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.
