Rare freezes and crashes with no error message on the Acer Swift SFX14-41G-R7YC

Hello,

I got a new laptop (Acer Swift X with Ryzen 5 5500U and GTX 1650) about a year and a half ago, and for about half a year it's been freezing and subsequently crashing about once every one or two weeks. By "freezing and crashing" I mean that the PC stops, shuts down completely and restarts on its own a few seconds later. Nothing else happens, it just seems to freeze, crash and start back on its own. To be honest, it's just a mild annoyance, but I'd like to get rid of them if possible.

At first the crashes started while using VLC. It always seemed to crash when I unpaused a video, almost as if it was throwing a one hundred sided die to see if it should crash every time I unpaused. I then uninstalled VLC and used another video player, which made the crashes stop. Then the crashes also started happening when just browsing the internet, but I always remember it crashing when initiating an action, like scrolling. It also sometimes crashes when unpausing YouTube videos, similarly to how it crashed when using VLC. Recently it also crashed while copying files to a flash drive (which happened twice in a row but never again, at least from my tests).

But the weird thing is: the crashes seem random. For example, I never got a crash while doing intensive tasks or while playing games. These crashes always seem to happen when doing something mundane, and only about once every one or two weeks.

The even bigger problem is that there are absolutely no error messages in Event Viewer other than "your PC shut down unexpectedly", and there is no way for me to reproduce the crash on demand to see why it does it.

To fix the problem I installed the latest Chipset and GPU drivers and also reinstalled Windows one time (for unrelated reasons, but the crashes started again even after that fresh reinstall). This didn't seem to have changed anything.

Since the crashes started about half a year ago the situation doesn't seem to have worsened or improved, even after updating Windows many times.

Recently I've started dual booting Ubuntu 22.04 LTS to see if the crashes would stop. I've been using it for a few weeks now and I haven't noticed any of those crashes, but maybe that's just because I've been lucky.

Did anyone else have these issues, and if so, did you manage to fix them?

Some information on the laptop:

OS: Windows 11 Home Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621 (running the "Acer" version of Windows 11, the one that came with the laptop)

Laptop Model: SFX14-41G-R7YC

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

Accepted answers

All comments

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/694834/rare-freezes-and-crashes-with-no-error-message-on-the-acer-swift-sfx14-41g-r7yc

Open Reliability History in Windows11 and check all the Problem Reports, it will tell you why these crashes are happening (Kernel driver issues). 😉

stickwaterfall

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1241166#Comment_1241166

It doesn't actually. All it tells me is this: "The previous system shutdown at 2:43:04 PM on ‎10/‎18/‎2023 was unexpected.". I also have tons of DtsApo4Service.exe crashes in there, there are so many that I doubt they are related to the system crashes (otherwise my computer would have to crash every 15 minutes).

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1241190#Comment_1241190

That is Event viewer, a Reliability History Problem looks like this:

Reliability Problem.txt

Type Reliability History in Search and click on Problem Reports, copy last Problem report to WordPad and post that. You should not have any errors in Event Viewer, if you have "tons" you have a corrupted system. Make sure internet is working and paste this in the Command Prompt: Dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth and press Enter, then run this command: SFC /scannow and press Enter, that should complete with "Found no Integrity violations", repeat command till you see that.

stickwaterfall

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1241195#Comment_1241195

I clicked on that and it sent me here.

Here, the crashes I got weren't even mentioned anywhere (I scrolled down and looked in every category).

I looked at the txt file you sent, and what I got in Event Viewer is similar to that.

Where if I go into details I get (XML):

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">- <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331c3b3a-2005-44c2-ac5e-77220c37d6b4}" /> <EventID>41</EventID> <Version>9</Version> <Level>1</Level> <Task>63</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x8000400000000002</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-10-18T12:44:56.7357108Z" /> <EventRecordID>50152</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" /> <Channel>System</Channel> <Computer>MariusBook</Computer> <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" /> </System>- <EventData> <Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data> <Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data> <Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data> <Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data> <Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data> <Data Name="SleepInProgress">0</Data> <Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data> <Data Name="BootAppStatus">0</Data> <Data Name="Checkpoint">16</Data> <Data Name="ConnectedStandbyInProgress">false</Data> <Data Name="SystemSleepTransitionsToOn">3</Data> <Data Name="CsEntryScenarioInstanceId">28</Data> <Data Name="BugcheckInfoFromEFI">false</Data> <Data Name="CheckpointStatus">0</Data> <Data Name="CsEntryScenarioInstanceIdV2">28</Data> <Data Name="LongPowerButtonPressDetected">false</Data> <Data Name="LidReliability">false</Data> <Data Name="InputSuppressionState">0</Data> <Data Name="PowerButtonSuppressionState">0</Data> <Data Name="LidState">1</Data> </EventData> </Event>

Screenshots:

Alejandro_AC

Hi @stickwaterfall have you been able to check if this happens to you using the battery-powered device as well as with the power charger connected?

All the best.

stickwaterfall

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1241204#Comment_1241204

I recall it always being connected to the charger when the crashes happened. However, I almost never use my computer on battery since it rarely leaves my room, so maybe it's just a coincidence.

Alejandro_AC

Test it on battery power to rule out a problem related to external power.

All the best.

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1241200#Comment_1241200

You got some serious problems with your system mate.😑

You have to click on the individual Problem Reports to open and copy the text to WordPad, you are just listing the headers and there are a lot more than what you showed. Some things you can do:

First open Device manager and uninstall all drivers with a yellow exclamation mark including hidden devices and greyed out Unknown Devices. Reboot and then uninstall the following:
ACCStd.exe, Uninstall Acer Care Center in Windows11 "Installed Apps", click on the ellipses (3 dots) at the end of the program and click on Uninstall. ACC hangs in Widows11 that can cause crashes if you abort system by pressing the Power Button >5 seconds.
AcrobatNotificationClient: Open Powershell as administrator and paste this line: Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers *AdobeNotificationClient* | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers
Qualcomm Atheros Client, uninstall your Wi-Fi adapter driver in Device manager and just reboot.
The DTS driver is probably bundled with the Realtek Audio drivers, so you have to uninstall Realtek Audio in Safe Mode with DDU and make sure your internet is working then just reboot and Windows11 will sort it out and install the correct drivers.

And there will be many, many more problems that you are not showing and probably not aware of. Did you run the DISM online followed by SFC commands, what was repaired by SFC, check the CBS.log file, scroll to the end where the corrupted files are listed (C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log).

bad_module_info indicates GPU memory (VRAM) is low, especially during intensive games or applications, leading to application crashes and potential loss of progress.

To be honest it would take too long to clean up this mess, try to do the things above first and rerun the DISM Online and SFC commands in that order. Then check the rest of the Review Problems Reports that you did not show. Uninstall all the problem apps.

If you get no improvements, you may have some hardware issues too (RAM and SSD) either bring the laptop to Acer Services and ask to reset the system to factory default with OEM W11 23H2. Or Clean install Windows11 with a bootable USB flash drive,
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/clean-install-windows-11.99/

Forget about Dual Boot and Linux, get Windows11 sorted out first, check daily for updates, Event Viewer and Reliability History (those 2 programs are not related). You should not have any critical errors anywhere and your Windows11 version should be 23H2 build 22631.2506

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 175

Diya1811 130

Jack22 75

roberthansjorg 62

Brian7 60

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™