Acer Predator Helios 300 Freezing Randomly

avenger9709
avenger9709 Member Posts: 1 New User
edited September 2023 in Predator Laptops

Hello all,

First time posting, so I'm not sure if this is the right spot.

I bought a Predator Helios back in December 22 and my machine for the most part seems to work ok. I have had some instances though where my machine will become unresponsive to the point where the screen freezes and keyboard/mouse input does nothing to bring it back to life and my only option is to hard reset it. I've tried to debug the problem for months and tried to draw several conclusions, but I thought it would be good to consult the user community and get input on the problem.

Now, I know that a computer becoming completely unresponsive can occur for a variety of reasons, usually pointing to some type of hardware or memory failure, but I will say that initially I thought there was something wrong with my GPU.

I recall though turning off the GPU entirely and just using integrated graphics on my screen and I was able to witness the machine freezy up on me to the point of hard reset even in that scenario. So I think I'm fairly confident that the GPU is not causing issues anymore, but the freezing is mostly random, and it's happened in the following ways:
- Playing GPU intensive games (Trackmania 2020, FIFA 17/22)
- Watching youtube videos in Firefox/Edge (recently I was able to get it to repeatedly crash in Firefox and I unistalled it completely)
- Browsing audio samples in the Splice desktop app

Once, I was able to see what appeared to be a flicker on my screen before it crashed, but that only happened once and in the other instances I could be doing just about anything and I'd get a freeze with no warning. Sometimes it takes days for it to repeat and then sometimes it can freeze multiple times during the day. I've tried to monitor the temps and usage of my CPU and GPU and things appear to be relatively normal. I've included a recent snapshot of OCCT at the time it froze as an example (Picture shows a benchmark CPU test). I for a long time thought that perhaps the machine was crashing because of overheating, but that doesn't seem to be the case since sometimes the temps are below 45 degrees celsius before I have to hard reset.

So now I'm at the point, where I think the issue is either on an OS level, or it's my RAM, or my motherboard. I was thinking about replacing the RAM since I can't even get through a memtest run without it freezing. This happens repeatedly as well, so it seems like good idea to at least try and see if new memory sticks fixes the issue. BTW I have not tried to change a lot in the BIOS, because I can't get to the default Windows BIOs panel. When I press F2, I get shown a BIOs menu but it has Predator logos and what not on it. BIOS was updated in July. I think the version that came with the machine was 1.07 or something.

One other weird thing I noticed was that my memory sticks are numbered 0 and 2 in HWInfo. I'm not sure if that is a normal thing or not, but I figured that they would be numbered 0 and 1 since I think have only two 16GB sticks?

So what should I do? Is there a way to confirm with reasonable confidence that my issue is memory and not hardware or is that basically impossible for me to debug on my own?

Thanks for your insight in advance!

Specs (short, full attached as csv):

Computer: Acer Predator PH315-55
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700H (Alder Lake-H 682, L0)
2700 MHz (27.00x100.0) @ 4389 MHz (44.00x99.8)
Motherboard: ADL Evoque_ADH
BIOS: V1.11, 07/07/2023
Chipset: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH
Memory: 32768 MBytes @ 2194 MHz, 38-37-37-70
- 16384 MB PC38400 DDR5 SDRAM - Team Group SD5-4800
- 16384 MB PC38400 DDR5 SDRAM - Team Group SD5-4800
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics (Alder Lake-P 682 GT2) - Integrated Graphics Controller [ACER]
Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 1024 MB DDR4
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop (GA106M) [ACER]
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop, 6144 MB GDDR6 SDRAM
Drive: KINGSTON SNV2S1000G, 976.8 GB, NVMe
Sound: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH - cAVS (Audio, Voice, Speech)
Sound: NVIDIA GA106 - High Definition Audio Controller
Network: Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (211NGW)
Network: RealTek Semiconductor/Killer E2600 Gigabit

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Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 18,733 Trailblazer
    edited September 2023

    First determine if this freezing is related to your network. turn off all networks (Wi-Fi and Ethernet) in Windows11 and play some games offline. If the freezing continues to occur it is probably a rogue driver: Open Device Manager and check for yellow exclamation marks or/and greyed out Unknown Devices, uninstall those. Boot to Safe Mode (Shift+Restart) and work offline for a while if that causes freezing. If Safe Mode is OK, reboot and open (Windows key + R) Msconfig.exe, click on Safe Boot and Base Video, then click Apply and reboot. You will have poor graphics but everything else should work. Try that, if no freezing you have a display driver problem, see at the end how to uninstall Intel and Nvidia drivers with DDU, don't reinstall just reboot while internet is working, Windows11 will reinstall the correct display drivers.

    If it is not the display drivers but some other driver, apps or Services: In MSconfig leave the Safe Boot enabled, and disable all non-Windows Services but leave any 2-3 services enabled (note which ones). Click on Apply again and reboot, repeat this process each time enabling 2-3 new services (note which ones) till the freezing starts. A very tedious job but the only way to find out what services/driver is causing the problem. When you finished with MSconfig don't forget to disable Safe Boot and to click on Apply!

    If you determined that the display driver is at fault, download DDU freeware from Wagnardsoft.com and in Safe Mode uninstall both iGPU and dGPU drivers with DDU: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000091878/graphics.html

  • Best and easiest solution is to do a Clean Install of Win-11 and put the unzipped version of the IRST (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology) Driver version 19.1.0.1001 driver on the bootable Win-11 installation USB.

    Insert the Win-11 bootable installation USB into the side USB of your laptop, then go to Settings > System > Recovery > Advanced Startup > reboot and go into the UEFI bios > Boot and set the USB as 1st boot option.

    Then reboot and start the install windows process, when you get the the section of "Where do you want to install Windows?' go to Load driver > install the IRST driver and then format the boot drive and continue to install windows and all its updates.

    Once windows is installed, install the latest NVidia gpu driver and GeForce Experience and Intel driver and support assistant, make sure that when you install all NVidia gpu driver you uninstall the previous gpu driver. Doing all this will fix and stop the Freezing Randomly, it happened to my laptop too and this fixed it 100% and perfectly, keep the drivers and updates simple and only install the appropriate drivers, as installing all the inappropriate Intel drivers causes screen flickering and freezing of systems. That is the only way that you will fix all the Freezing Randomly, if this does not fix that problem.

  • eGomes
    eGomes Member Posts: 6,003 Guru
    É hora de dizer “adeus” à Comunidade Acer. Encerro aqui a minha participação. Obrigado a todos! 👋😉
    It's time to say "goodbye" to the Acer Community. I'm ending my participation here. Thank you all! 👋😉