Aspire XC605-Win8-Randomly not booting intermittently, gets 'stuck' at the Acer logo at random time

The splash screen is stored as data in the BIOS and is displayed during POST, while the tests are executing. When POST is complete the system loads the EFI info from the drive, then uses that to decide which OS to start loading. As the OS starts it's load, the splash screen goes away and OS load information is shown instead. Since yours hangs with the drive activity light illuminated that leads me to believe the failure happens when the EFI file tries to load. That points to a drive error as the most common root cause, a motherboard failure much less often. POST has done some testing of the SATA interface by that point, so the motherboard is a lot less likely to be the root cause. The Aspire XC-605 models support three SATA devices and have no M.2 slot for drives, unlike newer models. Here's the board layout:

Note that the three SATA ports (8-10) have two different colors. #8 & 9 are SATA3, 6G/s ports, #10 is SATA 2, 3G/s. #10 should really only be used for an optical drive, but would work for a normal HDD or SSD, just slower than the other two ports. If it turns out that the issue is a hardware issue with the motherboard, then moving that drive to a different SATA port might 'fix' it.

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Is your Win 10 updated to the latest ??

You might do a restore when you go into the safe mode screen (repair) after you hold down the power button.

Otherwise, it's an older unit and maybe just can't keep up ?

Do you still have a HDD installed? That symptom sounds like the OS wants to do an error check on a HDD. That may be a sign the drive is starting to fail, especially likely if it's been 'crashed' to shut down fairly often.

Axxo

I suggest that you try to force restart the PC by pressing the power button until it shuts down or restarts.

If that didn't help, try to access the Windows Recovery Environment, turn your computer on and off three times. While booting, make sure you turn off the computer when you see the loading logo. After the third time, Windows 10 will boot into diagnostics mode. Click Advanced options when the recovery screen appears.

Then in the "Choose an option" screen, click Troubleshoot => Advanced Options => Try the options Startup Repair or System Restore. I hope this helps.

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Windows is updated weekly. So, yes, it's up to date.

Too old to keep up? It's much faster than my wife's 2 year old Acer laptop. (According to passmark.com and their Performance Test.)

No, the HDD was removed when I fitted the Samsung SSD. If the SSD is failing, then the HDD had exactly the same fault. (Seems unlikely!) If there is something faulty with my Win10, the original Win8.1 had the same fault.

It starts perfectly 99% of the time. So any diagnostic / troubleshooting shows it's working perfectly. DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth, chkdsk C: /f /r (etc) all show no problems, but if the tests are run when it's in the 99% time, they would.

Yes, if you removed the HDD when you installed the SSD then it's unlikely to be a diskchk running, though that would give you almost exactly that symptom. Next we need to look at where it's failing. You don't mention any beep error codes, so even though the failure seems to be before Windows starts it's load it doesn't seem to be a POST failure. The first thing that happens at the end of POST, I believe, is a quick load of the EFI image. That's where it decides what to load for the OS, from the table of possible load points. If you have a bootable device plugged into a USB port, and that device is higher in the list than the normal boot point for Windows, it might fail. I'd expect a blinking cursor though…

Billsey - thanks for your thoughts. When it fails, it just stops with the ACER logo on the screen - the circle of white dots doesn't appear. The only clue I get that it's about to not start, is the CD/DVD player…. It must be number one in the boot sequence so it's checked for bootable media first. (A 'buzz' as the head searches for a CD then another 'buzz' as it retracts.) As nothing is found, it tries the 'C' drive, finds Windows and starts. When it's going to fail, the CD drive searches twice. ('Buzz, buzz. Buzz, buzz.) There's no beeps. Once it fails to start, the SSD read / write LED is on constantly.

I've had a thought that it might be the PSU. It's a mini-tower, so the PSU is small. If the initial CD seek drags a voltage down….

OK, let's look at the BIOS settings for booting… Can you take a picture of the Boot Options page?

What's the 'F' key I have to press to get into the boot settings? It doesn't come up on the initial screen? (F8? F11?)

Enable BOOT or Boot Enabled in Bios then reboot with the F12 key.

Here you go:

Billsey - thanks for your interest. In answer to your question…("Can you take a picture of the Boot Options page?") Please see attached!

P1030081_1.JPG

OK, the priorities look to be correct. If you enable the boot menu you can use the F12 key to get a list of bootable devices. The SSD should always be first on the list, but you might have something in the DVD that is showing up as well. If you get the failure and the SSD isn't listed then we can assume it's not working as it should.

Billsey - Thanks again for your continued interest! See attached pics. F12 doesn't give any options, it only shows the Windows Boot Manager. Is this what you'd expect, or want to see?

Boot Menu Enabled.JPG

F12 shows....JPG

OK, that's normal. Windows Boot Manager should use the main drive as the boot point. That's pointing directly at there being an issue with the boot image from the SSD. Either it's corrupted or the data transfer from the drive is getting corrupted. When it comes through clean the system boots, when it comes though with errors the system doesn't boot. Do you have a different SSD or HDD that we could test with? Something that doesn't mind getting overwritten by a clone of the existing SSD…

No, i don't have another SSD. But remember, this is the same fault that it had when the original HDD was fitted. So if the SSD is faulty, it has exactly the same fault as the newer SSD. I know 'coincidence' exists, but…

Here is my TC-895 with an Boor Enabled USB inserted.

Moving the up down arrows will show

bootf12.jpg

my DVD and N2ME SSD.

Is your SSD in the M.2 slot, or is it a 2.5" connected to a SATA port like the original HDD was?

Is it only on BOOT that it fails ???

If so then most likely the on-off switch is intermittent or bad solder on the switch's PC board.