PHN16-71-73LT it started freezing continuously, I don't know what is causing this issue

foobreht
foobreht Member Posts: 3 New User
edited November 2023 in Predator Laptops

Hi, I bought a Certified Refurbished from ebay in late September 2024. The system has been working fine since purchase until today when it started freezing continuously. I had to force shut down the laptop multiple times (probably more than a dozen times so far). I have installed and updated the latest drivers and Windows 11 updates. I don't know what is causing this issue. Is there anybody who can help me?

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

Answers

  • foobreht
    foobreht Member Posts: 3 New User

    Approximately 5 1/2 hours after I posted the question above, my laptop doesn't even get past the loading screen where the Acer Predator logo would usually appear. Now it is just giving me a black screen.

  • StevenGen
    StevenGen ACE Posts: 12,688 Trailblazer

    Contact the seller that you bought this laptop from on eBay, as the PHN16-71-73LT is the latest Predator 13th Gen i7-13700HX/GeForce RTX™ 4060 8GB GDDR6 model from Acer and if they are an Acer Certified refurbished you should have 12 months warranty and they should fix this laptop after one months, don't open it or try to do anything, as Acer has 12 months warranty on all their refurbished laptops, desktops and monitors. If the seller doesn't want to fix or says its not under warranty, then contact eBay and complain that these sellers are false advertising this product, as eBay do guarantee against false advertising.

    Note: the problem and symptoms that you are having could be very serious and terminal, like a frozen IO or Chipset or bios chips, which you need to do a Hard Reset by taking the battery and disconnecting the bios battery and take the ram out, leave all the components disconnected for 15min and reconnect everything and reboot, if its only those chips that were frozen this hard reset should unfreeze them and your laptop should boot perfectly.

    If NOT, then you have hardware problems like a faulty eDP cable that its plugs pins are burned out, or faulty LCD screen or faulty ram or even a bios programing fault and all these issues need to be diagnosed by either Acer Tech Support (if those eBay sellers don't have warranty) or an experienced technician. Good luck and hope this helps you out this laptop is a great gaming and editing laptop.

  • foobreht
    foobreht Member Posts: 3 New User

    "don't open it or try to do anything"
    Well, a bit too late. I was upgrading from a 5+ years old Lenovo laptop which had been my only laptop with no issue whatsoever except that it is getting slower and slower. After I purchased the PHN16-71-73LT laptop, I opened it up, replaced the 2x8 with a 2x16, and added a secondary 4TB SSD. This was before the freezing.

    After I read your note, I re-opened the laptop for the second time, but only took the ram out. That was it. I didn't dare to do the other Hard Reset stuffs as I am unfamiliar with them. After putting the ram back in, I turned it on again, but I still got the black screen. I meant, it loaded until the black screen (where before the black screen, it would load the Predator logo and with the default loading sound).

    I did just contact the customer service, and hopefully they will get back to me soon. Thank you for your tiem and detailed inputs. I really appreciate that!