Aspire E1 hangs on boot, never gets to splash screen since windows 10 update

I've been fighting my Acer E1 for quite a while now. It has a 500gb Samsung SDD and is otherwise stock, but has been upgraded to Win 10. Recently it's had a problem where it tries to start up but never gets to the splash screen so I can push F2 to get into the bios. I strongly suspect the windows startup manager is causing the problems, but can't figure it out. I was eventually able to get F2 to work last time this happened and changed the boot order to 1-SSD, 2-USB, 3-windows startup manager. That worked okay until the latest windows update the other day, but now it's back to unable to boot. The lights and fan show it starts to boot, then the SDD just flashes about every second briefly and nothing else happens. Sometimes, if I leave it in that state long enough, I'll come back and find it started normally and is waiting for me to log into windows. I assume if I'm never seeing the splash screen it's not getting past the bios start sequence? I can't live with never knowing if I'll be able to use it after it shuts down, so I'm hoping for help here. One more thing, when it started by itself after sitting for some time today, the Samsung Magician program was running when I got into Windows. Any ideas, please?

Accepted answers

Commodore_1995#

With windows installed, have you tried to update the bios, to see if it solves the problem permanently? This delay in the boot, can be some problem in the ME region of the bios.

All comments

Commodore_1995#

I've seen reports from other users with similar problems. This is a problem with the windows update. When you remove the ssd, can you access the bios?

Stevespur

I haven't tried removing the SSD and booting to see what happens, but I can do so if that would be helpful.

Commodore_1995#

Do you remember which windows update caused the problem?

Stevespur

No, I don't but it was probably a month ago. I WAS able to get into the bios and could get it to complete the boot sequence pushing F2 after I moved the windows startup manager to 3rd position in the boot sequence (but can no longer do so after the latest update). The update I got a few nights ago, however has put it back to where I was before - thanks Microsoft! Why would it boot sometimes after I just leave it alone for an hour or so, and other times it stays in a loop reading some boot file? BTW, Samsung Magician reports no problems with the SSD and says my bios is version 2.13 by Insyde Corp.

JackE

Press & hold power button for about 5 secs till laptop shuts off. Then press & hold the F2 key. While still holding the F2 key, then press the power button . Don't let go of F2 till the BIOS menu appears. Jack E/NJ

Stevespur

Thanks, but I'm pretty sure it is a hardware issue (I sent you a message) and I'm going to have to replace the machine. A 7 year old Acer laptop probably isn't the money to try to find the intermittent problem.

JackE

What exactly do you mean by 'never gets that far'? Farther than what? You first press the F2 key while the machine is completely off. Then, while still pressing the F2 key, you then press the power button. The question is, what happens when you do this exactly this way? Either nothing happens and it doesn't turn on. Or it seems to turn on but no screen? Something must happen besides 'never gets that far'. Jack E/ NJ

Stevespur

The power light comes on, the fan runs for about a second then shuts off, the the drive access light flashes briefly once per second and this continues indefinitely. Nothing else happens.

Stevespur

If I remove the Ssd then power on sometimes I get an error message after about ten minutes but usually nothing happens. The error once was about the bootloader with nowhere to go, another time it told me to insert a boot device. When I did that, it gave me the option to power off or repair windows.

Commodore_1995#

Can you give the exact model of the notebook? Example AN515-51-75KZ.

Stevespur

E1-572-6870

Commodore_1995#

What happens when you press alt + f10 before the Acer logo?

Stevespur

JackE said:

What exactly do you mean by 'never gets that far'? Farther than what? You first press the F2 key while the machine is completely off. Then, while still pressing the F2 key, you then press the power button. The question is, what happens when you do this exactly this way? Either nothing happens and it doesn't turn on. Or it seems to turn on but no screen? Something must happen besides 'never gets that far'. Jack E/ NJ

It's as if it's never getting into the bios boot sequence. Power light comes on, fan runs for about a second, then the drive light flashes about once per second for an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes I'll return to find it has actually booted and is waiting for me to sign into Windows, sometimes it will run overnight that way and still be doing nothing in the morning. Once it boots, I try very hard to never have it shut down, but sometimes Microsoft pushes an update and tells it to reboot then I'm in the exact same place again with a "dead" computer, waiting for it to boot. Pretty frustrating.

Commodore_1995#

OK! But does the Acer logo appear correctly?

Stevespur

No, it never gets to the Acer logo, though the logo probably shows when it decides to boot after several hours or overnight and I'm just not there to see it. F10 does nothing either as does any other F key (I've tried them all).

Commodore_1995#

What happens when you remove the ssd? Can you access the bios?

Stevespur

No, I tried it twice and nothing happens for about three minutes, at which time I get a blue screen. One time it gave only only one choice which had no way out of the page (can't remember what that choice was). The next time it gave the option to boot from a restore usb which I did and it then gave a couple options, one to do a restore and the other to shut the machine down.