Aspire TC-1660 Why am I getting sporadic hard freezing, and how can i fix it?

This has been very hard to troubleshoot since it has no repeatable cause, but its been nearly a year since this started and I'm getting frustrated with it now.

I have an Acer Aspire TC-1660 computer, this is the link to the exact product I have: Acer Aspire TC Desktop | TC-1660 | Black | Acer UK Official Online Shop. I should note that my PC was bought from Curry's PC World, not from Acer directly, where it came with only 8GB of RAM and no Graphic Card. Since owning it, I have added the same graphics card listed on the specs of the linked product page, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650. As well as 32GB of RAM in the form of two 16GB sticks, and a singular cooling fan attached to the back of it.

I have been trying for months to figure out the cause of my PC randomly freezing. I have tried most things I have found online as well, including things like sfc/scannow and that. Whenever my PC freezes, the display no longer moves, and if sound was playing at the time of the freeze then it garbles for a second before repeating the same note it was on until I force shutdown the computer. When it restarts, all is fine until the next freeze.

In the Event Viewer, I often see the WHEA Logger Event ID 1 event at the same time as the freeze. I have looked into this so I'm aware that this is just my PC saying that there was a hardware issue but it doesn't know what specifically is the issue. If I'm wrong about that though, please correct me. I've tried some solutions I have found online, including maybe my CPU is drawing less power than it needs so just increase my minimum voltage for processing in power management but that didn't work. I've done the command prompt checks to look for anything wrong but that always comes up perfectly healthy. Even programs that check the health of my computer say it's all good. It's not overheating either, I have checked that too.

However, when it freezes, there isn't always a WHEA Logger Event. So I'm left stumped because even that isn't consistent. Can someone help me troubleshoot in laymans terms because I don't really know what I'm doing outside of following instructions. Oh and I really don't want to do anything that may compromise my files since I don't have a backup and can't make one because the computer freezes while its running and I lose all progress. I need the backup to check my system with reassurance, but for the backup my system needs to be stable long enough to let it finish, but I need to fix my issue for that to happen, which needs a backup for reassurance and so on. It's a loop.

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

Accepted answers

Marshle

Right. Apologies, I forgot about this post until now. I diagnosed the issue to being my GPU (it worked fine when I took it out and it worked off of integrated graphics). Unfortunately, I cannot actually find any power supplies that would fit the case and other requirements of my pc in my country (the UK). I looked inside and I literally can't fit a different size psu in there because of permanent brackets attached to the case holding the current one in place. There is excess space, but I can't remove the brackets and even if i did, the new one would then not have brackets to hold it up (it's at the top of the case). There are some promising Acer psu's from America in sites including Acer themselves and other places, but I am not willing to pay the price since it'll also include shipping. So I've resigned to the fact that the issue is solveable, aka spend a lot of money, but I don't want to because of that fact.

I have though begun to try out folding@home on only my gpu. Since my pc doesn't crash so long as the gpu isnt too low load, I've been running folding@home for the day and it seems okay for the time being. No freezes yet. My pc doesnt overheat either even when I tried running a resource intensive game alongside folding@home (roughly around 66 degrees celsius). Given the infrequency of the freezing, I'll be trialling it all week to be sure, but fingers crossed. I'll eventually upgrade my pc and get something a little easier to replace parts for, but for now I hope this is a temporary fix. And if its not, I guess I'll put up with the freezing. My pc isnt exactly dying after all, just being annoying.

All comments

Larryodie

Search this forum with "TC-1660 Freeze" as many people has had this problem. I'm not sure that I saw a solution but I didn't read thoughly.

I would update all drivers, BIOS and run msconfig startup/boot section to be sure that you don't have a unwanted virus or malware program conflicting.

Larryodie

Is your BIOS , up to date ???

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/665264/random-pc-freezes-aspire-tc-1660/p1

Marshle

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295637#Comment_1295637

I'm on R01-A4. I have considered a bios update to R01-BO, like your linked forum says. But I've gotten mixed answers on if I should be updating to R01-BO or not. Is there any steps I can take to make sure this is correct and all goes well? Once again, can't make a backup because my computer doesn't stay unfrozen long enough to complete it, so touching the bios is a little scary. Reassurance would be helpful, thanks.

Larryodie

Hmmm, Maybe buy a clone case and clone your hard drive to another hard drive ??

I am not affiliated with ACER just an onlooker but it seems that ( R01-B) has taken care TC-1660 woes.

An older post with a bad link but you can get the Bios from Acer downloads on this page.

Larryodie

Here is the link that I was referring.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1114809#Comment_1114809?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=tc-1660+r01-b0

Larryodie

You don't have much to lose but to try BIOS, maybe take to a shop and pay them to update BIOS if you're afraid to do it.

Marshle

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295672#Comment_1295672

Ironically, trusting someone else would be more scary. I'm aware of how to do it. It's as simple as having it on a USB, running the exe as admin, and pressing y to confirm in the opened command prompt. Is there any way of reverting if things don't work? I've read a lot online of how my PC could be bricked if the bios is incorrect for it. Or is there any way to test if the bios is compatible first? I sound like a nervous wreck, I know, I just really don't want the PC to be unusable

Larryodie

No way to revert unless you find a pre-programmer chip on EBAY or buy a programmer & program one yourself. Yes copy the bios file to a bootable USB and F12 then follow instructions as I pasted. DO NOT CUT OFF OR PULL PLUG WHN SCREEN GOES BLACK for a few minutes.

billsey

What actual memory did you install? If it's XMP enabled memory, it will be running at the base JEDEC speed for that memory, and that might too slow to be fully stable on the TC-1660, which is designed around DDR4 2933 MHz SDRAM. IIRC there was a shortage of memory at the time and Acer shipped a lot of these with 3200 MHz memory, still running at the 2933 rate. If you bought XMP enabled memory it's likely running at either 2133 MHz or 2400 MHz.

Marshle

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295712#Comment_1295712

Should I be using the method from the UCP folder or the WIN folder? The appendix folder has instructions for both. Your instructions match the UCP folder instructions. The WIN folder instructions tell me to open command prompt as admin and run Flash_x64.bat

UCP instructions are called: UCP BIOS Update SOP for Windows v1.0

WIN Instructions are called: ME FW & System BIOS Update SOP for Windows v3.10

I'm on Windows 11 if that's at all relevant.

Marshle

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295712#Comment_1295712

Oh and also how should my USB be formatted? I looked how to make a USB bootable and one place says to format it to Fat32, and windows gets me to format it to NTFS. Sorry for all the questions, just being cautious.

Larryodie

I've always used FAT32 but it has a size limit. I suppose that you can use either ???

Should a bootable USB be FAT32 or NTFS?NTFS is the default file system for Windows 10. This is because it has no file limitations and supports file compression. It's unlike FAT32, which limits a single file to 32GB. Therefore, you should use NTFS for your Windows 10 bootable USB drive to ensure the system successfully installs.Jul 1, 2024

Larryodie

I've always did the UCP.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/712065/aspire-tc-1660-why-am-i-getting-sporadic-hard-freezing-and-how-can-i-fix-it

Just to add some more information to the upgrades of your Acer Aspire TC Desktop | TC-1660 | Black - Ref. DG.BGZEK.005 that I've notice that you might have problems with and can cause the problems that you are having with the performance of this desktop, as you might have upgraded components that are not compatible with this desktop and that is why you are experiencing these random freezes due to and mainly power shortages.

By looking at the oem TC-1660 spec from your link, the Aspire TC-1660 desktop came oem from Acer with a 300W PSU which is NOT enough power to power your TC-1660 desktop with the extra and upgraded GTX1650 4GB GDDR5 GPU as with that GPU this desktop needs a 500W PSU, so I'm very surprised that your desktop with the 32GB and the GTYX1650 GPU works at all with a 300W PSU. Good luck and hope this helps you out some more.

Here are the oem Acer components that you should update your Aspire TC-1660 desktop with and to:

Acer listed 500W PSUs for the Aspire TC-1660 desktop

2. GPU to the GTX1650 mini 4GB that is the oem Acer fitted GPU for thsi desktop

3. RAM modules if you upgraded the desktop to a total of 32GB at 2x 16GB DDR4-3200MT/s type it should be ram modules similar if not exactly like the type of ram below:

OPTIONAL - upgrade to the higher spec cpu the i7-11700 or the i7-11700F as that will be much more compatible with all the above upgrades as a package

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

billsey

I've always done BIOS upgrades using the Windows environment, no need to muck around with flash drives.

Larryodie

I wish that the instructions were changed to do that instead of the flash method.

Larryodie

I understand that ACER doesn't promote messing with the bios BUT they put out critical updates that may be the lifeline to fixing his computer ? " ENHANCE SYSTEM STABILITY" . It may or may not fix per looking at other post but worth a try as SteveGen's suggestion may be too which can easily be proven by removing the new graphic card.

Marshle

May be a while before I declare this fixed or not as I have my own reasons for delaying fixing it for now. That mainly being just figuring things out my end, and if it's the power supply issue, then waiting for next months pay to buy a new one. Definitely going to try StevenGen's suggestion first and do some tinkering to see if that's the issue. It sounds plausible and I'd take it over a bios update. I want to keep bios update in the pocket as a last resort as it just feels so much riskier. I have file history running into an external hard drive for a backup at least. It's slow, but it works away as I use the computer and doesn't get reset through shut downs and freezes. That in and of itself will probably take a few weeks to complete fully. So slowly but surely I'll get a full backup, and once I do I'll try bios if the power supply idea is wrong. Thanks for the help everyone, narrowing the problem down to two solutions is far more than the speculating I did on my own. Hearing answers from other people makes them little more reassuring for some reason.

Larryodie

Good Luck with whatever you do. Please keep us inform as to the progress.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1295902#Comment_1295902

All those components that I've listed above are what Acer fitted to their higher end spec Aspire TC-1660 desktops, with the GTX1650 4GB GPU, i7-11700(K) CPUs and the 500W PSU, so the upgrade components above work 100% with your existing Aspire TC-1660 desktop and are fully compatible parts as all the components are from the Acer Aspire TC-1660 official service guide.

Also, its a very good idea to leave the bios update to last and after you have updated the GPU, CPU and its 1x Gen 3 x4 lane M.2 SSD drive (I suggest that you use and upgrade to a quick Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 SSD drive) which is another component that will increase the performance of your desktop allot, as a bios update is the last that you should consider to update. Good luck and hope this will solve and help your upgrade of your desktop.

If this answers your question and solved your query please "Click on Yes" or "Click on Like" if you find my answer useful👍

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