Random resets / reboots

Aspire 3 - A3150-21-442V just newly purchased in Thailand. AMD A4-9120 with Radeon R3 graphics. 4MB DDR4. 1GB HDD.

System would randomly reset / reboot. As in, like the old days when you hit that 'reset' button on your tower PC. I have it dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux. It's supposed to be a Linux laptop but the dealer loaded a copy of Windows 10 without my asking; I've since cleaned out the HDD, started afresh and ended up buying a license for W10 anyway.

This happens in both Windows and Linux. There's no sure way to determine if and when this might happen. Today, I was working on the laptop last night until this morning up to late noon, no problem at all. Shut down, took a break, return in the evening and it reboot within minutes as I was surfing the net. This happens regularly. Noticeably when I start browsing and running something in the background but I do believe it's just coincidental. The reboot has happen even at the boot up stage (I tried turning Fast boot on and off, no difference)

Now, both Windows and Linux doesn't treat it like there's anything wrong. Neither of them even acknowledges the "crash". Worse come to worst, the document or game I'm on just rolls back to the last save. Nothing tragic yet, but it's a nagging irritation. Did I mention I just bought this laptop?

Anything I can do on my end? I hate to have to return the laptop (I bought it online). I thought I'll flash the BIOS (mine's 1.02 and there appears to be a 1.03 update on the support site).

This is a good laptop. Suits my requirements but this is a frustrating issue. I noticed there are quite a few posts about this issue. Also, I've been using Acer for a long time. Unfortunately this and my previous laptop seem to have come with some faults. The last one was a dodgy touchpad which someone mentioned its because it's one of the early no fan, tightly integrated board design. Wasn't too much of an issue since I seldom use the touchpad except at the airport.

Hope there's a solution.

Accepted answers

JackE

If it usually does this while using it, it's probably a poorly-fitted case is triggering a mainboard safety switch, either a normally on or a normall off switch. The fix is simple involving tape and spacers as shown in this post https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/549720/#Comment_549720 which is part of a much larger thread in which both types of safety switches seem to involved. Since your machine is still under warranty, you might want to use ACER service but make sure they are aware of this possible safety switch/case issue. Jack E/NJ

All comments

JackE

If it usually does this while using it, it's probably a poorly-fitted case is triggering a mainboard safety switch, either a normally on or a normall off switch. The fix is simple involving tape and spacers as shown in this post https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/549720/#Comment_549720 which is part of a much larger thread in which both types of safety switches seem to involved. Since your machine is still under warranty, you might want to use ACER service but make sure they are aware of this possible safety switch/case issue. Jack E/NJ

rickt2kk

Whoops I thought I posted my reply earlier but apparently I didn't

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately I'm not that adventurous. Ha ha.

Anyway, I've since did a bit more observation for the last 2 weeks. Here's my conclusion in case some people happened by with this same problem.

Sorry to say.... It happens only in Windows 10 :-(

Ok, I use Linux but I'm not a fanatic, but yes, this problem only occurs in W10. Besides, like I mentioned in my earlier post, I actually bought this PC because it was supposed to come with Linux. Of course, anyone living in this part of the world probably knows that most people only buy Linux PCs to save a bit off a similar spec' PC with Windows and the seller will probably "helpfully" include a copy of Windows of dubious authenticity because, well, that's the way it's done here.

I actually did like W10 and even bought a key which is, thankfully, transferable.

I don't do any work that requires, in particular, either of those OSes. I use Windows for gaming, Linux for web. So what I did was use Windows for a day or 2, then Linux. The sudden blackout restarts only happens in Windows. Ironically, this AMD A4 9120 with an R4 integrated graphics unit doesn't not officially have Linux drivers. It's quite cool on W10, with AMD Radeon centre and all that. But oh well.....

JackE

@rickt2kk>>>This happens in both Windows and Linux.>>>>. It happens only in Windows 10 :-( >>>

???? Jack E/NJ

rickt2kk

Hello. Thought I'll update this post again, in case people drop in via the search box.

Hi JackE. You're right, I've contradicted myself :-P

To be sure, it happens only in Windows. As for Linux, it happens only when I'm running Mint, not Ubuntu, LXLE or Peppermint, which I'm currently dual booting to.

Ok, I think I might have (un)scientifically narrowed the problem down. I believe it's the AMD display drivers, The ones that Device Manager will fetch from MS server's will be version 22.19.163.1792. If you install the AMD software (I forgot, it is Catalyst?) from AMD's website, it will be 23.xxxxx.

I was running the older MS driver for the whole of last week. No reboots at all. Then because I thought I needed a bit more advance rendering options, I re-installed the AMD software. Yupe, reboots out of the blues twice. Switched back to the MS drivers and it runs like a charm.

Well, hope this is the end of my saga. Will update again if anything but I hope not. Cheerio. No news will be good news. Ha ha

JackE

@rickt2kk>>>Ok, I think I might have (un)scientifically narrowed the problem down. I believe it's the AMD display drivers, The ones that Device Manager will fetch from MS server's will be version 22.19.163.1792. If you install the AMD software (I forgot, it is Catalyst?) from AMD's website, it will be 23.xxxxx. >>>

Thanks for report. Had similar issue with WinUpdate insisting on installing new AMD drivers as critical. Messed everything up. A rollback to the old drivers fixed the issue. Still have to guard against update automatically trying to install new drivers every time. But my Mint Cinnamon didn't seem to have the same problem. Probably time to give up on Win10. Jack E/NJ

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