acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

[perette]

hello

I have an old Acer aspire 1800 running XP sp3
1,250 Go Ram.
P IV 2.9ghz
all drivers are up to date.
the video card is a Mobility X600 radeon from ATI

I experience some brutal shutdown when running some video editing programs and some games.
The strangest issue is that running a game using OpenGl at the highest resolution does not crash, but using D3D (same resolution etc) crasshes the system immediatly. (just moving the mouse)
The crash is like cutting the main power (no BSOD, no warning)
I have to restart the system that does not seems to suffer from that (no scandisk)
The problem is that of course, in some case it's unpredictable...
I've cleaned it in deep, checked all fan and put new thermal grease on chipset, video and CPU.
I suspect something related to the video driver or its relationship with DirectX

I've ran mestest and OCCT whithout ending to any clues.

Questions :
- does the config 1 Go ram + 256 Mo can create such issue?
- any idea of a test I can do to decide of a hardware related case (and where it's located)
- any other good idea.

[fddizon]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

try using hardware test... i remember someone posted here a utility to make some test which part is faulty.

[ala_borbe]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

it seems like driver issue, try new driver

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...3&lang=English

it also could be specific card, maybe old driver from acer site works better than new driver from AMD/ATI website (on rare occasions helped punting old driver)

[spleenharvester]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

it seems like driver issue, try new driver

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...3&lang=English

it also could be specific card, maybe old driver from acer site works better than new driver from AMD/ATI website (on rare occasions helped punting old driver)

The laptop's hard-powering off though. I don't think it could be that.

[ala_borbe]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

if its hardware problem the only thing you can do now is to try to reflow VGA... but if its hardware it would power off in OpenGL to...

[perette]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

HI everybody.

Thanks for your comments.
the more it goes, the more I feel something related to heat when using D3D.

I've ran DxDiag and obtained the same effect when doing the full screen bouncing white box.

what still puzzles me is that this completely switch off the PC. Like a shortcut burning a fuse (and windows do no see anything, restart like a charm)

Reflow could have been and option, but I've seen that only reballing can work on this chip (x600 mobility).

i'll got a second 1Go ram to have a full dual channel and then exclude memory related issues.

I have to make more testing, OpenGl maybe do not require some hardware functions in the GPU (maybe)
It's not really conclusive yet.

Thanks for your help.

[thesloc]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

HI everybody.

Thanks for your comments.
the more it goes, the more I feel something related to heat when using D3D.

I've ran DxDiag and obtained the same effect when doing the full screen bouncing white box.

what still puzzles me is that this completely switch off the PC. Like a shortcut burning a fuse (and windows do no see anything, restart like a charm)

Reflow could have been and option, but I've seen that only reballing can work on this chip (x600 mobility).

i'll got a second 1Go ram to have a full dual channel and then exclude memory related issues.

I have to make more testing, OpenGl maybe do not require some hardware functions in the GPU (maybe)
It's not really conclusive yet.

Thanks for your help.

Yeah it's definitely a video chip issue, especially if it shuts down abruptly.

Needs a reflow, reball, or new motherboard.

[tmiha71]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

MBO should be (also) checked, if there is any SUPERVISOR chip, or supervisor circuit, and if some voltage or current goes beyond limt - turns off whole computer... If there's any, I would suspect, that CPU core voltage goes out of specs, or VGA core voltage, and computer IS ABRUPTLY shutdown...
If computer ever worked as advertised, common reason for this is CAPACITORS OUT OF SPECS (not by mfg specs, but out of specs for this circuit)...

Also what could be very indicative, short bursts of power leads to that (light 3D usage), while full power 3D is executed as usual...

Probably very intensive (and time consuming) work is in sight...

[perette]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

hi everybody

Thanks for all comments and advices.

I'll investigate further all your suggest and see if anything can be seen as
- responsible
- can be solved (without taking a year on that and spending a incredible budget)

The system can be used as long as I don't touch some softwares (like games).

I'll post the outcome.

[perette]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

Hello

I resurect this old thread to ask for a last advice

during the past year, the laptop has behaved a bit randomly regarding the shut down problem, but not to the point of being a problem.

now, XP is out of security and I've decided to go to Linux. no need to say that this old acer cannot accept seven.

Then I take a Linux Mint 16 and tried to boot from DVD to install on HD.
No chance. The laptop shutdown during the boot. and this is extremly reproducible, whatever recent Linux flavor I've tested.

I've dismantled the all beast, cleaned, restore thermal safety, and no chance again. But it can still boot in XP.

Questions to experts are
- linux do not boot : due to bad support of the mobility X600 ? any idea to bypass this issue? no chance in this way (I mean linux on this machine, whatever I try)
- could a little hot gun on the X600 and the chipset can help (in case of a dead solder )
- any chance an expert in electronics (I'm not) can tell me if this can be solved on the board (this just in case a simple solution might exist)

many thanks for advices you can give. a replacement board costs 90$, I'not really enthousiastic to put this machine to waste.

JM

[perette]

Re: acer aspire 1800 brutal stop

Hi everybody

Some adding to my previous post

When the machine is left for some says/weeks nit running, it shuts down during boot (windows and the blue moving bar), then I have to reboot it twice to get into the system.

I ve taken a lot of time go ogling in the problem and one mentioned that a faulty battery could do the same. This could explain why leaving the system for long time makes it hard to restart.

Any opinion on that?

Thanks

Jm