Aspire 5315 Problems

[TheLordsServant]

I received this Acer 5315-2153 for Christmas this year. My parents purchased it at the Walmart secret sale for $348. Since the moment I turned it on, it has been nothing but junk. First, after about thirty minutes of use, I was surprised that the computer simply shut down. No warning, anything. I thought nothing of it, and wondered if maybe my battery died, so I plugged the computer in, and tried again. I was once again, surprised that after about thirty or forty minutes, it shut down again. I immediately guessed overheating, and downloaded a temperature monitor to verify this. Sure enough, within twenty minutes of use, the temperature was up to 90 celsius. At 100, it shuts off, and it reaches this very quickly. Working on a hunch, I removed the battery, and after running for three hours, it was at 46 celsius. I inserted the battery again, and within five minutes the temperature was up to 60 celsius. And within twenty minutes, the temperature had risen back up to 90 celsius. But, that's not the only problems I've had with it. The wifi card has given me trouble since day 1. Most of the time, it simply refuses to connect at all to our WEP-encrypted network, and the rest of the time, it cuts in and out, disconnecting me often. The USB ports are strange sometimes, randomly losing and reacquiring my USB devices. I emailed Acer. Nothing for three weeks. I did it again. Nothing for three more weeks. I tried once more, and guess what. Nothing. So, finally, I sent a almost nasty email those morons, and got a reply "Overheating difficulties with the Acer 5300 series computers are not covered under the Acer 1 year limited warranty. For your other difficulties, we recommend contacting an Acer support retailer near your location" I was astounded to hear this, and this is my first experience with Acer, and I can say it probably will be my last. Their service is horrid, not to mention their quality is only marginally better. It was nice for the first few days I owned it. Now it's a very nice, heavy, expensive wheel chock.

[bigozone]

take the BIG cover off the bottom

tale the 3 screws holding the FAN out

CLEAN ALL THE DUST/DIRT off the fins in front of the FAN


this link has a PIC of the inside bottom of the unit

Aspire 5315 CPU upgrades and other info

click the thumbnail at the bottom of first post



upgrade the CPU to get rid of a lot of heat... that link has a lot of different links with info

you may also want to update your BIOS

see that link on the same page

i'll buy that laptop if you wanna sell it at a small loss since it is 8 months used and almost out of warranty

[bigozone]

after you have done the above,,

you can downgrade to XP and have a computer that can run more than just the factory installed bloated OS and bloatware the manufacturer adds as well

instructions are in the link in the first post under DOWNGRADING TO XP

be sure to burn your recovery disks using the eRecovery app in the green bar


have fun or sell it to me,, i need another one
bigO

[TheLordsServant]

I did downgrade to XP, and ran it for a few months, but strangely, the overheating problems got WORSE not better. I have tried cleaning the fan out as well, I do it every 60 days on all my laptops. I've never really had a problem with any of them until this one. When it works, it's not bad at all, but it seldom works. I think I'm skilled enough to do a CPU upgrade, I'll have to check that out.

[bigozone]

Originally Posted by TheLordsServant

I did downgrade to XP, and ran it for a few months, but strangely, the overheating problems got WORSE not better. I have tried cleaning the fan out as well, I do it every 60 days on all my laptops. I've never really had a problem with any of them until this one. When it works, it's not bad at all, but it seldom works. I think I'm skilled enough to do a CPU upgrade, I'll have to check that out.

did you have a utility running to keep the fan active when you downgraded to XP... because before BIOS VER 1.34 the fan would not restart after the PC went into sleep mode....

just a thought

i used I8KFANGUI or something like that

later,
bigO

[TheLordsServant]

I used the Acer ePower Management from their website when I used XP

[bigozone]

Originally Posted by TheLordsServant

I used the Acer ePower Management from their website when I used XP

not good enough.... doesn't bring fan back to life after sleep/suspend

gotta use I8Kfan

search at google...........

[ATG]

From your first post I believe its not the CPU that overheats, its the ACPI. Maybe it's a defective battery. Remember the Sony's batteries? Overheat and boom

[TheLordsServant]

It's funny you should say that, atthegates, I came here to post that I believe my battery is the culprit. I can't check the temperature of the battery, but I can tell you that for whatever reason, my battery is only showing 50% capacity, and I can only get 1 hour of batt life, so that sounds about right. Also, the battery is only putting out 9.8 volts. It's rated for 12, I believe, but I know for a fact that it should be higher than 9.8 The voltage output is also all over the place, from 8 to 10. And, without the battery in the computer, it doesn't appear to overheat. Should I contact Acer about this, or would I even get anywhere. I've contacted them several times, and so far, their support is lousy.

[ATG]

Yeah it's the battery alright. I'd contact Acer. But If I were you, I'll tell them that the battery never charges more than 50% and you have lousy battery life without mention voltages or heat whatsoever. You just want to use your warranty. They can't say no to that.