another person of the million that owns an R7. Why has BestBuy NEVER heard of this issue before me? Do other users not notice, or do they simply not care? And why haven’t any of the reviewers mentioned it? I’ve seen several reviews with the R7 on battery power (when it shuts down most often), and I hate to make this assumption…but are the reviewers hiding something from us consumers (considering also that I have yet to find any reviewer mention the Wi-Fi issue as well)?

So, not exactly the “happy” solution I was hoping for. I can safely say that my 3rd R7 is still running strong, though I’ve only had it for 4 days, so anything can still happen. Even so, here are some different things that I have done to my computer since I’ve purchased it – in other words, here are POSSIBLE solutions, but NOT DEFINITE. They are organized by the computer I utilized them on:

2nd R7

Event Viewer: I read about this neat application built into every computer called Event Viewer. It basically logs any critical event, error, or warning since the computer was built. The reason I know this is true is because some of the logs date back to April 10th of this year, which is, I believe, a month before the R7 was released (at least in the US – please correct me if I’m wrong). Though this is the only computer that I’ve ever tried the Event Viewer on, I still have a hunch that having errors BEFORE the computer is released is a very, very bad sign. But enough about the program – let’s talk about what I’ve found (by the way, if you are unfamiliar with this program, there are directions at the end of this post about navigating to it).

1) Event 36888, Schannel: A fatal alert was generated and sent to the remote endpoint. This may result in termination of the connection. The TLS protocol defined fatal error code is 51. The Windows SChannel error state is 900 (hardware or software – I’m not sure which).

- Anyone know what this means? There have been 81 of these errors in the past 2 days.

2) Event 1000, Application Error: Faulting application name: EzelAgent.exe, version: 1.1.1013.0 (software).

- I don’t quite understand why this program is “glitching” out – it enables your screen to self-correct its orientation in “Display” mode and to switch to Portrait mode as well. I really had no use for it personally, so I uninstalled it. The computer DID stop turning off when I moved the screen into its various positions, but it DID NOT stop turning off when I moved the unit itself. Coincidence…probably, but if you’re open to trying different methods to stop the random shutdown, I’d give this one a shot. And, if it doesn’t help or you want the auto-rotate functionality back, you can always reinstall it again from Acer’s website: http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers . It is filed under the “Application” tab and is called Application (Sensor).

3) Event 41, Kernal-Power: The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly (hardware or software – I’m not sure which).

- ‘Nuff said in the description.

And there’s several others – this is just a glimpse of the errors that occurred most often (except for #3 – it only happened twice as far as I’m aware).

3rd R7

Windows Update (software): On my 2nd R7, I noticed that the shutdown issue did not occur until Windows performed its round of updates. Coincidence…maybe (like EzelAgent), but I’m more convinced that Windows Update had some sort of relationship with the problem. I tried uninstalling all the updates (I think there were around 60 of them), but was unsuccessful with one. Again, the 2nd R7 DID stop turning off when I moved the screen into its various positions, but it DID NOT stop turning off when I moved the unit itself. Now, for my 3rd, I disabled the automatic update feature, and did not install ANY sort of windows update, and my computer has been fine.

McAfee Antivirus (software): When I ran Event Viewer on my 2nd R7, I noticed that McAfee was included in the “mix” of errors. I don’t remember what it said, and I can’t find that error again on my current (3rd) R7, so I really can’t talk much about it. However, I had one more remaining license of Norton AntiVirus Online that I wasn’t using, so I uninstalled McAfee and installed Norton on my 3rd R7, and my computer has been fine.

- Also to note, upon performing a full system scan, Norton Power Eraser removed “cpuz136_x64.sys” because it said it was “bad”. I haven’t done any research on whether it is “good” or “bad”, but my computer didn’t blow up when I removed it, so I guess it’s not vital. Anyone else have “cpuz136_x64.sys” installed on their R7?

Battery Discharge (hardware): As you probably know, the rechargeable batteries inside most, if not all, electronics these days are called lithium-ion. Eventually, lithium-ion batteries lose their charge. There are several “caretaking” instructions that I’ve read online to slow this process down – one of which is to completely drain the battery to 0% and then to recharge it to 100% before use. I don’t know how accurate this method is, or if I am performing it correctly (it might be 10% or 20% - either way, fairly low). Despite the fact that my 3rd R7 is brand new and can’t possibly have lost a significant charge yet, I decided to perform this method, and my computer has been fine.

- Also to note, the computer won’t run itself down all the way to 0% battery (probably a safety feature), so I adjusted the power options in the advanced settings to run down to 2%, and then set the computer to sleep afterwards, which leaves it at a very low-power operating level, which I’m hoping took the battery to 0%. Afterwards, I held in the power button for 30-40 seconds just to make sure any remaining power was discharged.

Possible Solutions I Haven’t Tried:

eFramework & ePower (software): Like I’ve said, my new (3rd) R7 hasn’t randomly shut itself off yet, so I have no need to try this possible solution. If you’re interested, details can be found here (keep in mind this is not specifically for an R7 laptop): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEXkEmSn92k

So, if you’re adventurous, try some of these options. At this point, these “solutions” definitely haven’t hurt me, but whether or not they’ve helped or not is another question. Ultimately, the shutdown issue boils down to two categories: hardware and software. It could be just hardware, just software, or both. It could be 1 hardware problem, or it could be 50 hardware problems, and the same is true of software. It could be anything at this point. From my understanding, the Acer repair center in Texas covers all hardware expenses, but not software, even if the troublesome software was preinstalled by the factory (I’d call to double check, though – please correct me if I’m wrong).

*Accessing Event Viewer:

1) Go to the Start screen (tap the Windows icon button on your keyboard) and type “Event Viewer”. This should bring up a search window from the right side of the screen.

2) In the upper-right corner, you’ll see “Apps”, “Settings”, and “Files”. Click “Settings” and then click “View event logs”.

3) Once the window opens, look for “Summary of Administrative Events” near the center – clicking “Critical”, “Error”, or “Warning” will bring up logs sorted by Source.

4) Click a Source, and you’ll be happily greeted with all the errors and problems that your computer has ever had. Enjoy!

Acer Aspire R7 Randomly Shuts Itself Off - A Power Shortage Issue?

Jarbob — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 07:33:01 GMT

Hello R7 Community,

About a month and a half ago in mid-August, I became the proud owner of my very first R7. And it was great! I used it for everything: schoolwork, Internet browsing, et cetera. (I do want to note that I am, in fact, one of those users with WiFi connectivity problems. I don’t want this thread to become a WiFi thread – if there are any questions or comments, please see http://community.acer.com/t5/Notebooks-Netbooks/Poor-Wifi-on-new-Aspire-R7/td-p/94855.) However, a few weeks later (this is around late August), my R7 started shutting off by itself. No warning, no hibernation, just off...completely. Processor, hard drive, display...everything. I thought maybe it was a fault of mine (accidently tapping the power button, for instance), so I didn’t look too closely into the issue.

But then a few days later I noticed a trend – my R7 would shut off immediately when I moved it. It was the strangest thing. I close the screen and move it to show someone else a document – it turns off. I pick the laptop straight up and barely tilt it in any direction – it turns off. It even got to the point that I could tilt the screen to utilize the Ezel hinge capabilities, and it would turn off. In short, it basically doesn’t like vibration or movement of any kind. (But let’s be clear: I’m making very natural, everyday use movements; in other words, no vigorous shaking or throwing.)

So, in complying with BestBuy’s 15-day return/exchange policy, I brought my R7 back and exchanged it in hopes that it was a 1-computer defect. (Also, I should probably mention that I reside in the US, so I am using an R7-571-6858 or R7-571G, I believe – please correct me if I’m wrong.) And for about the first 7-days it seemed as if it was indeed a 1-computer defect. But then my second R7 began to malfunction in the same fashion – this time, though, it was about a week sooner than my first. And it seemed to do it in a much more random fashion. Sometimes now it even shuts off when I’m not touching or moving it. Is it a sensitivity issue that I can adjust in BIOS, or a simple setting in Control Panel?

Either way, I’ve done some research, and from what I found, the web really doesn’t contain much information about any laptop shutting off directly due to vibration or movement of the device, which is my primary reason for creating this post. Why is there no information on this topic? Am I the only one with these problems? Though information was limited on the issue, the best site I found was this: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/why-does-my-laptop-keep-turning-off.1291789/.

Here are the some of the suggested causes of the shutting off problem (the suggestions that I believe are actually the problem are in bold text):

1) The computer is overheating, mainly due to dust build-up. –This cannot be the case, as the laptop is literally brand new. Also, after using the temperature-monitoring program SpeedFan, I determined that my R7 is operating at a safe range of 30-45°C, or 86-113°F (which seems hot but from my understanding is a perfectly normal temperature).

2) The fans are malfunctioning. –This is similar to the first issue, as it would directly cause the computer to overheat. Though I dismissed the issue in (1) due to the results of SpeedFan, I am not content with these numbers alone – the reason being that it hardly ever seems like the fans run, and when they do, I can barely feel any air coming from the vents. I don’t believe the fans to be a root cause, maybe just a side issue.

3) The computer has a virus. –This is perhaps slightly more plausible, though if any viruses were to have infected my computer, it would have needed to happen in the first 7 days directly before it started shutting off. Also, why would a virus turn off my computer only when it senses vibration?

4) The computer hard drive needs to be formatted. – I don’t know much about formatting, but one user in this particular post said this is not causing the shutting off problem.

5) The motherboard is malfunctioning. –This is what I believe to be the root issue, though it really could be anything at this point. To quote the link, “The problem is in the motherboard. The power section has become faulty and very soon the BIOS will be going wrong, and then the display chips, like I had.”

And from my own observations:

6) The battery is malfunctioning. – This is what I believe to be the secondary issue to the motherboard problem(s), as the R7 tends to shut off more when it is on battery than when it is plugged in. When the laptop is plugged in, I notice that the battery indicator in the lower right-hand side of the screen (in the taskbar) sometimes changes after about 30-60 minutes. When it does change, it mainly shows an empty battery with a red “X” through it, saying “No battery is detected”. Other rare times it shows an empty battery and says something like “plugged in but not charging”.

Today, I spoke with a very nice man at BestBuy’s Geek Squad, who is almost certain that it is a power shortage issue (similar if not the same issue as the motherboard malfunctioning in potential problem #5). He thinks that it could be caused by a kink in the wiring through the Ezel hinge, or maybe the ground wire does not have a great connection in the main body of the unit, or some other wire issue. He suggested exchanging the laptop one last time, a third time, and then if the problem happens again, he stated that Geek Squad will examine the issue deeper on my particular unit. BestBuy and GeekSquad also suggested that, if the problem persists in the third R7, to exchange it for a different Acer computer or even another brand.

Nevertheless, I, with my curious mind, wanted to know: is it just me? Am I doing something wrong? I decided to call Acer as a courtesy to inform them of the issue, and I will be speaking with a “level 2” representative tomorrow and will hopefully find time to post my findings shortly thereafter.

In conclusion, I certainly have nowhere near the knowledge of a computer engineer or technician, but I do know a thing or two about computers. Even so, I am completely stumped as to the cause of the issue. Like I said, the computer shuts off at such random times (much more than what I mentioned), that every time I think I’ve found a pattern of the shut-down “schedule”, something changes.