BSOD - laptop startup/shutdown/wakeup issues

Hi all!
been having issue with our laptop not starting correctly, going to sleep and not waking up and blue screen and also the black screen about windows not being normal - would you like to start normally - which sometimes it does and last night it had to do a system repair which then took it back an earlier point.

I confess that last nite, once I got it started I began playing music on windows media player. It sounded fine.

This morning, while I was reading help posts from greg on another pc and didn't want this one to fall asleep, I began playing music again. This morning it sounded like chipmunks singing.

Anyhow, per Greg's request I did the SF diagnostic tool and hopefully, will be posting here the files that may prove useful for help. I did a malware bytes quick scan already which revealed no issues but Greg suggested doing a full scan. I shall be doing that probably Friday nite, unless someone instructs me to do something else prior to.

I'm off to work in a bit to close tonite and then have to open tomorrow morning so I won't be back to really review anything until late Friday evening.

In case you need it, our system is an Acer Aspire 7535-5020, running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. Our battery holds little charge anymore but at the moment it is disconnected and only plugged in via the cord. Seems the only way to get her to start is to remove the battery and let her drain and then plug the cord in and hope for the best. Sometimes it works on the 1st attempt, sometimes it takes an attempt or 2 but she is starting back up.

Many, many thanks!!!!!!!!!!



Last nite, I did reconnect the battery once it had started and disconnected the AC cord to move her out here where I have another netbook set up for internet. I then plugged the cord back in and she ran fine for several hours until I shut off to go to bed. Hubby turned it on and it did that couldn't start up normally thing and that's when it did a restore to earlier point thing.

Anyhow, I am hopeful that someone can help us figure out what is going on, if it can be fixed or if the laptop is dying slowly. I admit, I am easily confused by techno speak and hope that somebody can really help. Greg has been really patient with me thus far and your site has a wonderful reputation, so all i can say is here goes.

If you need more or this file thing doesn't come through correctly, please let me know. I shall do my best to accomplish whatever anyone needs me to do.

Well,
I am sad to say that I have not been able to get our laptop to power up since the last time early Thursday afternoon.
I've tried everything.
Battery only, cord only, unplugging the cord, pressing the power button, waiting for like 1/2 an hour before trying again and absolutely nothing other than this brief sound like it is starting to power up but then nothing after that. An almost absolute silence except for a very faint power sound - fan maybe?
No clicking or other weird noises from the hard drive, nothing on the screen, just almost total silence.
Guess we are going to pronounce her dead


But, we thank everyone for all of their helpful words, suggestions and so on.

At least I was able to get her powered up a few more times and managed to grab the few things that still needed backed up (a few documents and photos) before she passed on to the land of sick computers.

We are currently looking into purchasing a new one, which will probably be Win 8 - although hubby isn't happy bout that but given the available choices of where and what we have to work with, 8 it shall be.

Thanks again everyone and keep up the good work!

Well,
finally have an update, of sorts, regarding the Acer laptop.
I am currently typing this post using that laptop.

I know that sounds like great news, but....

there are some issues with it.

The other week, I managed to get it to turn on. I had been taking a nap and was dreaming about fixing the darn thing, LOL.

Anyhow, I got up and started messing with it.

I went through trying to turn it on while holding down one of the F buttons. I think on F5 I got what sounded like more of a normal start up sound, but still didn't kick in. I kept on going until I hit F2.

It brought up the screen (don't know the correct technical name for it) where you can tell the computer where to boot from (hard drive, disk, etc. and other Bios stuff). Yeah, the screen I don't like to mess with.

Anyhow, I managed to tell it to boot from disk and inserted one of my backup disks that we made when we purchased it.
Now, I can't remember which one it was - I have 1 that is labeled Windows 7 and one that was labeled repair but anyhow, it did start.

It told me that there were several erros - the 1st one being that the startup/boot was corrupted or something similar.

I wish I had been thinking clear enough to write down all of the messages and go slowly but darn, I was so excited I just told it to fix the errors and keep on going.


The laptop came up - all files, photos and programs seemed intact but it was very slow in going through things.

I did leave it that way for awhile just to see what it would do, plus I wanted to double check that I really truly had all things backed up.

I just did one of the recovery options the other day - the one where it stores your old stuff but reinstalls everything else.

Did a bunch of windows updates.

Response time is fairly good for loading up internet. I can flip back and forth between things like control panel and so on fairly quickly now. Not so much lag.

Am thinking that I might go ahead and do the complete factory reinstall where it wipes the hard drive, does not store your old data and starts over.

Upon doing windows updates - where it says that it needed to restart the sytem - it did that just fine.

But, there still seems to be a power issue of some kind.

Not every time, but some, it does not want to power back on.

I have removed the battery. Does it need to have the battery connected to trouble shoot any issues or can I leave it disconnected?

When it refuses to turn on, sometimes just removing the AC cord from the laptop for a bit and then reconnecting it - it will turn on just fine.

Sometimes, I have to do the disconnect cord, press down on th power button - apparently this helps drain anything stil lingering?

Then, I plug back in the AC cord, hold down the F2 button and hit the power button.

I dont change anything on that screen, just hit the F10 to save changes and it restarts and from there seems fine.

I know it isn't completely fine though.

How do I walk through troubleshooting an issue like this?

Or is this something that a repair person might have to tackle?

Any suggestions or tips on things to check or anything that I might be able to accomplish from home?

No hurry on this one as we have our new laptop to use but we were thinking it would be nice to have 2 functioning ones in the house and if it would seem that this would be something fairly inexpensive to repair, I would go ahead and work towards getting that done.

Thanks so much and have an awesome day!

Okay,
sounds like a good 1st step to me.
I shall read over the instructions on the link, make sure I understand everything and if I have questions, I'll let you know.
I shall plan to do that next Tuesday, probably, since I am off that day.
And then, we shall go from there and see what we have.

Hoping that it isn't too big of a problem and that I can revive her completely. I actually like that laptop and don't mind using it, even though we do have the new one.

Will update and go from there but any other suggestions are, of course, gratefully welcome!!!

OK,
I did a quick read of the instructions.

"IF" there are any programs that came preinstalled on the ACER that I "might" really want to have or if there is anything that you might suggest making sure that I do keep, may I ask for help on that?

Probably the best way to do that is to get a list of what is installed right now and go over it with you all??

Again thanks so much!!!

Well,
I noticed that when we made the original recovery disks for the Acer, there was one labeled Windows 7 install.
I put it in and opened it up and guess what?
It is a Windows 7 installation disk.
I believe this is the same thing you were referring to making to do a clean install?
It does say that it can/will erase your files and that you must be ready to reinstall any programs that you want after the process is finished and that you have to have your product key handy.

I am assuming that the key that came on the bottom of the laptop will work just fine?

And I know that I do want to totally erase everything that is on it and just install what is on that disk, for now.. just to see how the laptop reacts.

Does anyone know if Microsoft Works is included on the Windows 7 install?

I only have 1 license for my Office 2010 program and it is installed on the new laptop now.

If the Acer seems to stay up and functioning, I will go ahead and install my old Office 97 program on it.

I know that it works, for the most part, except for Outlook. That is fine for my purposes, I really would only use Word & excel on this laptop.

The Windows Essentials will eventually reinstall, probably from Windows updates? Not a big deal if it doesn't.

If I decide to use the Wild Tangent gaming, since I created an account and have gotten some games, I think I can go to their site and download. If not, again, not a big deal since we have the same thing on the HP laptop.

Not sure if we would use the webcam on this one, but I believe I can gather that software from the Acer site. If not, and if we would decide to use it.. does anybody know of an alternative?

Anyhow, I think that is all of my probably seemingly stupid questions for the nite.

I'm gonna give the Win 7 install disk some more looking to check out the options, so that may be it for my posts from this laptop tonite.

Wish me luck for when we do the install and keep the fingers crossed that this helps.