My Predator Helios 300 laptop crashes very frequently with a blue screen and corrupts the SSD

I have had my Acer predator since Oct 2020. I got this high end gaming laptop to run ESRI ArcGIS since it requires high performance graphics and very good speed and resolution. I am extremely disappointed in its instability and how quickly it resets itself through these years! I spent $1800 on the laptop and about $1000 in trying to get it to run and work for my needs! I have never run a single game or installed anything except MS Office, ESRI ArcGIS Pro/ArcMap and Spyder/Anaconda for Python environment. Two computer repair shops later- the end result is something is wrong with the mother board and it overheats and Cana not be fixed!! I have the fan running at full speed and it is loud and have to computer propped up so it can cool. But nothing has helped me. I am at the brink of helplessness with an urgency to publish by research and be able to reliably run ArcGIS Pro. Please help!! I have also swapped out two SSDs ( in 2022 and another in Dec- 2024) to no avail. Computer store basically told me not to come back and they cannot help me anymore :( Please please help!!! Thank you so much.

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Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/719159/my-predator-helios-300-laptop-crashes-very-frequently-with-a-blue-screen-and-corrupts-the-ssd

Hi, find out if this is caused by a rogue driver or a hardware issue, disconnect all peripherals from the laptop except the power adapter and interrupt the booting process three times with the power button as soon as you see the Acer/Predator logo this will get you to Safe Mode or in Windows hold the shift key down while clicking on Restart on the Start-Power icon taskbar. Work a while in Safe Mode and if no BSOD or crashing it probably is a bad driver or app that is causing the problems, not hardware, you can start with uninstalling the dGPU driver with DDU in Safe Mode and just reboot, do not install any drivers but let Windows do the installing. Alternatively, the long way, debug with MSconfig.exe, disable all the non-Windows services, Apply, boot and each time enable one service till you get the BSOD and you have found the problem (a long and tedious process). https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/719159/my-predator-helios-300-laptop-crashes-very-frequently-with-a-blue-screen-and-corrupts-the-ssd

Your laptop should not crash if you have all the bios and firmware updates done that Acer has for your laptop model and run the recommended M.2 SSD boot drive, in allot of cases running Win-11 on these 8th or 9th and especially 10th Gen cpu laptops is better than running Win-10, so try to upgrade the laptop to the latest iWin-11 24H2 up to the last OS build 26100.2605 that is available and also increase the ram if you are using memory intensive software as these laptops can run 64GB max ram for the PH315-52 @ DDR4-2666MT/s or the PH315-53 with its 10th Gen cpu can run max total of 64GB @ DDR4-3200MT/s CL22 type ram, so try that also, as its also essential that you install the latest NVidia graphics drivers with installing the GeForce Experience scanner that will do this for you automatically.

If its a Predator Helios released in 2020/12/11 its the PH315-53 has a 10th Gen Intel cpu or the PH315-52 which was released in 2019/07/25 and has either an 8th or 9th Gen Intel cpu (it would help if you stated which exact model you have?).

I've listed all the PH315-53 models M.2 SSD drives that Acer tested this laptop with and they suggest that you use, the highlighted drive below its boot drive spec which is an M.2 PCIe 3 x4 lane type drive. Btw, the WD SN730 Gen 3 x 4 lane M.2 drive listed below, is fitted to a 2020 Aspire laptop as a boot drive that I'm using and is a great and a quick drive for a Gen 3 x4 M.2 drive, its CDM benchmark speeds is @ 3400MB/s Read 3100MB/s Write and its been working perfectly in this laptop for years without any crashes, so maybe try to use that exact drive and see how it works out. Good luck and hope all this helps you out further. t the advice above.

PH315-53 storage specs

M.2 SSD try these as all these M.2 SSd drives have been tested by Acer to work 100% with this laptop

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

Peevee_343

thank you so so much for your in-depth answer. Sadly I am not a very savvy It person but rather a more software-end user who knows a thing or two about ArcGIS but nothing much about PCs/Windows. Please see attached on the specs that came with the PC when. I bought it but the latest SSD installed is a WD Blue 500 GB SN570 NVMe M.2 SSD. I am assuming the latest repair shops ran all the hardware diags and reinstalled Windows 11.

IMG_1688.jpeg

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1319860#Comment_1319860

Repair shops don't fully update windows and/or do all the things that should be done, so check if they have done all that I've described above. Your Predator Helios is the model PH315-52 with the 9th Gen i7-9750H cpu and the NVidia GTX-1660 gpu and and this laptops ram can run at max speed ram of a DDR4-2666MT/s type, your laptop has a total of 32GB at 2x 16GB DDR4-2666MT/s modules and was fitted oem with the WD SN-720 512GB SSD M.2 drive and a 1TB 2.5" mechanical drive as a backup secondary drive.

if you look at the specs below, they show that Acer fitted a 512GB SANDISK which is the WD SN720 v1.3 NVMe M.2 SSD drive and recommends this type of drive to be used, The M.2 SSD drive that is fitted now the WD SN570 is a v1.4 NVMe and its the same sort of drive and should work 100% with this laptop.