Aspire one D250 freezes

Searched and can't find anybody else having this problem with their D250. I have had mine for about 4 monts and I don't know how I ever lived without it. Very satisfied until now.

It all started when I got a virus or some sort of malware, possably a rootkit. AVG Spybot and Malwarebytes were unsucessful in finding or removing it and I did a system restore (getting the restore disks from acer support was another issue). After the system restore my computer periodically freezes up. If browsing the internet or using programs it will last 1 to 2 hours. Streaming internet radio will freeze it within a half hour, itunes will freeze it in less than 10 minutes, playing a video with windows media player will freeze it in about 3 minutes. I restored it again and have the exact same problem. Thinking it might be the HD I have run HDD regenerator and found no bad sectors. Not sure where to go from here.

 

I checked the temps and the HD is running at 37o C, so I don't think overheating is an issue. Really at a loss on what to do next.

 

I am having the same problem as well. If you wait until it freezes you cant get task manager up or anything else for that matter but the netbook will sound a loud screaming/Buzz sound until you hold the power button down and it shuts off. I've ran AVG and have kept the task manager open watching processes and performance to notice the CPU usage goes to 50% prior to this freezing hapens. OS is XP, 1 gig ram, on D250 model.
Acer suggested update of drivers....did that didn't help.

 

Yeah I thought it might be a driver issue too as it started after I restored the system to factory. I updated the drivers with the avaiable ones from acer's website but still have the same problem. I too get the screaching audio buzz sometimes. It seems to be ok for a little while while browsing the internet and then it becomes unresponsive, then it must be shutdown via the power button. I did put 2 gig's of ram in it but that was the week that I bought it and it was trouble free for four months so thats probablly not the issue. I might swap the old ram back in to see if it makes a difference.

I am out of things to try, anybody?

 

Acer support would like me to uninstall any software that I have added and see if still freezes. I think that this will be a waste of time...

 

Restored it to factory specs with the restore disks for the third time, this time without installing any new programs or uninstalling acers crappy hd cluttering "free" programs and it still freezes up making the high pitched annoying buzz...

 

Updated the BIOS per acer tech support, still freezes...

Also updated drivers again, no different...

Re-installed the original 1 gig ram stick, still freezes...

 

Acer Support also told me to download and run a program called GWSCAN. It was on the Gateway support website and has to be downloaded, unzipped, and then a bootable disk must be burned so you can boot from it. Lucally I have a USB optical drive to use. i ran this program to test thye HD and got the error code 0226, "sector relocation error". I chatted with acer support today and while they didn't tell me what this meant, they did say it was a hardware issue, was covered under warrenty, and would need to be sent in for service to replace part(s).

So now I have to send it in at my own expense for one way shipping. Will let you know how that goes...

 

Screeming, buzzing and clicking sounds coming from a hard drive are NEVER a good sign. In my personal experience, nearly ALL my Seagate hard drives have done this prior to a complete catastrophic failure. The screeming sounds are usually caused by the heads crashing onto the platters. Which may or may not cause bad sectors, as the drive will attempt to recover from whatever error it gets.

Three Seagate HDD's I've had in the last two years have all done this. Considering the fact that three times over I didn't want to lose a terabyte of data I've stripped each drive down to remove the platters. In all three occasions, I have found that through the heads crashing, they're actually ripping the 1mm square head from the armature. Which is where the catastrophic failure comes from. The manufacturer has offered warranty replacement each time, but they will never repair. Always replace, meaning you lose all data.

My suggestion, while you still can, back up everything and anything if you need/can. Considering you've factory restored, you probably won't need this. But I dare say that your hard drive is infact going cactus and will need a replacement.

Try acquiring a replacement drive, even as a temporary measure to test the theory. You will soon notice if it's making the same noises and exhibiting the same symptoms. If the drive is the root cause of the issue, put your old one back in and send for warranty.

P.S Sorry I was late getting this in, but it may help someone else in the future.

 

Thanks for the help, it is the drive and they are replacing it under warrenty, shipped it out today.