Adam Hochfelder is disturbed with the Acer Aspire V3-571G

[adamhochfelder]

Hi everyone!
I bought my Acer Aspire V3-571G Laptop back in 2012 for 550$ and I have been generally satisfied with it for 2-3 years. Here are the specifications:

• 
  ■ 15.6 inch LCD Display with LED Backlight
  ■ Intel Core i3 2350M processor
  ■ NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M graphics
  ■ 4 GB DDR3 RAM
  ■ 500 GB SATA HDD @5400RPM
  ■ Windows 7 Home Basic 64 bit OS

Late last year I have bought another Acer laptop, giving this one to my wife. She wanted to upgrade the "stock ram" from 4GB to 8, so I went into action.
First, I read on many places on the Internet that this laptop can handle the 8GB of RAM and being sure of it - I ordered two 4GB DDR3 RAM modules from eBay. I installed them, and this is where things went south... It started crashing at random times, giving me blue screens usually within 30 minutes of work.
I have tried doing some things, among which:

■ I have tried bringing back the original 4GB or RAM, but the same problem occurs.
■ I have formatted the HDD completely, installing it a new copy of Windows 7, but the problem remains.

Has anybody had a similar problem? Is there some kind of solution to my problem?

Regards
Adam Hochfelder

 

[Reynod]

Can you move from a description of the device to a question so we can assist?

 

[adamhochfelder]

Can you move from a description of the device to a question so we can assist?

The problem is - no matter how many times I formatted my laptop, and no matter which RAM configuration I apply to it, it gives me a blue screen in the 30minute mark.
My question is how can I solve or bypass this problem? (I thought that I should be more thorough with my description, and I thought my question was clear, sorry)

Regards

 

[Reynod]

Actually it seems like you might have a thermal problem ... over heating.

Lets check that first.

Install CPUID or some other hardware program that monitors your CPU temps ... and take a look at the temps on idle and under load.

 

[adamhochfelder]

Actually it seems like you might have a thermal problem ... over heating.

Lets check that first.

Install CPUID or some other hardware program that monitors your CPU temps ... and take a look at the temps on idle and under load.

At one point in the past I have opened up my laptop and cleaned the fan from dust. Now I read (I recently Googled that there is a medium between the heat pipe and the processor) that I must apply fresh new thermal paste there.
I will do this over the weekend, cause I will be doing a little shopping in the next few days, looking for this stuff.
I'll also install CPUID, to monitor the temperatures, but I know that It doesn't really get hot. I will further investigate this in the weekend.

Thank you for your suggestion. Regards
Adam

 

[jarotech]

Hi, you can update your BIOS with the latest version, sometimes the 30 minutes problem is coming from the BIOS.

 

[ffg7]

could be a compatibility issue that jarotech's bios suggestion might work, if did not have to disassemble the whole laptop to install the new ram but the bsod started right away then is not a heat problem. try 1 of the old sticks 1 at a time to see if you get the blue screen or not. what was the ebay seller's rating number at?

 

[adamhochfelder]

Actually it seems like you might have a thermal problem ... over heating.

Lets check that first.

Install CPUID or some other hardware program that monitors your CPU temps ... and take a look at the temps on idle and under load.

As mentioned, I've recently went out shopping, and bought the a thermal grease from Cooler Master, the IC Essential E2 (see pic).

I've opened the laptop yet again, cleaned it once again (there was dust in minimum quantity here and there), and I've opened up the heat pipe system only to find the old thermal paste/grease hardened on the chips (both CPU and GPU). The original is a white/silver colored, the new one is golden, but the guys from the shop assured me that the color had almost no significant role in this, only the specifications of the thermal and electric conductivity mattered. So, I applied it gently, added a dense layer over the squared space of the CPU and GPU cores, and finished with it...

Now, for the monitoring. CPUID shows that the laptop is now somewhat cooler, maybe for a full 5-10 degrees Celsius. The difference is the biggest under load!
I believe that this is a lot, tried it on gaming and it doesn't go that hot...

But, but, but, the problem remains. I believe that this hasn't solved my main problem, but a "side problem" - which is performance.

Hi, you can update your BIOS with the latest version, sometimes the 30 minutes problem is coming from the BIOS.

While I have read your reply on Friday, I didn't answer it only to confirm the theory with the CPUID. I have been doing a little research on the internet and I can say that this can be a solution for my case. There have been some instances of motherboards not working properly afterwards (even some DELL laptops not turning on at all), so I will leave this as a plan "Z" scenario. I am not that experienced, but I read the whole procedure in detail (I have found the newer firmware from the official Acer support website / my laptop version is definitely outdated here, have a spare USB for such occasions), so I will leave this as a "last resort plan".

Thanks for the idea. It opened new horizons for me!

could be a compatibility issue that jarotech's bios suggestion might work, if did not have to disassemble the whole laptop to install the new ram but the bsod started right away then is not a heat problem. try 1 of the old sticks 1 at a time to see if you get the blue screen or not. what was the ebay seller's rating number at?

I agree with that.
Tried the trick with the older sticks, I should have mentioned that in the first post (I'm sorry).
The ebay seller rating was high, 98% with over 100.000 voters. I'm talking about a dude from China or something, selling me cheap 20-30$ ddr3 RAM for laptop. I do not blame the guy, because I believe that it is specifically a problem with my unit.

Will think about it and will decide if I should do it, cause as I said - I'm making this a "if everything else fails plan".

Regards
Hochfelder

 

[Reynod]

Good to see your taking a methodical approach and have a lot of patience Adam.

Hopefully we can help you get there.

 

[adamhochfelder]

Good to see your taking a methodical approach and have a lot of patience Adam.

Hopefully we can help you get there.

I have learned in my life that a man must have patience for things like this/that (I mean tech-related problems). In my experience, if something is solved easily - it is probably not solved good enough, maybe even solved in a wrong way, or the solution is simply not solving anything. Murphy's laws are my primary concern here

Anyhow, I have a ton of work to do at my job, so I will return to this problem of mine during the weekend. Thanks guys for being so supportive!

 

[adamhochfelder]

It seems that the BIOS update has solved my problem. I haven't been free the previous weekends, so I got to the bottom of this last night. Updated the bios (watched a couple of videos on how to do it properly, where to download it from... the support page offered several updated versions of the BIOS, I only picked the one with a higher number than my laptop) and now the problem seems to be gone.

So far, it accepts both RAM configurations, staying stable as I go all the way up to 8GB. The thing is, I believe that my laptop is somewhat slower, maybe this has something to do with the RAM frequency, but I will not bother as long as it works till the end of the days.

Thanks guys for your support and especially to @jarotech for bringing up this idea.

Regards
Adam Hochfelder