Acer Swift 3 display and sound problems

Hello everybody.

I own Acer Ultrabook Swift 3 (Swift SF315-41) bought in April last year. These are the complete specs:

15,6'' FHD IPS screen
processor AMD Ryzen 5 2500U up to 3.6 GHz
8 GB DDR 4 RAM
1TB HDD + 128GB SSD
AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphic
Windows 2010 pre-installed.

So far, this proved to be my worst buying decision of all times.
Since I bought it, the sound is occasionally crackling when playing either music from MediaMonkey, or videos through Media Player Classic.
I first thought it was just the driver issue, and therefore didn't return it immediately. However after Windows updates, and manually updating all the drivers, the problem continued.
To make things worse, this wasn't the only problem. The screen occasionally displays pictures as though they are RTG pictures, I don't know how to describe it exactly, so here's the picture:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/2r/kpfg5cqtoq0o.jpg

You can see that the part where the sun is coming through the clouds is too light, and the same picture looks normal on my PC.
Also, occasionally the black dotted line started to appear inside my browser (Chrome) at random times.

I took the laptop to the authorized service in September. After a month, they said that they replaced the motherboard and that ''test was ok''.
When I got home, all the problems were the same, only now the black dotted line started to appear more often in the browser.

I was very frustrated because the vendor refused to refund me or give me another laptop since this one is obviously faulty and the authorized service is not capable of solving the problem.
Then, I decided to give it another go. I went through the same procedure and after a month the authorized service said that they replaced the speakers and the LCD and that ''test was ok''.

Happy, albeit skeptical, I took the laptop home, only to find that the problems are still exactly the same!
Except, there was no more black dotted line appearing in the browser (at least for now...).

I obviously won't ever again buy an Acer product. I contacted their support for my country directly, and they didn't even bother answering to my polite inquiry.

So, what should I do now? The authorized service is obviously incompetent/unable to solve the problem, and the seller refuses to refund/replace the item.
I guess the only thing for me to do is try to solve it myself, so decided to give it a go here for ideas.
My guess is that it could be a software issue, as 3 different parts of hardware were replaced (if we trust the ridicules from authorized service) with no results.

Accepted answers

tommy_crochetti

Ok, so as I think now I have solved the problem, hopefully, it will help others with the same problem.

I have updated the BIOS to 2.12. But the problem with sound appeared again after 10 minutes.
Then I installed the latest Realtek drivers, and the newest video drivers (I downloaded them from Softpedia).

So I guess it's not enough to just update BIOS, or just update drivers, it is important to do both!

Finally, after around 5 hours of usage, there were no problems whatsoever, for the first time since I bought the laptop.
Hopefully, it stays like this.

All comments

JackE

tommy_crochetti>>>So, what should I do now?>>>

Back up your system. Then try an ALT+F10 cold boot factory reset as shown in the video below. This is the best way to rule in or rule out a hardware issue. After re-installing, make sure system protection is enabled in Control Panel's 'create a restore point' app so you can more easily restore the system if the causes are from a Win10 update or other software installation after the reset. Jack E/NJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzLJRAZldA

tommy_crochetti

Thanks for the suggestion.
I did the factory reset, again at first it was fine, then again some weird thick line started to appear in the browser.
Also, I didn't notice this earlier but the screen keeps freezing when going into power-save or when folded; i.e. if I fold him when turned on when I unfold him, the screen won't turn on. The keyboard lights switch on, but the screen is dead, and I have to turn it off completely using the button and reboot again. I am not sure that this problem is new or I just realized it now.

Considering the speakers, I connected the external speakers which work perfectly fine and when connected to the laptop they started to crackle, which rules out the hardware issue with speakers. But anyway, I'm not even super-happy about it as I don't know what to do with this revelation or how to solve this issue as I tried by reinstalling the drivers. Also, for the other problems with screen how can I test that it is a software issue?

Definitely the worst buying decision ever. First I spend a ton of money on this and already I invested so much time and effort to still have about 50 percent of an item for which I paid.

JackE

>>>I did the factory reset, again at first it was fine, then again some weird thick line started to appear in the browser. >>>>

Approximately how long after the re-set did the weird stuff start happening again? It may be pesky Winupdates. They can be blocked, at least temporarily, to determine if they're the cause. Jack E/NJ

ajm

Mate, I'm sorry to say, but this is all normal for this laptop. I have the same model and I'm having most of the same issues, even shutdown fails on mine, it locks up with the screen black (but power still on). Sometimes I have made it work with certain combinations of the GPU and audio drivers, but eventually Windows updates them and it stops working again. So frustrating.

JackE

If it's one or two particular updates causing the issue, you can use Microsoft's hide update tool to block the offending updates. Or you can google windows update blocker for broader update control. Jack E/NJ

Manny-Acer_Retired

Hello tommy_crochetti,

I'm sorry to hear this. Can you please send me a PM with the S/N of your unit so I can look into this for you?

Thanks,

Acer-Manny

tommy_crochetti

Ok, so as I think now I have solved the problem, hopefully, it will help others with the same problem.

I have updated the BIOS to 2.12. But the problem with sound appeared again after 10 minutes.
Then I installed the latest Realtek drivers, and the newest video drivers (I downloaded them from Softpedia).

So I guess it's not enough to just update BIOS, or just update drivers, it is important to do both!

Finally, after around 5 hours of usage, there were no problems whatsoever, for the first time since I bought the laptop.
Hopefully, it stays like this.