Sudden PC crashes + USB Port problems

[giovy]

Ok, as I already said in another thread, I've been experiencing 2 annoying and weird issues over the past few months:

1) Sometimes my laptop (Acer Aspire 5738G running W7 Ultimate SP1 x86 as OS) suddenly crashes (mouse, keyboard etc.... no longer work), although all drivers of my machine seem to be perfectly updated.

2) Another issue is that my system does not often recognize both my USB flash drives and my external HD or just freeze, forcing me to reboot it whenever this glitch occurs, despite USB PORT drivers appearing to be updated.

Any idea on how I could fix these annoying problems once & for all? Maybe via BIOS?

 

[Cyberwolf]

I have recently experienced a similar issue with "crashing". My issue was more freezing than crashing.

I define freezing as seeing your program open on your screen ( or desktop background ) but unable to type, move mouse, or gain back control via CTRL + ALT + DEL for example.

Crashing usually involves a Bluescreen, Error or Spontaneous reboot.

I would first suggest running a memory scan. This will ensure the RAM isnt bad. Diagnosing memory problems on your computer

If that passes, it could be a power supply or motherboard problem. In my case, I replaced the power supply and issue persisted. I reinstalled Windows, as in a format reinstall. Same issue. It turned out to be my motherboard. I replaced it and was good to go again. No freeze ups.

With a laptop...Motherboard failure might result in you trashing it. Usually replacing a motherboard on a laptop is more expensive than a similar replacement unit.

 

[giovy]

Hi thanks for your reply!

Yes I confirm that my laptop freezes instead of crashing.

Now I try to diagnose the memory....but if the problem is due to my motherboard well I'd better buy a new laptop, is that right??

Any tool to diagnose if the motherboard works properly?

As for USB port issue I've just found this possible solution:

USB DEVICES - How to delete all (resolves some USB problems)

What do you make of it?

Please note that when I try to copy, move a file on my Flash Drive or external drive or perform a Virus scan on them my system 9 times out of 10 freezes and does not recognize any other portable devices unless I reboot it....

But if I do the same things in SAFE MODE all the problems mentioned above vanished.

So, as matters stand, the cause could not be related to the motherboard, could it?

 

[Dsprague]

Have a look at this tutorial and see if its any help:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/147369-usb-selective-suspend-turn-off.html

 

[giovy]

Thank you for the tutorial...I'm having a look at it right now....

Oh, I forgot to mention that I bought my laptop from a guy who had changed both HD (from 250 GB to 500 GB) and OS (from VISTA to W7 Professional).Then I installed W7 Ultimate edition. So could the above issues be somehow related to this?

Maybe my laptop has now a BIOS with an old firmware: this could also explain why my USB port doesn't work properly.

What do you make of it dudes? Did anyone have the same experience?
So a possible solution could actually be to update my BIOS (so called BIOS flashing).

I've just found these free tools for that:
GIGABYTE How to Reflash Motherboard BIOS
BIOS Update Utility for Windows 8 (32-bit, 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad

Ever tried one of them before ?? If you are aware of a good tutorial about it, just le me know...ok?

Another possible cause could be the presence of something wrong in my HDD: do you know an effective tool (possible FREE) designed to identify any kind of problem in the HDD?

I know a free program called DISK HEAL for that, but I'm not sure if it can unravel the mystery.

 

[Dsprague]

Flashing the Bios can never hurt if you are experiencing BSODs unfortunately there are no tutorials that I could find on flashing your Bios as it is rather specific to each mother board.