W4 completelly freeze

aleunge
aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter

Hello members, any one else have an occasional freeze while using the tablet?  Not from wake or bootup or anything, just using the tablet and all of a sudden, it simply freezes.  There's no response from keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, power button or any button at all.  I would have to hold the power button to shut down to reboot.  It's only happened maybe three times over a week.  Just want to figure out if I have a dud needing servicing or not before warranty runs out.

 

Big thanks everyone.

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Answers

  • padgett
    padgett ACE Posts: 4,532 Pathfinder

    I'd note the system time when the even occured (may need to add a clock widget so can see when it feezes, the look in the event log at that time and see if anything was logged.

     

    It is likely that the processor was stuck in a loop. If it happens on one of mine, I generally leave it for five or ten minutes to see if it ever comes back.

     

    The place to look is Control Panel >Administrative Tools>Event Viewer. Start with the Windows Logs and look for Errors most likely in System but could be anywhere.

  • aleunge
    aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter
    Thanks for that. I've already checked for the last couple of freezes and I don't see any logs at all. But I'll keep an eye open next time and wait a little longer.

    worried that I have a dud though if no one else have this issue...
  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    hi

     

    i'm facing exactly the same problem : the tablet freeze at any time and only solution is to switch it off holding the power button for 10s and switch it back on....

     

    come on acer support, any help please ?

     

    regards

     

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    hi

     

    i've reinstalled my w4 tablet from scratch with the provided acer dvd

    so far everything was ok until tonight where the tablet has just frozen again....

     

    it would be great if someone from acer here can help us please....

     

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    hello again,

     

    i'm continuing troubleshooting why my Acer W4 freeze

     

    i've reinstalled all from scratch, with the Acer DVD, and i applied windows updates one category by one category : until now the tablet hasn't freeze - i applyed all security updates without any freeze and now i've just applied all windows 8.1 updates before the April 2014 big update !

     

    https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2919355

     

    so i'm now just BEFORE this big April 2014 update and

    at now until tomorrow i'm stress testing the tablet (mainly streaming spotify) before applying this update

     

    stay tuned for the next episode Smiley Happy

     

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    Thanks for the in depth testing! Hopefully you'll find something.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • aleunge
    aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter
    FYI, I've only had about three crashes over a month's time so it doesn't quite happen a lot. And when it happened, it seems rather random since I might not be doing much when it freezes. Good luck though! Let us know!
  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    ok i found it : the tablet crash if i apply the windows 8.1 updates that are just before the big april update...

    now i've uninstalled all these 8.1 updates except one which does not want to be uninstalled : KB2975061

     

    so now i'll do the stress test again today to see if it really works

    if yes i'll install the 8.1 updates one by one to find out which one is really causing the freeze

     

    stay tuned Smiley Happy

     

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    some news :

     

    -the freezes seems to come from the several 'important windows 8.1 updates' that are proposed just before the big patch package of april

    -since i uninstalled them i've no freeze but windows didn't propose me to re-install them after...

    -anyway now i've installed the big 8.1 update of April and all the new security updates ; now when i look for other windows updates I've about 12 'important windows 8.1 updates' (i don't know if they're the same as before the april update)

    -so i'll stress test the tablet during the weekend and then apply updates one by one...

     

    see you!

     

  • aleunge
    aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter

    How often are your freezes?  And do they really show up during heavy workload?  Being often and reproducible with a stress test somehow tells me perhaps I'm dealing with something different.  My freezes are far and between and they happen randomly and not while I do intensive tasks like Photoshop and Illustrator work.  It happens so rarely that I feel like it's been healed completely now.

     

    But in anycase, thank you for your time and persistence.  I just hope you don't have a serious/unique issue that you should just bring it in for warranty...?

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    yeah i admit it's rather strange...

    and even if it freeze once a week i don't consider that as 'normal' for such a device Smiley Happy

     

    my freezes used to happen sometimes when working with the tablet (i only have Chrome, Goodsync, Linkman and Spotify installed as native windows applications) - one time it happened when i click on 'open new tab' in Chrome for example)

    and sometimes they happen when i let the tablet play music : suddenly the sound starts repeating quickly like a damaged cdrom (!) and screen and buttons are frozen... only solution is to hard power down.

     

    but you're right it is now a long time since it hasn't freeze....and i don't really know if it's because of my rollback from windows updates or just a coincidence...

     

    anyway i really think of software/windows updates related problem because when i reinstall all from scratch then i apply ALL windows updates then it starts crashing quite quickly... i already opened a case to Acer and they told me to bring it back ; i'll do this if i don't find a solution after i'm back from holidays Smiley Wink

     

  • hkstiong
    hkstiong Member Posts: 21 New User

    Thank you for pointing me to your efforts.

     

    Is the update KB2975061 the one you isolated?  Hoping your experiment solves the freeze issue.

     

     

     

     

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    no, in fact in July 15th i installed a whole Windows 8.1 updates then my tablet started to freeze. so I uninstalled them all but KB2975061 which windows didn't let me uninstall...so it is still installed and my tablet does not freeze (for now) so it should not be the failing one...

     

    here is the list of the updates i installed on july 15th into which the failing update should be :

     

    Capture.PNG

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    update : the tablet froze this morning after my message Smiley Sad

     

    good news : it seems this problem is also present with other tablet hardwares !

    for example some people with the same problem :

    http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Windows-Tablets/HP-Omni-10-freezing-intermittently/td-p/3186825

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-performance/acer-iconic-w4-tablet-screen-froze-and-the-cursor/258204d8-4182-4e82-9fb9-e618a61d0428

    https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Idea-Windows-based-Tablets-and/Miix-2-8-Freezing/td-p/1314125/page/2

     

    or 

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-performance/help-with-random-crashes/2752e56c-87cc-4c19-b4ea-934d9ec0e437?page=1

     

    in the former i'm about trying what mrkangtastic said in page 2 : uninstall KB2887595.

    now done and rebooting to complete the uninstallation.

     

    see you (i hope not soon Smiley Wink

     

     

  • aleunge
    aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter

    Good detective work and good luck man!

     

    I'm actually surprised Acer hasn't released any updates for the W4 recently.  They were very prominent with the W3.

  • Blayn-Acer
    Blayn-Acer Administrator Posts: 2,355 Community Administrator

    I am working to investigate the reports of freezing. If you are experiencing freezing on your W4, can you please provide the BIOS version of the product, and also send me a private message with your serial number. Hopefully, this will help us reproduce the issue and find a resolution.

  • xyzaid
    xyzaid Member Posts: 42 Troubleshooter

    hi

     

    i just sent you a pm with the information asked.

     

    unhopefully my problem are not solved : right tonight the tablet could not woke up from sleep - it was frozen on the lock screen so i had to shut it down hard then reboot it...

     

    thanks for your help !

     

    my bios version is 1.13 and i own a french windows 8.1 version tablet.

  • hkstiong
    hkstiong Member Posts: 21 New User

    Hi,

     

    Thank you for looking into our situation

     

    I am going thru the same freezing conditions plus bluetooth/wifi conflict

     

    I am on Windows 8.1 with April 8 update and BIOS ver 1.13.  Current with Windows updates.

     

    How do I PM you my serial number?

     

     

    Thanks again!

     

     

     

     

  • aleunge
    aleunge Member Posts: 51 Troubleshooter

    Hello Acer Blayn.  BIOS 1.13 as well with all Win 8 updates.  Freezes aren't very common, perhaps 2-3 times over a month or two?  But definitely not present for the older W3.

     

    Not sure if you know this yet, but it's also widely reported that our W4 sometimes do not power down properly (happens more than the freezes for me).  The green LED on the power switch would continuously blink when it can't shut down completely (screen is off though so you might think it did).  If you aren't aware of the blinking light when it happens, it will drain the battery.  The only way to get out of it is to press and hold the power switch until the tablet force shuts down.  This is reported in this forum as well as others, FYI.

  • Plastixx
    Plastixx Member Posts: 66 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    I've had my W4 for about a week now and haven't had a single issue with it. The very first thing I did when I got it was do a completely fresh install of 8.1 (not acers) with all updates. I also deleted the recovery partition because recovery is for noobs... haha. Actually I just wanted that 5.6GB it was taking up.

     

    Ran the Acer driver package after install (requires a very small workaround) and it updated the BIOS to v1.13 and also updated the EC (embedded controller) firmware, though I wasn't paying attention to the revision number. Updated the video driver to the latest Intel HD 4000 driver and everything is running smooth as silk.

     

    I'm really liking this thing; very powerful for it's size and way better than that piece of junk W3 that I made the mistake of buying before this.