Hi guys,
Around a month ago, I bought the above laptop from http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/ (I'm based in Germany).
I purchased the laptop without an OS installed, installed Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit). I had problems with getting the Atheros wireless adapter to work. Eventually I gave up and emailed notebooksbilliger, they agreed to take it and send it off to Acer and they did just that.
After some time they replied saying there's nothing wrong with the hardware, so they sent the laptop back. I switched it on and it asked me to select which Windows 7 OS I wanted to load (I only had 1, so presumably they must have installed one). I selected theirs and the adapter was working.. so not entirely sure what happened there (just to clarify, my OS still wasn't working). They have stated that the warranty is now void because the hardware was "inspected" (by them).
I was happy enough at this stage (bar the warranty comment), it seemed to be working OK. But then about a week later, it would blue screen when watching a video (on the web) when on battery power (was fine when plugged in). I tried various things to fix this, drivers, updates etc but it carried on happening (something to do with atikmdag.sys).
On top of that, the hard drive started playing up, it would make a slow ticking sound, and during that time it would be 100% in use and not respond. When the ticking stopped (a couple of seconds later) it would resume again. It was annoying, but bearable (or so I thought).
It slowly got worse, and eventually it would become completely unresponsive and then switch off (or I had to switch it off). The mouse would still move but nothing would load, windows that were already open could be moved around, but not closed or minimised. Occasionally when rebooting from this state, a message saying
"
For Atheros PICE Ethernet Conectroller
Check cable connection! PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM, no bootable device etc
"
Presumably this is because the HD wasn't detected properly and it tried to boot from the network device (I checked the BIOS and the network device being in the boot order supports that theory). Either way turning it off and on again generally fixes it (sometimes needs to be done twice). This can happen either a few minutes after booting or an hour after use, the ticking/resuming is still happening too.
Next I installed Windows 8.1 on it, all went well and this fixed the blue screening when watching videos, though the ticking of the hard drive is still present and the message above when it dies.
Here's what I've tried in terms of diagnosing what could be wrong with the HD:
1. Ran chkdsk /f - nothing found.
2. Ran Seatools, did all of the tests and all checked out fine (even the long one).
3. CrystalDisk shows this:
Not really sure what to do... supposedly the hard drive itself has a 2 year warranty. Is it worth trying to contact Seagate themselves? Presumably they'll tell me to check using their tools and tell me there's nothing wrong with it upon learning the tests pass...
I have debated just buying another HD and putting it in myself, just seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth considering the laptop is brand new.
Sorry for the very long post!
Around a month ago, I bought the above laptop from http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/ (I'm based in Germany).
I purchased the laptop without an OS installed, installed Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit). I had problems with getting the Atheros wireless adapter to work. Eventually I gave up and emailed notebooksbilliger, they agreed to take it and send it off to Acer and they did just that.
After some time they replied saying there's nothing wrong with the hardware, so they sent the laptop back. I switched it on and it asked me to select which Windows 7 OS I wanted to load (I only had 1, so presumably they must have installed one). I selected theirs and the adapter was working.. so not entirely sure what happened there (just to clarify, my OS still wasn't working). They have stated that the warranty is now void because the hardware was "inspected" (by them).
I was happy enough at this stage (bar the warranty comment), it seemed to be working OK. But then about a week later, it would blue screen when watching a video (on the web) when on battery power (was fine when plugged in). I tried various things to fix this, drivers, updates etc but it carried on happening (something to do with atikmdag.sys).
On top of that, the hard drive started playing up, it would make a slow ticking sound, and during that time it would be 100% in use and not respond. When the ticking stopped (a couple of seconds later) it would resume again. It was annoying, but bearable (or so I thought).
It slowly got worse, and eventually it would become completely unresponsive and then switch off (or I had to switch it off). The mouse would still move but nothing would load, windows that were already open could be moved around, but not closed or minimised. Occasionally when rebooting from this state, a message saying
"
For Atheros PICE Ethernet Conectroller
Check cable connection! PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM, no bootable device etc
"
Presumably this is because the HD wasn't detected properly and it tried to boot from the network device (I checked the BIOS and the network device being in the boot order supports that theory). Either way turning it off and on again generally fixes it (sometimes needs to be done twice). This can happen either a few minutes after booting or an hour after use, the ticking/resuming is still happening too.
Next I installed Windows 8.1 on it, all went well and this fixed the blue screening when watching videos, though the ticking of the hard drive is still present and the message above when it dies.
Here's what I've tried in terms of diagnosing what could be wrong with the HD:
1. Ran chkdsk /f - nothing found.
2. Ran Seatools, did all of the tests and all checked out fine (even the long one).
3. CrystalDisk shows this:
Not really sure what to do... supposedly the hard drive itself has a 2 year warranty. Is it worth trying to contact Seagate themselves? Presumably they'll tell me to check using their tools and tell me there's nothing wrong with it upon learning the tests pass...
I have debated just buying another HD and putting it in myself, just seems like a bit of a kick in the teeth considering the laptop is brand new.
Sorry for the very long post!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram