Another Shutdown = Reboot thread - Exhausted Options

Hey folks - W764 Ultimate Acer 4530 AMD 4GB RAM, 1TB HD

This system is a few years old and stable. Zero problems until a few days ago. Now when I shutdown by clicking any shutdown button (Orb->Shutdown or the shutdown on the logon page), the computer shuts down but immediately reboots. Also, cannot put it to sleep. Orb-> Sleep and it goes to sleep and immediately wakes. It seems to be the same problem that is causing both.

Nothing has changed EXCEPT I had to take the laptop apart a few days ago to swap out a noisy fan, and I removed/tested/replaced the coin batt at the same time. And that's when this behavior started.

Have already checked/done everything here: Power Options and Sleep Mode Problems ...including restoring C from a perfectly good BU created 2 weeks ago way before any of this started, but the problem persists.

Also reseated the RAM and replaced the section of mobo that has the power-on button, as it's separate from the rest of the mobo and I had a spare. Also tried booting into safe mode, shutting down, and it shut down then immed rebooted. And ran chkdsk and sfc /scannow.

There is only a split second between it shutting down and rebooting, and same with putting it to sleep... the second the power button flashes off (into sleep) it blinks back on and it wakes.

There are no devices set to wake it. And no programs set to wake it. I'm at a loss! (This BIOS has almost no configurable settings. No ACPI / S1, S2, S3 settings that can be manually set. powercfg -a shows it is S3 capable and apparently that's enabled by default. I have removed the coin battery before and never had this problem... have also disassembled the laptop many times to apply new grease or whatever, and again, never had a problem.)


Would be grateful for any more ideas!

Ranger4 said:

You could try this remedy, apparently it works in a lot of cases.

Shut down computer, remove all power sources, hold down power button

Thanks for responding, Ranger. Just tried, no joy.

And FTR, far as sleep goes, same thing happens when I try to put the computer to sleep by pressing the power button... wakes right back up.

Also FTR, when I shutdown and it starts to reboot, just as POST is about to start I can press the power button to get it to turn off.

Maybe I should just config the power button to turn it off instead of sleep, then use the power button to shut down instead of a software button. I'll try that now and see if it works, then report back. Though I doubt it will work since whatever is keeping it from shutting down is also keeping it from sleeping... and recofig'ing the power button wouldn't seem to change that...

EDIT: Nope... same problem. Changed it back to sleep.

Maybe the mobo has a jumper for the S3 state that got removed accidentally or something when I reassembled it... I will see if I can find anything about that and report back if I do. But I have never known this mobo to have ANY jumpers.

FTR I disassembled the laptop for the 40th time... swapped the power board portion of the mobo with a spare... took out the coin batt and depressed the power button with it all apart (have to completely disassemble to get to the coin batt)... put it all back together and.... the sleep and shutoff worked normal again BUT the hard switch for the modem was not working leaving the wifi unavailable. Took apart again to track that connector down and reconnected it... put it back together and..... modem works now but the sleep/shutdown problem is back.

This is the same modem I have always had that never caused a problem and it's not config'd to wake up the computer or do anything else.

Used the hardware switch to turn off the modem and tried sleep and it still didn't work, just like before.

At this point I've taken this thing apart a gabillion times, and I don't know how many more times the frail connectors on the antenna wires that run from the LCD to the modem are going to allow me to disconnect and reconnect them. (Can't get to anything without removing the LCD which means disconnecting the antenna wires from the wifi modem.) But I guess next step would be remove the modem from the laptop and try it without it installed in case it has a short or something...

Removed the coin batt for 17 minutes, and pressed the power button for 2 min.... but same problem. Major freakin' bummer.

PS powercfg lastwake always says power button as the reason it woke.

And doing powercfg -devicequery wake_armed lists nothing, b/c I have nothing set to wake it...

That's interesting b/c I noticed last night when I shut down and it was still in the process of closing, I pulled out the AC (which I always do at the end of the night) and it shut down normally. So even though a battery was installed with juice, without the AC, it shutdown normally, without rebooting.

Then this morning after I booted I tried unplugging AC and putting it to sleep... but nope... that problem persists.

I hear you about the mobo being the culprit but the weird thing is, it worked that one time after resetting the CMOS... IDK... maybe it's a slight crack in the solder somewhere creating some hiccup. But I have given up and am hoping for a miracle. Like... after so many days it will just start sleeping correctly again. (Couple years back all my ports stopped working for some reason then days later they all came back and it's never happened since!) Electronics! You just never know!

Thanks for your help, though. Appreciate it. :)