Acer V3-571G with a 1.5 year BSOD problem

There's no available beta driver, and I doubt past version might have a different effect since I've been almost up to date with drivers for the last 1.5 years so to try a new driver on this laptop would mean to download a 1.5+ years old one
 
I would recommend doing it (installing a prior version to the latest, or a few behind). You have nothing to lose. Certain video card driver versions can have bugs and/or may have experienced issues during installation, so a rollback to a prior version solves that and/or lets you know whether or not it's a driver issue or not.

Regards,

Patrick
 
Hello again, I come with an update and another question. To cut things short warranty actually expired, but I still want to get it fixed. On the 26th I left my laptop at the ACER service and they told me they'll do a diagnose first of the whole PC. Today they contacted me back, and they said nothing of the graphic card, but instead they reported problems with the HDD and a memory stick.
My question is, on these forums you guys helped me figure out it was a graphic card problem, but what were the chances for it to be wrong and for the source of the problem to actually be the HDD ?
 
Faulty RAM can also cause Direct X and other video related crashes, so yes it sounds very likely. The HDD also may be faulty as well, especially if it's showing errors in diagnostics.

Regards,

Patrick
 
ZaDruglord said:
Hello again, I come with an update and another question. To cut things short warranty actually expired, but I still want to get it fixed. On the 26th I left my laptop at the ACER service and they told me they'll do a diagnose first of the whole PC. Today they contacted me back, and they said nothing of the graphic card, but instead they reported problems with the HDD and a memory stick.
My question is, on these forums you guys helped me figure out it was a graphic card problem, but what were the chances for it to be wrong and for the source of the problem to actually be the HDD ?
Click to expand...

I don't know how they arrived at that conclusion, but it is certainly possible.

Your own tests:
ZaDruglord said:
. . .
...Regarding the HDD test, I did a benchmark and error scan and everything seemed fine. I did other memory tests before and they turned up fine.....
Click to expand...
NVIDIA video drivers were named in some dumps; DirectX was named in others. The video card was a likely cause of the BSODs.

A BSOD kernel memory dump is not capable of naming a specific piece of failing hardware. It can point us in a direction such as HDD, video, RAM, etc... Windbg's primary purpose is software debugging.

I would suggest holding final judgment until you get your system back and see for yourself.

I received a system back after warranty repair (not ACER) and it continued to blue-screen. It turned out to be a wifi driver, yet they replaced hardware.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2
 
I'm currently typing on my only-diagnosed not-yet-repaired-laptop which is out of warranty, and I'm really confused on the problem of the laptop because I don't want to be spending money on a new HDD when actually the video card is the problem or vice versa. You guys helped me pinpoint the graphics card pretty accurately, and I trust your diagnostics, but that dude took apart my laptop and did some mumbo jumbo diagnostics and said the HDD and memory are faulty, so I really have no idea what to do.
 
Well, again, we didn't pinpoint the video card. We listed it as the possible culprit, but now that memory and HDD diagnostics have popped up faulty according to Acer, that's very possible. As I said, faulty memory can cause a slew of issues, especially Direct X related considering RAM and the GPU work hand in hand more than any other piece of hardware, really. Considering the laptop is out of warranty, you can just ask for it back and run the tests yourself and see if you can reproduce it. This way, you won't end up paying Acer $$$ to do things like installing new RAM and a HDD, which you can do yourself for a lot cheaper.

Of course if you don't know how, it'd be better of getting them to do it.

Regards,

Patrick
 
Hello,

I am chiming in to try and help you figure out what is wrong with your laptop.

From previous posts I am going to assume you already know how to remove and install DIMMs (Memory sticks) in your laptop.

I would like you to download Memtest 86+ from the following URL and follow the sites directions for creating Bootable media.

Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Next, I would like you to remove one DIMM from the laptop and place it in a safe location, preferably in a static protective bag or container. Check to make sure the remaining DIMM is fully seated in it's socket.

Boot the laptop to the bootable media you created containing the Memtest 86+ software. The program should run immediately and start running tests to detect memory issues.

Let the program run for a minimum of one hour (two preferable). This will allow it time to make multiple passes with the diagnostics program which may be necessary to detect a faulty DIMM.

If memory address errors are present they will show up in red on the bottom half of the screen.

Once done, remove the installed DIMM and replace it with the second DIMM and re run the Memtest 86+ diagnostic.

Please post back with the results.
 
I've done the Memtest before, and no error occurred. Unfortunately I can't do it exactly today because I lost the laptop screwdriver some time ago, bummer.
Anyways, guys, thanks a lot, you helped me immensely, I didn't expect to be patient and kind. But I'm tired, after a year and a half of trying to diagnose and fix it and getting stressed and mad I'm just tired and I'll just replace the HDD and see if it fixes it, if not i'll replace the graphics card too.
But, on another note, I won't be doing that until at least next month, and since I've gotten it out of the service to get diagnosed, I've been getting BSODs more frequently and a poorer performance. I'm guessing he used some programs to diagnose and he forgot to turn them off, pretty much what happend when I forgot driver verifier on. Is there a way I can check for programs running in the background? If not, could anyone make a quick list with possible programs and how to deactivate them? Thanks!
 
Hello again. I am truly sorry that this has been a burden on you for so long.

I would hate to see you spend money unnecessarily. I have found in the past that it is an expensive proposition when performing diagnostics by component replacement.

I would definitely suggest running the Memtest as I outlined above if you happen to find the necessary tools to do so. In the meantime, could I suggest running Memtest86+ for 24 to 48 hours continuously? Intermittent memory issues can often be missed by Memory diagnostics in the first pass. Many times the issue may not be apparent immediately. The main reason I suggested you run memtest on the individual DIMMs is to isolate the DIMM that may be failing. And often I have found that while running Memtest on multiple installed DIMMs the memory issue wasn't apparent, then when run individually it was.

As for replacing the video card... I am relatively certain that your model has integrated video (even if it is discrete, the GPU is permanently soldered to the laptop's motherboard) making replacing it impossible without replacing the entire motherboard.

As for the HDD... If you already know the manufacturer of your HDD, you can download brand specific diagnostics for that particular drive. If you don't know the manufacturer of your HDD, it is relatively easy to figure out by going into device manager and locating it under "Disk Drives", and running the model number through a Google search.

I would like to suggest you run a manufacturers diagnostic scan (full disk)...
 
Thank you GZ, and you're right. I'll do diagnostics again. In the meantime though, any way you can help me with my last post? I'll do the tests and come back with results, but it's really annoying seeing how my 1 BSOD/1-2days became a 8BSODS/day, especially when games that normally didn't bsod now constantly do it after 10-30 mins. Also, my HDD is Toshiba, I'll test that too.

HDD Update: Erm. I downloaded the Windows Diagnostics Tool from Toshiba's website, I ran it with admin rights and I can't do the test because I can't select my HDD. It appears on the list but I can't select it and if I try to run the test it prompts me to select a driver.
 
Most of the diagnostic software the tech used was probably bootable and didn't affect the Windows installation at all. You could always perform a Windows Restore to a point just before you sent it in for Diagnostics, but with the possibility of hardware failure, I would NOT recommend that.

You can check your Programs and Features in Control panel. There is a column "Installed on" that is sortable and you can see what programs were installed or modified on what dates.

As for help with your current set of BSODs... You should run the BSOD app again and upload the current information for the analysts to look at.
 

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