Strange series of occurrences after recovery (a whole slew of problems)

JMuth561

Can anyone help me with this? In January, my Acer Aspire 5552, running Windows 7 suffered hard drive failure. I purchased a new hard drive and the recovery discs for that model, but about a week after installing them, I noted that a few things seemed wrong with the computer.

 

1. The time and date randomly resets itself upon power down. I originally thought it was the CMOS battery needing replacement, but after trying that twice, I am assuming it is not the issue. It's always a different date and time, and if I just restart the machine, or if I shut down and reboot after just a few hours, there is no change. Sometimes, the BIOS does not even display a time, and other times it is the wrong time.

 

2. When I restart the computer, it acts like it's trying to boot up twice, goes black twice, and then finally boots up. Also, when I put it to sleep or hibernate, it wakes up even with the clamshell closed, entirely at random.

 

3. When I first log in, I have no problems with the brightness settings. They adjust like normal. However. at some seemingly random time afterwords, it will decide to only allow my to adjust to the brightest and darkest settings. I have tried to update the drivers, but that did nothing to fix the issue.

 

4. Finally, even though I have 4 GB of RAM installed, after the recovery, it's only showing 2 GB under computer properties.

 

Well, the only other thing I could find online that would explain what was happening was a virus, and so when I was unable to load anything in a timely manner anymore, I assumed I had gotten one, and ran a complete system restore and restored the hard drive, but it slowed down again the next day. I called the HDD manufacturer and they said it was probably progressive failure, and sent me a replacement. I formatted the drive and installed the OS from the same recovery discs, but I am now having the same exact problems.

 

Sorry, I know it's a lot, but does anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on?

Raza

Hi

 

try to update the BIOS

 

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers

 

if you see the list in BIOS........there has been many bug fix for the BIOS...........one of them might solve the problem........

 

---

JMuth561 wrote:

Can anyone help me with this? In January, my Acer Aspire 5552, running Windows 7 suffered hard drive failure. I purchased a new hard drive and the recovery discs for that model, but about a week after installing them, I noted that a few things seemed wrong with the computer.

 

1. The time and date randomly resets itself upon power down. I originally thought it was the CMOS battery needing replacement, but after trying that twice, I am assuming it is not the issue. It's always a different date and time, and if I just restart the machine, or if I shut down and reboot after just a few hours, there is no change. Sometimes, the BIOS does not even display a time, and other times it is the wrong time.

 

2. When I restart the computer, it acts like it's trying to boot up twice, goes black twice, and then finally boots up. Also, when I put it to sleep or hibernate, it wakes up even with the clamshell closed, entirely at random.

 

3. When I first log in, I have no problems with the brightness settings. They adjust like normal. However. at some seemingly random time afterwords, it will decide to only allow my to adjust to the brightest and darkest settings. I have tried to update the drivers, but that did nothing to fix the issue.

 

4. Finally, even though I have 4 GB of RAM installed, after the recovery, it's only showing 2 GB under computer properties.

 

Well, the only other thing I could find online that would explain what was happening was a virus, and so when I was unable to load anything in a timely manner anymore, I assumed I had gotten one, and ran a complete system restore and restored the hard drive, but it slowed down again the next day. I called the HDD manufacturer and they said it was probably progressive failure, and sent me a replacement. I formatted the drive and installed the OS from the same recovery discs, but I am now having the same exact problems.

 

Sorry, I know it's a lot, but does anyone have any ideas as to what could be going on?

---

JMuth561

Any idea which one? It says that an incorrect update my damage the computer. 

Raza

It is the general warning message.......Important is you should select the product correctly. Check the version of your BIOS, and compare with the dates and version available online.

 

JMuth561

Okay, I installed the most recent BIOS. Now the date and time are always displayed in the BIOS but they are still wrong and the computer still exhibits all of the same errors.

Raza

It seems that something is draining power internally. Check the power consumption.

 

For hard disk problem (4), try different operating system or use partion magic or similar software to observe the partion. Either complete harddisk has been allocated the drive name or not.

 

aaparkr

The last "easy" fix you might try is to replace the RAM. If you have a few weak cells in RAM they might be misread by the system. I call this 'easy' since you replaced the hard drive. I bought a 2 GB SIMM for my D270 from Crucial for under $25.00. If this doesn't fix it, I would contact acer about possible a defective motherboard/CMOS (or any suggestions they have).