Laptop has blue screen, and other problems

[schriscoli]

hi, i am new to this site, and have read through most of the problems that i think are kind of similar to mine. how ever, they dont seem to help. i apologise if this question has already been asked.

 

i bought an acer 3050 laptop about 10 months ago, it worked fine up until now. but i have been having problems with my usb ports. basically, they arent working. i tried disabling the affected port (with the intention of enabling it again), and when i did this it said i had to restart my laptop. so i did, but when it restarted, the screen stayed black and wouldnt come on. i tried pressin the Fn and f5 button, just to see if it was set to go to an external monitor, but this did not work. i tried adjusting the brightness just to make sure it wasnt that. none of these worked. so i held the power button down to turn the laptop off, and then switched it back on again. and had the same problem. im having this problem nearly everytime i turn the laptop on. only sometimes will the screen actually come on. and sometimes a blue screen comes on and it looks like its got lots of glitches on it. is there anyway of sorting this or is it time to take a big sledgehammer to my laptop just to make me feel better? sorry for the big essay, just wanted to give you a full explanation of what is happening. your help in this matter would be much appreciated.

many thanks

stu

[Tony D]

This could be either hardware or software related. Let's rule out some software items. Reboot your computer in Safe Mode.

 

* If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power.

* Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.

* Start tapping the F8 key. The Windows Advanced Options Menu appears. If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard error" message. To resolve this, restart the computer and try again. If F8 doesn't work try F5.

* Ensure that the Safe Mode option is selected.

* Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.

* Log on with an account that has administrator priviledges, usually your own account (NOT the account named Administrator).

 

Your screen will not look normal, but that's OK. Just let us know if booting to Safe Mode provides a blank screen or if it produces one with the usual icons, etc. Note - they will not be of normal size and some things like printing don't work in Safe Mode.

[schriscoli]

Kelly, i rebooted as you said.

the screen came on 1st time no problems, i tapped f8 and loade in safe mode. the desktop came up with icons etc. no problems. i then shut down and rebooted in the normal mode and it came on fine. do you have any idea how i can make sure it loads up correctly each time from now on? do you think i have downloaded something that is causin the problems? i use u-torrent. not sure if that could be the problem. thanks for your help

[Goku]

Hello and Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help Chris. :)

 

If it rebooted fine once, then it should hopefully boot normally from now on. If you installed any new software before the problem first occurred, than that is the most likely cause for your problem. You said, you tried to disable the USB ports to try and enable them? What instructions did you use to achieve that? It might be that you might have disabled some hardware that caused Windows to stall. Let us know as soon as possible.

 

Also, I would recommend you to uninstall uTorrent. It is one of the programs that is classified as a safe file-sharing program but it still risks you on being infected due to the files shared on the P2P network.

 

Hope that helps.

 

-- Goku

Edited October 9, 2008 by Goku

[schriscoli]

Goku,

i tried disabling the ports by going into control panel, then devices. i scrolled down to the bottom and clicked on the + next to the universal serial bus, which created a drop down list. i then right clicked on the affected usb port and clicked on properties. i looked through all of the tabs that appeared, and on one of them it said "disable". so i clicked that. to be honest, i didnt really know what i was doing. i just thought if i disabled it, and then enabled it again it might work, but it didnt. im not sure that, thats what caused the problem. is there a way of rebooting the hole laptop so that it goes back to the way it was when i bought it? when i bought the laptop i didnt get any back up or software discs with it. so i dont want to reboot it completely and then find that i have to go out and buy the vista software.

thanks for your help Goku

stu

[Guest Wolfeymole]

If you want to take it back to factory condition then that's no problem as you will have a recovery partition on the hard drive.

 

Download the manual on how to do it here.

 

Acer EMEA - Service & Support, Empowering Technology

 

Scroll down to this.

 

Acer eRecovery Management

[schriscoli]

Wolfeymole,

i have deleted most of the new programs and things i have installed over the past couple of weeks. my laptop has been loading up correctly since i have done that. however, if it starts playing up again, then i will take it back to factory condition. if i do take it back to factory condition, should that get rid of the problems? im guessing my usb port is probably broke, as it is still not workin.

thankyou everyone for your help.

[Goku]

however, if it starts playing up again, then i will take it back to factory condition. if i do take it back to factory condition, should that get rid of the problems? im guessing my usb port is probably broke, as it is still not workin.

Yes, you are right in thinking that taking the laptop to factory conditions will rid you of the problems if they are caused due to your present configuration. However, if they are due to bad hardware, like you suspect, then even restoring the machine to factory conditions will not help much. I don't think the USB ports have gone bad as the laptop is fairly new. Can you tell us what problems exactly are you having with the ports? We might look up a solution for that too while we are at it. :)

 

As concerning the instructions disabling the port, they are correct but shouldn't have been used. You might have thought of re-enabling them but if you can't boot into Windows anymore, then its not much help, is it? The point I am trying to make is that you should not have disabled the port(s) as most of the devices, especially in laptops and notebook computers, use the USB ports extensively to operate various devices. Thus, disabling them was bound to make Windows unbootable which it did.

 

Just a word of caution I would like to offer; ask someone who is more experienced in computers before you work on a serious procedure such as that. :)

 

-- Goku

[schriscoli]

Goku,

the problems with the port was that it wasnt picking up the device which i plugged into it. firstly i tried connecting my webcam, and then i tried connecting my external hard drive. none of these worked. so i tried again, but using the usb port at the back of the laptop. this time my webcam connected, but when i plugged my hard drive in, it still wouldnt connect. im not sure whether the hard drive is faulty. i dont really wanna ask any of my mates to try it incase it breaks there port (not sure if it woul break the port, but dont wanna chance it).

As for disabling the port, i understand what your saying about not messing with things i am not sure about. I googled help on usb ports and it was recommended in there. i have only recently found this site. maybe if i had found this site sooner i wouldn't have done it. however, the port has been enabled again now. so not sure if that had anything to do with my problems. everything seems to be working fine now. so could well have been.

thanks for your help

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Have you done a "back to factory" restore Stu?

[schriscoli]

no, it seems to be working ok at the moment. just gonna see how it is for the next few days. if it plays up again, then i will. you think its best to just do it now wolfeymole?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Well it's your machine and I can't tell you what to do but if it were me then I would.

[schriscoli]

wolfeymole, i took your advice and did the back to factory restore. how ever, it wont come on at all now. it gets to a startup screen and starts to display the windows xp logo, but then just stays on that screen and wont do anything else. even when i press the F8 button when i turn the power on, it wont take me to the screen so i can choose to boot up in safe mode. not sure why it displays the xp logo, as my laptop has got vista. thanks for you advice anyway. im going to order a new laptop today. and send my current 1 back to acer under warranty to see if they can do anything with it. many thanks. stu