Windows 8.1 Sleep Mode and Crash Problem. Please Help.

Ryman101

Estimable
Aug 23, 2014
5
0
4,510
Let me start by saying that I've been troubleshooting this problem for a long time and it is really irritating. I've been a long time user of this site and created my account just to ask you guys for help.

Okay, here goes. I have an Acer V3 551 8469 laptop with an AMD A8 4500m APU and 8gb of aftermarket Kingston memory, tested to work fine on this machine and others.

When I put my machine into sleep mode as I do regularly, at random occasions it will not wake up. I am met with a black screen, the power light comes on and the fan spins, the battery charge light comes on if the machine is plugged in, but other than that nothing. No keyboard response, no screen backlight, no hard drive activity, nothing. I am forced to hard reset the machine.

After booting, one of two things will happen. Either it will freeze at the Acer splash screen with no hard disk activity and I will have to reboot it again, or it will boot into Windows but with no network adapters detected at all. This includes wifi, Bluetooth, lan, nothing. I can't use the machine like this obviously, and the only thing I've been able to do to get them to be detected again is to shut the machine off, remove the battery and unplug it, hold down the power button for 30 seconds, plug it back in and replace the battery, and boot it again. After doing this, the laptop will again freeze at the splash screen and require a hard reset, but it will boot with the adapters present.

The issue is not related to my power management options as far as I can tell. I have tried about five different drivers for my wireless network adapter, I've tried different Bluetooth drivers, I've tried different lan drivers, I've got everything up to date driver-wise from the Acer website for my laptop model, and my graphics driver is up to date from the AMD website, I've even tried the beta driver. I've run memtest86 to ensure stability, run prime95 torture test to detect any infallibility in CPU or memory and everything has come back clean. I've even updated the BIOS as well as flashed older versions. The machine runs totally fine while it's booted, but if I shut the lid there is a chance chaos ensues.

I also have looked through the event log to try and get some leads on what's going on and I have repeated instances of AODDriver4.3 service failing to start because the system cannot find the specified file and kernel-power 41 (63) errors from the hard reboots with the SleepInProgress parameter reading either 6 or 4.

I'm at my wits end with this issue. I cannot send the machine back, it's out of warranty and I'm not willing to pay for them to fix it. If I have to, I'll buy a new laptop, but I really want this fixed. If it can't be fixed, I at least want it diagnosed so I don't lose my mind. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, can point me towards any threads I may not have seen, any drivers to try, or anything else at all that may be of use, I would be extremely grateful.

Thank you for your time.
 
Solution
Looks like you've done a very thorough job with the diagnostics.

-With power management, did you try any adjustments in the advanced settings?
-Have you run any tests on your hard drive?
-Have you tried doing a clean install of Windows?

volcanoscout

Honorable
Jan 5, 2014
169
0
10,710
Looks like you've done a very thorough job with the diagnostics.

-With power management, did you try any adjustments in the advanced settings?
-Have you run any tests on your hard drive?
-Have you tried doing a clean install of Windows?
 
Solution

Ryman101

Estimable
Aug 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


Yes, I tried changing the wireless adapter settings, USB selective suspend, and PCI Express settings to no avail.

I ran the chkdsk function and it came back clean.

I have not done a clean install, but that is my next step if I can't get anything else to fix the issue. It will help me decide if it is a software or hardware issue and probably make me scratch my head even more if it doesn't fix it!

 

volcanoscout

Honorable
Jan 5, 2014
169
0
10,710
In the advanced power settings, under Processor Power Management, try changing the minimum processor state to 100%. For the HDD, try running the Seagate Sea Tools test and see if it gives it a clean bill of health:


http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/
 

Ryman101

Estimable
Aug 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


The issue still appears while the laptop is in high performance mode, where the minimum processor state is 100% by default, and all tests run under that software come through as a pass.
 

dalchina

Estimable
Aug 21, 2014
13
0
4,570
CMOS battery comes to mind as a random thought..
shown as Step 13 here:
http://www.insidemylaptop.com/how-to-disassemble-acer-aspire-v3-551-8469/
But how relevant that may be for your machine I don't know.

Turning to power- what happens if you run on battery only, rather than your power adapter?
 

dalchina

Estimable
Aug 21, 2014
13
0
4,570
Searching "will not wake from sleep" gives as you've probably discovered a lot of people trying to address this problem. Sometimes it seems graphics card related.. lots of uncertainty. Maybe you'll find some fresh ideas there..

Just a thought- are you using Acer drivers or any generic drivers?
 

Ryman101

Estimable
Aug 23, 2014
5
0
4,510


That is relevant to my machine, thank you very much. I think you may be on to something because I have noticed the problem only really occurs if it's left in sleep mode for a longer amount of time, like 30 or more minutes.

I wish there was an easier way to test that battery than open everything up and mess with it though because it's a pain. I decided to reinstall Windows on it, if that doesn't fix the problem I'll definitely be opening it up to try this.

I'll report back tomorrow when I've had more time to mess with it, thank you all for all of your help and advice!
 

Ryman101

Estimable
Aug 23, 2014
5
0
4,510
Just an update, it's taken me quite a bit of time to get back to this thread and I do apologize. I ended up reinstalling Windows from a stock disc on the machine and installing every single driver one by one from the Acer website, and with no other software installed, I was unable to get the problem to return at all. It must have been a bug on the part of some installed application or messed up driver configuration, and I still have no idea what caused it. Thank all of you for your thoughts and suggestions!
 

Ucster

Estimable
Nov 10, 2014
1
0
4,510


My clean install of 8.1 does the same thing. For some reason putting the display to sleep crashes the machine. Setting the "Monitor sleep" setting to "Never" took care of the problem.