Boot menu at start up, 2 min of beeps before Win7 successfully starts

[rvcjew]

Hit update driver and point it manually to CardReader_Broadcom_1.0.0.219_Win7x64\XD\x64 and see if it will find it. Should be in that folder.

Malcolm

 

[Pikake]

I tried to navigate to the folder, it tells me that it is installing it, but then stops and tells me that the driver is not intended for the platform.


(I am having issues with 2 keyboards and this acer, more with an external USB one (that works on my asus) than the keyboard on the acer. I can explain more if you like.)

 

[rvcjew]

You mean your usb keyboards are not connecting to the laptop? IS this since the driver install, and have you rebooted the laptop since doing this?

Malcolm

 

[Pikake]

Now the external keyboard issue seems to be working itself out upon every restart, just like the mysterious right click thing. Beyond keyboards, what we did with the driver updates today got a third USB port to recognize anything in it, when it did not before. So, thank you again.

With the keyboard on the laptop, I can never get the left "shift" key to type a "(" and I don't know if it has to do with anything at all. All other keys where shift can apply work fine with that left key. "9" types out fine alone. The right "shift" key does type out a ")" and everything else it is supposed to, I think.

I still cannot download that card reader driver.

I have rebooted three times since my last reply and still get those mind jarring beeps.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Sorry late reply mate now Malcom has already said what I would have done and just so we know what that card reader device is can you run PART B: of this please and let us know what brand and model that device actually is - I am not sure just where it might be located but in my pic there a few places you could look .
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT as a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE (sometimes the usual one for Gigabyte boards)
Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/- of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.
Limits +/- (minimum - correct - maximum)
12v1 = 11.4 - 12 - 12.6v
12v2 = 11.4 - 12- 12.6v
5v = 4.75 – 5 - 5.25v
3.3v = 3.135 – 3 – 3.465v
-12v = -10.80 - -12 - -13.20v
+5VSB = 4.75 – 5 - 5.25v
The Power good signal voltage at pin 8 on the 24 pin plug (grey cable) should be the same as the 5v rail reading/s
See this for the rail voltage info
PSUs 101: A Detailed Look Into Power Supplies (Section 2.)
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.

 

[Pikake]

PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section

Hello. I downloaded HWiNFO64 v5.46 for Windows (Native 64-bit), launched it, selected "sensors only" at the welcome page, and this is what I see. I don't see an attachment that seems to relate to this on your last post, cannot figure out how to close a right window, select sensors, nor can I tell where the power section is. The program also closes on its own and won't relaunch; I have uninstalled it and reinstalled it once, but it still does it.

 

[rvcjew]

Relaunch it without senors only. Then it will open a second window behind with the info John wants.

Malcolm

 

[Pikake]

The program closes itself whenever I come back to my browser to read what it is I am supposed to be looking for here. Then when I go to my start menu, click on the program, tell it yes I want the program to make changes on my computer, the spinning wheel shows up and the program never launches no matter how many times I try. This has made me uninstall the program via windows uninstaller twice, then reinstall it again. But the last time the uninstaller told me it could not delete all of the files. I tried installing it again but it said the program already exists but I told it to do it anyway and it did. It's behaving the same way now as the last two times I have installed it--dropping off then won't open again.

I could try download Revo Uninstaller to uninstall it again, download HWiNFO64 again, but I am thinking I might be chasing my tail with it...only to have it behave the same way.

 

[Pikake]

System Summary

This is the window that comes up behind the main one.

 

[Pikake]

I got the program to work, somehow, I think, for now. I guess their most current version is on another page of the website.

PART A:
In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT as a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE (sometimes the usual one for Gigabyte boards)

Were there supposed to be two pic attachments on your last post? I am seeing nothing on your pic that I can discern as (Nuvoton) with VBATT to compare what I see to. I have attached a photo of something--not sure what--that looks similar to the one pic in your last post. Hopefully it is useful for us.

PART A:
See this for the rail voltage info
PSUs 101: A Detailed Look Into Power Supplies (Section 2.)

Hmmmm, I do not see a section 2 or anything about rail voltage on the page titles.

PART B:

Okay. I think I have had success locating the card reader. Phew.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm my bad mate I was not concentrating and went ahead thinking we were discussing a desktop

However I did not see the laptop battery status amongst those pics but no matter you have located the card reader to a point what does it display when you open that + at that one you have highlighted?? in fact what do any of those + under it display when opened??. See pic

 

[Pikake]

I'm thankful that you got the boot manager to go away and that all of my usb ports seem to be working, and that there are people who are willing to take the time to help the clueless with possessed computers. I came home after hours of having it on sleep and I had to completely exit out of my browser to get rid of a prompt telling me f7 turns on caret browsing and neither "no" or pressing that red x would make it go away. I...never pressed that key before leaving my house and I don't have a cat. It's taking a few minutes from sleep or restart for the external or internal ? keyboards to perform properly or for the right click to work--but they do end up working after a few minutes. Right after I woke it up this last time to reply here the "shift" key, alone, was bringing up the firefox inspect element window at the bottom although now that seems to be gone.... The bugger will randomly but rarely restart on its own even though none of the power options tell it to. It's like I have all of this wacky stuff happening other than beeps upon start up but I don't know if it's relevant or if it would distract from the flow of this help topic if I were to mention it--especially when it's all randomly happening. It's madness. :shock: I need to come up with a name for the demon in my puter.
/spaz

Anyway, , I have had the battery out since I tried to see if it was the beeping culprit yesterday and have not bothered to put it back in. The power chord's been in.

And unfortunately it seems that the HWiNFO64 is not opening for me again. Unless there's another program that I can try, I will be trying to go through the uninstall and reinstall process again. I may not be able to take the time to do this for a couple of days.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm mate it certainly looks like there are few gremlins in your machine in fact it has really quite weird things going on.

I am at a loss now because I am thinking maybe whoever refurbished this machine of yours did not make a very good job of it because refurbished could mean anything from just replacing the hard drive and a bit of a clean up to stripping it down and replacing many parts. From what we can see so far there are a few parts that are not functioning properly and the OS seems to be in some sort of disarray. So have you contacted the seller?? because I think whoever that is has some responsibility to help you out with these issues.

The other thing is I am wondering if for example we cannot fix this machine what is your next option? Not that I am saying it cannot be fixed but how far do you want to go?? If it were mine I would be installing a new hard drive and doing a clean install of Windows.

One more thing I would try before it got to that is run this http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/rescuedisk

Now I would download this software and make the bootable disk on another machine seeing that the one you have with these issues seems to be almost unusable.

Edit: Sorry for the doom and gloom

 

[rvcjew]

I agree something software wise seems out of wack. Can you download and install this then run it and don't worry about it being trial or not it will work for our purposes's let it see if it finds anything on your machine. Also when you have an external keyboard plugged in can you take a pic of the device manager showing what your keyboard devices are.
Malwarebytes | Free Anti-Malware & Malware Removal
EDIT: oops forgot the link sorry.

Malcolm

 

[Pikake]

My parents bought the computer as a result of a side deal from a person at the front desk of a computer repair shop; he wasn't even a technician. He sold the computer for a friend--some girl majoring in computer science at the university--and their selling points were that it had been refurbished with some fancy components and that it would enable my parents to trade stocks with whatever resource mongering way it is done. But, the computer did not have the right screen resolution and something else that my parents cannot recall. My parents tried to get their money back but he told them she already spent the money and...they bought the computer as is. She got paid; he probably got laid. And I ended up with this demonic love child of sorts.

Now, I do not have a recovery disk or image for this computer--but I do have a boot disk created from my other Asus with the same version of Windows. I don't know if this is the referred to "bootable" disk, though.

I guess that I have to weigh out the costs of putting a new hard drive in myself (uh, durt,...doubtful) versus paying someone to do it versus just purchasing a new Acer. ...such a shame, but it is what it is. And I thank you for your time--all of you.

I will try to run that rescue disk and see how it goes.

Thank you, again.

Edit: Malcom, you sweet person, I did the malwarebytes scan a few days ago. Nothing came up. I will try again. I need to pause from this for a while if not forever and ever.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok mate so what you say makes sense now. The thing is do you have the activation code for that copy of Windows??

If not then you might be able to find it using this
Product Key Number for Windows 7 - Find and See the Showkey is the later software and the Magic Jelly Bean is good and if they both come up with the same code then you can be sure in fact the Showkey should be right.

Now if you have that then it is a matter of saving all the data you need and wiping that drive - you will need a second machine to do that and reinstalling Windows yourself see this -
Clean Install Windows 7 in the Heres how section is the site you need to download a genuine copy of Windows. The thing to make sure of is that the key for the copy you have will only activate that particular copy of Windows in your case Home Premium 64bit. For the download of that you need to be careful to select the right copy ie an English language (obviously)

There is a little more to the process but I want to see what Malcolm thinks of this first.

Edit: Stupid me too much rush - if you can afford a new drive a SSD is preferable and you will not need to wipe that and they are really quite inexpensive now especially in the US.

 

[Pikake]

Hi, again

So, just to clarify, the recommendation is for me to go directly to installing a new hard drive--skip creating a recovery disk or iso image?

 

[Pikake]

Hello. :shock:

So I explored more options to test my hard drive and used HD tune to test a few things. I do not know if any of this is valuable but I thought I'd post it.

 

[rvcjew]

If you want to test your HDD then run Seatols since that is a Seagate drive.

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/
Check the drive (you only have the one) then at the top pick basic tests and short drive test then if it passes that do the short generic and see if it passes that then the long generic.

Malcolm

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Now go with Malcoms advice mate - the new drive I meant it is an option for you if the hard drive is bad or to save doing a clean/wipe of the drive.

In that scenario you can get a genuine Microsoft ISO to clean install from if need be.