[exXo]

Had my Acer Aspire 5510 laptop for 2 years now, Had to send it back once to stop the CPU fan buzzing, but sadly its bust again.

When I turn it on the audio lags (windows logon sound). The mouse hangs all the time and trying to do two demanding tasks at once always causes lag.

I have done the following so far:

Defrag... Twice.
Boot scan with avast!
Normal scan with ESET Nod32
Scan with Zonealarm
Reformatted with Acer "recovery disk" (it's a norton ghost image really)
Scanned again
Defrag again.

Still it has awful lag so it has to be a hardware problem..

My CPU is at 65oC average and everything is running at an OK temperature, anyway I doubt it is overheating as it lags as soon as you turn it on. The finger of blame points to my HDD at the moment, possibly failing.
Very strange and cant work out why it is doing it at all.

Any ideas?

Full spec : http://www.dealtime....ulti-15-4-TFT-A

Many regards
exXo

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Welcome to G2G exXo

I think you must be right about this being a hardware issue as you have performed what is effectively a fresh installation (i.e recovery disk) & it's made no difference.

First of all - does it make any difference if the laptop is connected to the mains? I suggest you try it battery alone, then with battery & mains power connected & then with the battery removed & just mains power connected. See if any of these 3 combinations make any difference to the performance. (I would expect it to be a bit slower running from battery only so only interested if either of the other 2 combinations make it run 'normally')

As for your suggestion about the hard disk - you may well be correct. The symptoms you describe could well be caused by a failing disk. Can you find out what the hard drive manufacturer is? Try these methods to find this info :

1) Go to Start -> Run and type devmgmt.msc & click OK. In drive manager, expand the disk drive branch & see if a manufacturers name or model number is given for the hard disk. (A model number alone with do).

2) If not, try going into the bios & see if the drive manufacturer or model is listed there

3) Download aida32 (see link below) & look for the info in there under Computer->Summary branch

4) If none of these methods work, you can of course physically remove the hard disk & look at the label. I would only recommend this as a last resort though.....


While I think of it, is there any chance anything has been changed in the bios that could be causing the problems? Have you updated the bios at all since you've had it?

[Samm]

Welcome to G2G exXo

I think you must be right about this being a hardware issue as you have performed what is effectively a fresh installation (i.e recovery disk) & it's made no difference.

First of all - does it make any difference if the laptop is connected to the mains? I suggest you try it battery alone, then with battery & mains power connected & then with the battery removed & just mains power connected. See if any of these 3 combinations make any difference to the performance. (I would expect it to be a bit slower running from battery only so only interested if either of the other 2 combinations make it run 'normally')

As for your suggestion about the hard disk - you may well be correct. The symptoms you describe could well be caused by a failing disk. Can you find out what the hard drive manufacturer is? Try these methods to find this info :

1) Go to Start -> Run and type devmgmt.msc & click OK. In drive manager, expand the disk drive branch & see if a manufacturers name or model number is given for the hard disk. (A model number alone with do).

2) If not, try going into the bios & see if the drive manufacturer or model is listed there

3) Download aida32 (see link below) & look for the info in there under Computer->Summary branch

4) If none of these methods work, you can of course physically remove the hard disk & look at the label. I would only recommend this as a last resort though.....


While I think of it, is there any chance anything has been changed in the bios that could be causing the problems? Have you updated the bios at all since you've had it?

[exXo]

Now you mention it... I did run a bios update from acer's website and if I recall properly... soon after the problems started again, I didnt format after that, I had a error on load saying PCI.SYS was missing but I replaced it manually using the PCI.SYS from my desktop computer and Ubuntu to gain access to my windows installation.

Maybe thats what causing the problems? However it was doing it before I did that, thats why I re-formatted in the first place and to my knowlage I hadnt screwed up the bios then Like I Said the history goes like this:

Begin lagging
Virus scans
Defrag
Re-format
Ran Bios update (that failed)
PCI.SYS error
Replaced PCI.SYS
Laggy again.

Maybe the lag before was another problem that was fixed in the fresh install and this new lag is due to a totally different thing. Cant get my HDD make yet, laptop is having its CPU fan fixed... I guess thats what you get when you leave one on 24/7, melting components... Nice

And the CPU overheating wasnt the problem, the repair place cant work out the system lag either, with a new fan.

Regards.
exXo

[The Skeptic]

Just a note, please forgive me Samm. If AVERAGE temperature on the CPU is 65C then that's very high. It means that under load it even exceeds this temperature. This can easilly damage the cpu and other parts. Some BIOSs react to high temperatures by "slowing" the computer to avoid damage. I don't say that this is necessarilly the cause of the present lag but it should be taken care of.

[Samm]

Just a note, please forgive me Samm. If AVERAGE temperature on the CPU is 65C then that's very high. It means that under load it even exceeds this temperature. This can easilly damage the cpu and other parts. Some BIOSs react to high temperatures by "slowing" the computer to avoid damage. I don't say that this is necessarilly the cause of the present lag but it should be taken care of.

No forgiving required! I agree that this rather hot although according to Intel, the maximum 'safe' operating temperature for the Pentium M is 100C. I'm also assuming that the average temperature will decrease a bit after the cpu fan has been fixed. exXo, maybe you could confirm this for me?

Also, from what exXo has said, the problem of the lagging starts immediately even before the system has had a chance to reach this temperature, which suggests that temps are not the cause of this particular problem. I do agree in theory though that high temps are likely to cause problems & should be monitored.


In regards to the pci.sys problem you had - this can often be caused by faulty ram but dodgy ram doesn't normally cause these types of lags. Encountering missing or corrupt system files at boot up is also consistent with a hard disk problem however, which, potentially, would also account for the lagging.
When you get the laptop back, try to find out what the drive manufacturer is, and I'll point you in the direction of a suitable hard disk diagnostic. Also, as already stated, when you get the laptop back, do keep an eye on the temperatures as I'm not ruling that out completely at the moment.

One more thing - do you have any USB devices connected? If so, try removing them then turn the laptop on & see if it makes any difference. (This is a long shot but worth trying). Same applies to any other hardware that you have added after purchasing the laptop (e.g pcmcia cards, any other peripheral devices etc)

Edited by Samm, 11 September 2007 - 06:23 PM.

[exXo]

Thanks for all your help so far, I should get it back by wednesday or thursday latest, it isnt the temp because the technician called and said even with the new heat ventilation installed its lagging. He pointed in the same way as samm by saying it may be the bios that has been screwed around with. I read somewhere that if the HDD has not got DMA enabled it can cause lag.

I'll give all the suggestions a try when I get it back... before it went away for fixing I did try a few things that didnt work including removing devices etc.

<rant>
The repair place is charging £160 for parts + labour this includes a new fan, heatsink and Disk Drive (that was jamming) oh and fixing a line of dead pixels on the monitor... Well it was £200 before I let him know I knew what I was talking about... It's amazing if you ask me how 2 months after the warranty expires eveything breaks, it isnt like I treat it bad, all it ever does is sit on a desk buzzing away, IMHO acer did a bad job last time they "fixed" the CPU fan
</rant>

Hardware just isnt my thing.

Regards,
exXo

[Samm]

Hi exXo

What do you mean when you say a replacement disk drive? Are you referring to a CD/DVD drive here, floppy drive or hard disk?

Re. Enabling DMA on the hard drive - DMA does increase performance but even without DMA enabled, you shouldn't be experiencing the type of lags your on about.