Solved! Laptop hangs on different stages

[FrankvdN]

Since almost 1 week, my Acer aspire 7535 hangs, each time in a different stage.

After the power button, leds light up but screen stays blank
Or
I can enter BIOS but the keyboard hangs during navigating
Or
I get options to start startup repair or safe mode, and it hangs while selecting the option
Or
I see windows but USB ports don't work and attempts to fix that fail. One time followed by a BSOD.

Also during the startup repair I had one time BSOD.

One time during all these days, I was able to even get a game running, with Bluetooth headphones and mouse working without a problem (headphones turned off somewhere during the game)

I have tried:
Disassembling, cleaning a bit with cloth (I didn't see too much dust anyway)
Replacing CMOS battery
sfx /scannow and chkdsk
Power cycling without battery, connection and even without RAM.
Cleaning up hd space (only 6gb free -> 25 gb free)

If I have left the laptop powerless for 5 minutes, I see it passes a few more stages but still...

Last resort is BIOS refresh which I plan to do today. Someone else advised a factory reset (if I even can get to windows and manage to copy important files).

This laptop is dear to me. I use it for games which I don't do at my business laptop. I really want to avoid having to buy a new one for just games. I have had this in the past on a different level but always managed to have it running pretty smoothly after. Just don't remember how...

 

[AlHuneke]

I would not try to reinstall the BIOS at this time. If your machine crashes in the process, you likely are left with a brick. Wiping internals with a cloth is a very bad thing to do. Read about ESD damage to understand why. Actually, any messing around internally without proper precautions is risky.

I don't think the windows software has anything to do with your problem if you are having problems while in the BIOS. At that point, no software has been loaded from the hard drive yet.

Does the problem seem to change after the laptop has been on (warmed up) for a few minutes?

 

[FrankvdN]

Thank you for your warnings! I do have limited experience and took some precautions, but of course it's always better to be on the safe side.

Thinking of it, heat maybe the issue really. I do feel the area around the power supply is hot. And it matches with my observation that it works better after waiting a bit (which first made me guess to an energy issue). It could also explain why things sometimes turn off at later stages. What would be the way to check if that's the issue or even fix that? And what's the reason that this suddenly is so bad?

I work at a company where we handle hardware so having someone with more equipment and experience might be an easy and cheap option.

 

[AlHuneke]

Figuring out if it is a thermal issue is pretty easy. Determining what is the cause is not! It's a matter of trying things after the PC has been off for an hour or so and then seeing how it works. Try again with the machine warmed up. About the only thing you can try is switching out RAM. If you have two RAM cards, try it with one and then the other. If you have one card, buy a cheap 4G replacement and try that. Otherwise, you are likely looking at a new motherboard. You might find a repair tech that would spend the time to fix it, but probably not.