Acer Aspire 5610 suddenly shuts down on its own

Hi,

I've bought my laptop almost a year ago. So far, everything was working fine until 3 or 4 weeks ago.

The computer goes off, i.e. it shuts down on its own, for no apparent reason. I think it must be overheating because the case is really hot just where the CPU must be mounted. Besides, for the past few days I've been trying to run less applications and things have improved a little... now instead of 6 or 7 times a day, it goes off about 3 or 4 times a day. In any case is a big headache! I can switch it ON immediately, but then it goes off again soon afterwards once I have started working again... it is better to let some time pass before I switch it ON again, then it lasts longer.

I've read in another forum that overheating can be due to dust accumulation on the heat sink, thus not allowing heat to dissipate. Perhaps somebody can confirm this theory and advise whether I should open my laptop for cleaning the inside or not... or I should better try something else? The truth is that I don't have much time for doing it so I wouldn't like to spend time in something which won't help much.

Thanks in advance.

 

My 5612z has had similar problems without the heat issue.
About 4/5 times over last 10 months has shutdown or failed to boot
(stops at blank screen with blinking white underscore cursor at top left
hand side of screen).

Have put it down to Vista Home Premium bugs but not convinced. Had to do factory restore with backup disks on seized screens but if it just shutdown when in normal use a normal reboot generally sorts it. Annoying when you can't determine cause.

Don't use lots of demanding applications (just MS Office, Internet, Photo editing etc and have taken off bloatware Norton that usually gives more problems than it ever solves. (Reports everything, fixes next to nothing in my experience).

 

Thank you, but I guess I still need more help than that... I think my problem is somehow different: my laptop goes off 4/5 times a day!!!

Regarding applications, yes... it helps run less applications... in fact, VoIP (SKYPE) is ruled out until I fix this problem... but that is not good for my job.

 

Check your battery compartment. My daughter was having the same issue and when i took it in thats what it was. The slots on each end was pushed over and the battery use to work its way out somehow. Just a suggestion.

 

Hey, I have finally solved the problem. I'll write the whole story in case it is of any use for somebody else.
First, I tried the suggestion given by acer3050... thank you, but unfortunately didn't solve my problem...
I saw in other forum more things about overheating and downloaded Speed Fan and Everest Home Edition to check the temperature of the CPU. Few minutes after switching on the CPU would be already at 46C and the HD at 45C... ater runnning several programs at the same time (Office, Mozilla, SKYPE, etc) it went off. I powered on immediately and the temperature of the CPU was 73C and the HD was 50C. I tried the same thing some few times until I was convinced the problem was overheating.
With the service manual for Acer 5610 (which I downloaded but I can´t remember the link) and then sat down to open the laptop. It wasn't really difficult.
As soon as I open the lid fo the termal module/fan module I saw clearly the problem. The grill through which the system fan is supposed to throw the air was completely blocked by a wall of dust, hence no air was going out at all and the compartment was getting overheated immediately.
I took advantage to clean everything else as well... and now the temperature is a nice 39C, and maximum 55C if I open many applications.
Thank you for your help anyhow.

 

jamorod, can you please find out where you got the service manual? I have the same identical problem...

 

Hi man,

I am having the same problem with my Aspire 5610. In the last 3 weeks, it shuts down at least 8 times a day on its own. I bought this thing a couple of months ago. It is annoying that I had to go back to my old Fujitsu that I bought 8 years a go. Fujitsu and Aspire. Made in Japan vs Made in China. So far, my made in China Aspire 5610 is driving me crazy. May be that's the price to pay when we decide to go with cheap made in China.

Could you tell me please, Jamorod, where to find the sercice manual for this lemon? Thanks in advance.

 

Hi,
I have the same problem with my Aspire 5610. I had it sent to some tech guys by the store where i purchased it as the problem started while the machine was still under waranty. When i got it back they had cleaned and re-seated the heat sync. That seemed to work but only for a couple of weeks. That was about 8 months ago and the waranty has run out since. My partner recently decided to see if he could do anything about the problem and when he opened the machine the rear fan exhaust was clogged with what looked like the lint you get in your tumble dryer.
When he checked the heat sync he noticed there was no thermal paste under it. It had thermal paste originally as there was some residue. It had obviously been removed when it was in at the tech guys. He cleaned the machine inside making sure there was no dust in there, put some thermal paste under the heat sync and since then i have had no problems (as yet)
We also installed the evertest programme which confirmed that the running temp (when idle) was about 61 - 62 degrees, which has been reduced to around 3- 40 degrees!
so my advice would be - make sure there is thermal paste under your heat sync and make sure your vents are all clear!
good luck

 

These are all interesting comments. Here is one that will baffle you all I am sure. A man brought two Acer Aspire laptop tops me recently. He asked if I could look at them and tell him what it would cost to fix them. One of the laptops has a bum HD. The other booted with the error "NTDLR is missing". I decided that it was best just to reformat that drive and go on. Part of the way through the formatting process it just simply shut down, just as you all are describing. After three attempts with the same result I decided to swap the HD's so that he could have one working laptop until I could figure out what was going on. When I put that same HD in the laptop that wasn't shutting down I started to format the drive. You guess it! The laptop that wasn't shutting down before shut itself down in almost the exact same place. Any thoughts on that one?

 

Keep the lappie dust free by cleaning out debris at the vents at least 4 times a year. Remember, a lappie has a very small footprint compared to a desktop.

Same amount of work with a much smaller cooling area.

That's why lappies tend to accumulate dust a lot quicker than desktops because there is nowhere for the dust/debris to accumulate - except at the cooling fins.

Should be the first step for a lappie owner to check when the comp starts shutting down unexpectedly after a while of being on....:yes:

This simple step can save a lot of :cry: later when something as basic as effective unobstructed cooling is the root cause of things going pear shaped and not other issues.

 

Hi guys.. I have an Acer 5610 with the same problem...
I think Acer need to see this because is so many people with the same series and same problems.. maybe this laptop need a recall and they are quiet about that... is really strange so many people with the same laptop complaining about the same problem. My laptop doesnt have warranty anymore, so now i cant do anything... i already clean the cooler... remove...made everything that all people here made... but sometimes the problem continue... specially if the laptop are off for a while...

 

Hi all.
I've solved the problem TOTALLY.
"AFTER" you open the rear panel, there are 4 little screws on the fan...You need to put them off and clean well inside, because air pass inside a little pipe. In my situation it was blocked by dust. After cleaned it well my sistem started to work without shutdown. I used NHC software for look temperatures. CPU and HD temp are both 50°C
Hope it helps...
"OPEN the fan", don't pass just the air by outside.
Good luck

 

hi I just solved it!

remove the rear cover of your notebook (4 small screws)...remove the fan....3 small screws..remove the huge amount of dust from the exaust duct ....reasemble......enjoy your notebook......

 

A friend of the family had an Acer Aspire “ http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/acer-aspire-l100-ua380a/4505-3118_7-32401543.html” with the exact same problem. The problem persisted even after I clean the heat syncs which had lots of dust blocking the air flow.
I noticed that the fan kicks in mostly when I run applications that require hi UPC usage. So it seems only logical to keep the PC cool by keeping the fan running all the times. So I changed the fan setting in the BIOS so it runs all the time, and that totally fixed the problem.
Here is how you can change the fan settings to keep it running regardless to the CPU temperature:

1. Reboot your PC/Laptop and hit the Delete key to enter the BIOS settings.
2. Go to PC Health Status.
3. Change the “System smart fan control” setting from “Enabled” to “Disabled”.
4. Hit the F10 key to save your settings.

 

Hi I have been having a similar issue. I have an Acer Aspire 4720z that keeps entering stand by mode. It will do this immediately after booting up, even though the computer has been off for a while. It was doing this about 3-4 times. Recently it started to doing this about every 15-30 minutes with out stopping. I was told my ACPI driver had something to do with this and so I updated the driver and it fixed the problem. Now my CPU is constantly overloading, and comp is starting to get very slow. Any ideas of how to better fix my first issue (I can restore my comp), or fix my current issue?

 

I have a acer 5040 with the same problem as dnrflorence. it stays on fine in windows xp however when i start up with the xp installation disk and reformat in dos it will stay on for a max of 10 min and it suddenly dies. i start up and go F8 into set up and it dies in the same fashion. any ideas?