Acer Aspire L100 PC Desktop Logo

Question about Acer Aspire L100 PC Desktop

10 Answers

Unwanted System Shut Down

My Acer L100 keeps powering down at seemingly random intervals. No error messages appear, the hard drive slows down and the monitor fades to black in a matter of 2 seconds. Fans are clean and exhaust airway for the unit is fine. Is this a hardware problem or a software issue? Solutions? Thanks!

Posted by Nathaniel McLaughlin on

  • 3 more comments 
  • Nathaniel McLaughlin Aug 24, 2007

    Thanks for the suggestions. I've had some issues w/ wireless keyboard and mouse as well. Logitech's SetPoint software can get buggy often.

    Last week I shipped the unit back to Acer's repair depot in Texas. They found no issues (doh!) and shipped it back. Got it back yesterday. Previously I had the unit on my desk (secretary's desk) in a semi-enclosed area but w/ what I beleived to be ample airflow clearance for safe operation. After a few hours use the same abrubt powering-down issue appeared and I decided to move the unit to the foot of my desk where there was not even a slight possiblity of airflow being affected. So far no issues have appeared and I'm going to leave it running all day just to test against previous results. Sensitive little buggah.

    I sincerely beleive that this design is proned to overheating as it's a laptop masquerading as a full desktop system. Weak and imbedded (=unchangable) graphics card really limits the system's performance. Far from whisper quiet, this unit's fans can sound like my wife's hairdrier when the system is even lightly being taxed. I can't complain so much though because I picked it up for only $300.00 as an "Open Box" special at a large retailer.

  • Anonymous May 06, 2008

    My acer L100 would freeze and crash. As time went on the problem just keep getting worse. I did not change the ram from the factory 1G. Acer lost my trouble calls. Now the one year warrentee is expired and they refuse to do anything. After the warrenty expired, I took it back to Circuit City for diagnostics. They said there was nothing wrong. After three trips and being told there was nothing wrong, after it frooze, I did not power down and let it just let sit and roast. Within about 3 hours the power supply on the mother board failed. My credit card insurance program will now deal with Acer. The L-100 has a design flaw, stay away from it.

  • pmlco Sep 22, 2008

    I have the same problem. I believe it's due to the CPU overheating and shutting down the system, as the problem usually occurs at high load. I have reduced the performance to the minimum (power saving mode) as so far the problem has not recurred, although the machine runs slower.

    Regards;
    Ian.


  • Anonymous Jan 22, 2009

    old compaq Presario 6000 shuts down randomly immediately no messages. I've suspected power supply. Need help.

  • Anonymous Mar 23, 2014

    We first got error of invalid OS so reinstalled the OS (clean) no shutdown prior to this. Then I replaced the 300w power supply with a 750 watt one still have issues. I ran a diagnostic on system but no indications of hardware issues. CPU does sing a bit but other than that no reliable data available. System is a Gateway DX4320-19. I am wondering if there is an issue with memory or possible the CD-rom or even the hard drive. System is approximately 5 years old with no previous issues.

×

10 Answers

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

    Mayor:

    An expert whose answer got voted for 2 times.

  • Contributor
  • 2 Answers

I'm a Computer Tech I just opened aAcer Aspire L100 up with the same symtoms.Found two bad 1000uf 6.3 volt caps on the Motherboard. They were bloated. Replaced them and it is now working fine

Posted on Oct 02, 2008

Ad

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

    Hot-Shot:

    An expert who has answered 20 questions.

    Corporal:

    An expert that has over 10 points.

    Mayor:

    An expert whose answer got voted for 2 times.

  • Contributor
  • 49 Answers

Wow...i am surprised no one has discoverd this and i am an amatuer. the power management software seems to be the culprit. i have posted the solution i used on some of the other overheating acer L100 questions. even if the fans run at top speed, the bios can read the wrong temps and also control the processer voltages too high which no fan is gonna cool......lol......check em out, my finger is tired.....lol.

Posted on Sep 29, 2008

Ad

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

    Mayor:

    An expert whose answer got voted for 2 times.

  • Contributor
  • 1 Answer

Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} ok guys this is the problem i work for Acer and basically if you own an aspire L100 then you have to be prepared to modify your little bad boy because of acers poor design and a crappy little fan the anything inside the case feels like its on holiday in the tropics what you have to do is side mount 2 extra fans with separate 12v supplies and your system will never overheat or die on you if you have any questions on how to do this just email me :-) me

Posted on Jul 22, 2008

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

  • Contributor
  • 1 Answer

I just opened an Acer Aspire L100 given to me - for the same reasons & the capacitors on the motherboard are swollen. This is a result of overheating. Once the capacitors swell - they fail to function properly a/k/a sporatic shutdown.

Posted on May 29, 2008

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

  • Contributor
  • 1 Answer

If it caused by overheating, take the cooling unit over the AMD upu and re grease it and put the cooling unit it!

Posted on Oct 19, 2008

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

  • Contributor
  • 1 Answer

Had same problem, reformatted hard disk, installed vista 64 bit ultimate about 2 months aga and have not had this problem re-occur to date. I leave unit on 24 hours a day. This may work for others don't know but it worked for me.

Posted on Aug 08, 2008

Anonymous

  • Level 1:

    An expert who has achieved level 1.

  • Contributor
  • 1 Answer

I had the exact same problem.  Behaved like it was overheating but wasn't hot at all.  Called Acer and had a return authorization # in 10 mintues.  Shipped it to TX for $35 and got it back 3 weeks later.  They replaced the MB and it seems to work fine now.

Posted on Oct 27, 2007

Anonymous

I have the same random shutdown problem with my ACER L100 I think the best solution is to take it straight back from where I bought It from which is what im going to do!

Posted on Oct 02, 2007

Anonymous

Well, there is a small issue witht his as well, I also have one and the keyboard and mouse are wireless via USB, the machine cannot be worked with at all in safe mode due tot he fact that there are no USB drivers and you have no operation of either the keyboard and mouse. I have found that when the issue occurs, it even happens on line, I was looking at an online album on facebook quickly flipping through pictures and the fans start running almost nonstop untill the system shuts down. I can tell you that as an experienced hardware and software technician from Gateway, Dell, and Microsoft vista, that it seems to be a definate overheating issue. The case and the powersupply are insufficient to properly run and maintain a consistant temperature, thus causing an overheating issue to the point of shutdown. The OS has been reloaded with no change.

Posted on Aug 24, 2007

Anonymous

  • Level 2:

    An expert who has achieved level 2 by getting 100 points

    MVP:

    An expert that got 5 achievements.

    Scholar:

    An expert who has written 20 answers of more than 400 characters.

    Hot-Shot:

    An expert who has answered 20 questions.

  • Expert
  • 85 Answers

The only way to find out if the it's software or hardware is to switch it on and keep pressing either f5 or f8 until you get safe mode menu click on safe mode and run it for a while if it goes off you know it's definately hardware most likely processor overheating or something loose inside if it carries on running without any problems you know it's definately a software problem a reinstall of your operating system should solve the problem

Posted on Aug 10, 2007

Add Your Answer

×

Uploading: 0%

my-video-file.mp4

Complete. Click "Add" to insert your video. Add

×

Loading...
Loading...

Related Questions:

0helpful
1answer

When I go to start menu to shut down and press shut down it will just reboot and will ot shut down

Step 1:
Laptop computers can be wonderful devices, except when the need to troubleshoot arises. Acer laptops are no different. A quick way to fix many problems with an Acer laptop running Windows is to reset it to factory settings. Resetting your Acer laptop to factory settings can eliminate slow operation, registry problems, virus problems and spyware issues. What's more, a factory reset of your laptop may reduce the need for a full reinstallation of Windows.

Back up all necessary data to an external device such as a disk, flash drive or hard drive Make sure all programs are closed and shut down your Acer laptop. Detach any external hardware such as an external hard drive or printer. Press the Power button to boot your Acer laptop. Press "Alt-F10" on your keyboard when the Acer screen appears at the start of the boot-up process. Wait a moment while Windows loads the reset files. Select "Restore System from factory default" in the Acer eRecovery Management window. Click "Next" on the next screen to continue. Click "Next" on the following destination information window. This will pop up a notice telling you that resetting your Acer laptop will erase all data and restore the laptop to its original settings and configuration. Click "OK" in the notice window to proceed with resetting your Acer laptop. Wait while your Acer laptop is reset to factory settings.
0helpful
2answers

Aspire5551 hangs at starting windows

Shut down, unplug, remove battery, plug in ,reboot. Try a system restore/recovery, use this procedure: http://www.pctechbytes.com/acer/acer-aspire-system-recovery-partition/
0helpful
3answers

My Netbook is slow than usually,, how can faster it?? Acer Aspire One 532h-2Bb

#1 Make sure your laptop is free from virus, spyware and trojan. A virus or spyware can make your laptop run slow or even damage the whole system. Run a security scan to find out if there are infection files hidden in the system. The slow laptop would be fixed by eliminating the virus.
#2 Remove obsolete programs to release more hard drive space. Laptop slow problem sometimes would be caused by the less hard drive space. To optimize your slow laptop, you can try to delete those unneeded programs, files from the hard disk especially the system disk.
#3 Empty the Recycle Bin to retrieve more system resource. Your laptop slow symptom maybe arises due to the deleted files in the Recycle Bin. If you forget to empty the Recycle Bin, those files in fact still exist on the hard drive and keep eating up your laptop system resource so that the laptop will run slow.
#4 Scan and fix Windows registry. Do you know how important registry is in Windows system? Corrupted, invalid or malicious registry will slow down your laptop and make it run unstable. You would receive many error messages such as dll errors, Internet Explorer errors or blue screen of death in the using of laptop. Thus, it is necessary for you to fix your slow laptop by cleaning registry errors.

Try deleting all unwanted files like Temp files, disk clean up, disk defragmentation.
1helpful
1answer

Thanks for the response to my Acer L100. have checked the cables and they are fine. have noticed the fan doesn't start up when the computer is switched on....could this be the problem???

The CPU fan should turn on when the PC is powered on, and then it usually slows down until the workload on the processor causes it to heat up, then the fan spins faster, it might also be a power supply issue, but if your able to boot and its giving you messages and not shutting down then you should re-install the operating system.
0helpful
1answer

MAC PRO dual2.3- freezes, gray screen crash, freeze with hi fan mode,kernel panic reports, all require start button shut down. Some forums suggest ATI card failure. I'm lost.

All computers will shut them selves off or crash when fans are failing, or have failed. Cooling fans are plugged into the motherboard, and firmware on the MB keeps track of the system fans, along with everything else. If a system fan is failing, or has failed, the signal is sent to shut down. Some PC's will shut down cleanly, others give error messages, and some just freeze up. Of course, Bad RAM, video cards, and hard drives with bad sectors, can also cause problems like you have discribed.
I would write down any error messages, and beep codes, and then look them up online for a place to start.
0helpful
1answer

Acer5920 stuck in configuring updates.

This is generally caused by bad blocks in the Master Boot Record(Table). The drive itself is probably not salvagable. You'll need a reputable reapir person to slave your drive to another system to get the data off.

Good Luck
0helpful
1answer

Random shut down

The PSU voltages can be checked with a digital multimeter at the ATX connector, 3.3v (orange), 5.0v (red) & 12v (yellow) if the DMM is indicating values of MORE than 5% variation your PSU is the likely villain (best to rule it out first).

Are you getting a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) or error messages when you PC randomly shuts down?
0helpful
2answers

Possible overheating problem for Acer Aspire mini L100

I am not totally sure if this is the problem, but I would suggest that you may have a power supply issue or possibly it going out. If the computer runs fine, and then shuts down, than this can be more symptomatic to a overheating issue.

In my limited experience with overheat issues, the computer actually smelled like it was getting hot, and then it would slow down and then sometimes stop. Most computers have fail safe settings where they either alarm, or shut down or both when they overheat.
1helpful
2answers

Gateway 7405 GX Fully shuts down at random intervals

It sounds like a thermal shut down when the processor over heats,one thing it might be is that the heat sink is not seated properly on the processor.When removing the heat sink make sure you have thermal paste to place between the processor and heat sink.That should give you a good starting point.
0helpful
1answer

Error Message

sounds like sound drivers.

Install this update to resolve an issue where the Realtek HD Audio Control Panel may not start after you install security update KB925902 (MS07-017) and security update KB928843 (MS07-008).

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=74AD4188-3131-429C-8FCB-F7B3B0FD3D86&displaylang=en
Not finding what you are looking for?

1,721 views

Ask a Question

Usually answered in minutes!

Top Acer Computers & Internet Experts

Steve Sweetleaf
Steve Sweetleaf

Level 3 Expert

1198 Answers

shadow

Level 3 Expert

490 Answers

Brad Brown

Level 3 Expert

19166 Answers

Are you an Acer Computer and Internet Expert? Answer questions, earn points and help others

Answer questions

Manuals & User Guides

Loading...