Acer Aspire V5 computer running slow and freezing - any help please? (1 Viewer)

Jul 4, 2010
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Bought an Acer Aspire Notebook, the V5 model 2 years ago just to use when travelling. Hasn't been used since June so as we are off again soon decided to load all the updates from Win 10, Bullguard etc.

So updated 4 programs all very good, a little slow as it always is compared to the desktop but all within reasonable limits.

Loading a new map into the Garmin Base Camp program and a familiar message appeared that the maps would only be shown in 2D and not 3D, but this time it reported that a particular driver was missing and to find and download it.

Got there with that but had to remove the AMD Radeon graphics software first using their removal tool, then was pointed in the right direction to load the new up to date Radeon software.
In between times I ran the Acer for a few minutes without any Radeon software loaded at all and the computer was an amount faster, not lightning fast but faster.

As I have never had the option of seeing maps in 3D with the Acer it later occurred to me that possibly the Radeon graphics had never been working just the simple system graphics, but I can't say that for sure.

Have since loaded the correct Radeon software and now have 3D mapping, but now the screen and or the cursor freezes constantly, over 5 minutes to open from scratch, 4 minutes to close down fully. Most actions are now 5 - 10 times slower but a few are not such as opening a folder.

The Acer came with Win 8.1 and has been updated to Win 10 a while ago, this made no great difference for this basic machine.

Have tried all clean-up measures but haven't as yet carried out a complete re-set as no time to remove all our data and apps, but don't want to go back to W 8.1 anyway, and that's the only route with a reset shown.

My question. Is there a way to wipe the original W 8.1 and load a full W 10 program without having to buy a new operating system? If there is can anyone point me in the right direction please as this machine requires enormous patience to use at the moment which is a shame as it has a fabulous real keyboard and screen in an 11" Notebook and was a pleasure to use on the go.

Many thanks for reading so far.
 

pappajohn

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3D software may be very memory hungry.
Try uninstalling and see if that speeds it up.
You can always reinstall later but will either confirm or deny issued with Radeon software.
 

Steve

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win 10 can be a dam nuisance with its large updates. i find that not being connected to the cloud will help. Plenty of ram as much as it will take is also good. As said have a look at what is running in the background and turn off/remove what you don’t use/want.

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TheBig1

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when the update is applied to move to win 10 the system saves the win 8.1 files too. you need to delete these to allow more free space for temporary memory. plus you dont need the full retail radeon graphics files, just the display driver. if its trying to render 3d graphics that is far too processor intensive and will freeze the system
 

Jim

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Best advice I can give is buy a Mac :) I can't help you now, but once you are up and running again you can save yourself a lot of pain. so whenever you have issues in the future you can with no help, no messing about, get your PC back running fast virus free in 15 minutes.

Here's what I used to do when I ran windows machines. Thing is I never had a Windows machine that did not get slower and slower and s-l-o-w-e-r over time.

What you need to do is get the machine running sweet, with all your programs installed. Once you are happy with it. Then take some disk images of the hard drive. I used to use Acronis. And would take more than one and on different media. DVD, thumb drive, portable hard drive etc.

Make sure that all your work is saved in a single folder "My Documents" and this is backed up regularly.

Then when your Windows machine slows up (it will). Ensure you have your document backups and then restore the disk image. In about ten minutes your machine will be back good as new.

Download a virus, no problem restore a disk image, Disk corrupts, no problem restore the images onto a new disk. There are cheaper or free disk imaging solutions but I never used them.

Best of luck (y)
 
Dec 28, 2015
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Same happened to me and I chipped away at it bit by bit.
Ust task manager to see what is gobbling up mem or disk
Our probs were
1. Avg , never had probs before . Had to uninstall and manually delete directory and all processes several times. Changed to avast for free antivirus
2. Got rid of chrome as it was opening many episodes and crashing
3. Looked at startup and disabled anything I didn't want
4. Skype is a huge resource sink, so don't startup unless you need it.

There were more but I can't remember

Just keep looking

Hope this helps

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OP
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Thank you all, have about 3 weeks before 7 weeks of travel so hope to have it sorted by then.

Although didn't go to bed last night trying to get to the bottom of this I can't either go without sleep for too long and we have plenty of work to do before the off. So my approach is to get Bullguard to run another sweep this evening and in a couple of days with a little more time will uninstall the AMD Radeon completely and see what has changed as you suggest pappajohn.

I think backing it all up is a good idea and as it is not our primary computer there's not too much data or many apps loaded onto it. It doesn't feel like it's slowing down due to too much on the hard disk, it's less than 10% full. I feel that something has happened with the graphics software but nothing obvious, with the updated software it all works a little better than before.

Unless there is a major as yet undetected problem then probably the bit by bit approach will work, but while the notebook is in this state I thought it may be possible to by-pass the W 8.1 and load the full W 10 if there's no cost involved, but maybe that's not possible. We have a laptop with W 10 and it's ok for us although feels awkward compared to W 7 on the desktop.

Thanks again, please keep the ideas coming as probably the answer is a combination of it all.

Jim, sorry but a Mac is not for me. What we would we do if we didn't have a major computer breakdown every 18 months? What else is there to force us repeatably to keep up to date while being subjected to mental agony? Microsoft take this burden on their shoulders without complaint.

Good try though, almost vulnerable after no sleep and I know you mean well, thanks.
 

DBK

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There is a way, but regrettably I can't remember how to do it, to make a W10 installation disk after the W10 "free" upgrade. I made one because after the upgrade I asked myself what happens if my PC dies and I want to reinstall the OS? What I now have is a disk which I could boot from and after formatting the HD install W10.

I can't help much further other than a massive warning over doing a new install on a laptop. In my experience they need lots of odd drivers which may have to be installed from the Asus website. I suggest first trying to roll back to an earlier restore point first - if W10 has them!

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Jul 13, 2008
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You said updating from 8.1 to 10 made little difference so I wouldn't go back to 8.1. This 3D driver sounds suspicious, try uninstalling that and installing the earlier graphics driver. If you go into task manager, what percentage if CPU is been used?
 
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OK, found it!

It appears that updating from W8 to W8.1 was the start of the problem, updating further to W10 didn't do anything to help. It may or may not be exclusively associated with the AMD graphics card, drivers and software, but plenty others have had the exact same problems with the exact same graphics.
As guessed at by others by removing the entire software for the AMD Radeon graphics has put the notebook back to where it was, most of what happened to me is documented here

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...r/498aabe0-927d-4bbf-95dc-56df0c1c4f01?auth=1

I followed the message that started to appear after the screen went black (not blue) "thread stuck in device driver". This happened once the previous night but I just caught the end of the message before it disappeared, but happened every time at some point within 20 minutes of starting the notebook last night. After reading the above and other threads it all became clear. How silly of me to expect those 3 tiny under resourced companies, Acer, AMD and Microsoft to be able to clear up a major problem of software compatibility within 3 years of it rearing it's head. The Acer website has drivers that are 3 years out of date. The AMD website has 2016 drivers that caused the problem, Microsoft faff around going 'whoa is me' (or should that be whoa is you?) you poor customer without coming up with a fix.

That apart I'm happy that almost all aspects of the notebook are back to working slightly better than before as much have been altered or dumped. It's running on basic W10 graphics software but don't care about wonderful graphics for this notebook, it's just to keep us in touch so we can reply to business emails on the move and researching a bit, and it does all that again.

I think there are other issues now that weren't there before and will try to go through every aspect of the software as per recommendations here, but it's working in basic everyday mode so ok for the moment.

I think I want to install W10 as a clean install. Read about other problems associated with upgrading from W8 to W8.1 so want to remove that basic system program completely. Will it be best to pay for Acer or a professional to remove and install the software (also want some more RAM) or just buy another notebook with only W10 installed?

Thanks again for all the help, great forum.
 

DBK

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I think I want to install W10 as a clean install. Read about other problems associated with upgrading from W8 to W8.1 so want to remove that basic system program completely. Will it be best to pay for Acer or a professional to remove and install the software (also want some more RAM) or just buy another notebook with only W10 installed?
A quick check suggests a new copy of W10 Home version will be around £90 add in a few hours of time for a local computer shop and you could be looking at nearly £200 but you can only get a quote to be sure.

If the laptop is getting on a bit I suggest looking at buying a new one - but if you only want it for basic email and web use then have a look at Chrome Books - though when I am away I do all my stuff on a Nexus 9 Android tablet. Unless you have a specific need for a Windows machine it is worth considering alternatives. I have Adobe Light Room and Photoshop on my home PC but when away I can access Light Room mobile which offers basic picture editing features - though Google Photos does enough for 90% of my needs when away. Most of the shots I've published on my blogs here have been through Google Photos to give them a little more impact.

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Once Windows is downloaded to your PC, I'm sure you can do a clean install. Or do a factory reset.
 

DBK

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If I buy and install a new full copy of W10 from a DVD or flash drive, how are the old system(s) removed completely? Is it part of the new installation that removes the previous systems or do I have to use the current restore option to remove everything (and does it remove everything?) before installing a new system

Thanks
 

DBK

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If I buy and install a new full copy of W10 from a DVD or flash drive, how are the old system(s) removed completely? Is it part of the new installation that removes the previous systems or do I have to use the current restore option to remove everything (and does it remove everything?) before installing a new system

Thanks
The new installation can format the hard disk, this will erase everything on the disk. However, if it's like other versions of Windows the setup will offer options such as to repair or keep the old version. It isn't obvious how to get it to do what you want in my experience as the descriptions of the choices are a bit terse/cryptic. Easy peasy for those who do it everyday but not for those who do it irregularly like me. :)

By all means give it a go but if you haven't done this before it could be a steep learning curve. For example, if the laptop isn't set to boot from the CD/DVD drive first you will need to go into the setup and alter it, otherwise when you put the W10 disk in it will be ignored. Also, there may be drivers needed which aren't on the W10 disk and you will need to find them. It's very satisfying when it's all done but be prepared to devote a few days to it. :)

An option worth considering is to buy a new hard disk, you probably need a 2.5" one and they are generally easy to fit and not expensive. You could try fitting an SSD "disk" instead of a conventional hard disk, this will give you a very fast boot up but it isn't something I can advise on, having not tried one - yet. The advantage of fitting a new disk is if it all goes pear shaped you can always put the old one back in. It will also ensure any nasties on the old disk which can survive a format, and there are such things, will be left behind.
 
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I was having similar problems using Firefox. Stopped using it now and problems gone away.

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Jul 13, 2008
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If I buy and install a new full copy of W10 from a DVD or flash drive, how are the old system(s) removed completely? Is it part of the new installation that removes the previous systems or do I have to use the current restore option to remove everything (and does it remove everything?) before installing a new system

Thanks
Shouldn't have to purchase a new copy if you already have 10 downloaded and installed.
 
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Shouldn't have to purchase a new copy if you already have 10 downloaded and installed.

But I don't want to overlay anything that may remain from W 8 and W8.1, is it possible to say categorically that only a new W10 will be installed?

Thanks DBK, I appreciate it may end up being a long drawn out process and a very steep learning curve but I am patient and love a challenge, not sure how much time I can give it though.

We're in the US in a few weeks time, if I decide to go the new system route is it probable that genuine full software is a lot cheaper there?
 
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Once windows 10 is installed and activated you can do a fresh install from your DVD media, choose new install and format your drives completely, choose SKIP when asked for a product key, this info is now stored on Microsoft's servers, ( providing you have installed and activated it previously on the SAME hardware) after a few moments and with internet connection it will re-activate itself and be fully working but now all fresh with no crap from previous upgrades.
Also consider a non intrusive Anti Virus like ESET.

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OP
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Thanks Mark but the W10 that is installed is the free upgrade after starting with W8, which morphed into W8.1 and then W10, so no DVD
 
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The free Upgrade will entitle you to a Legal, Valid installation of Windows 10, the DVD media may be downloaded from here:
Windows 10 Media
Have a look at the section entitled "using the tool to create installation media"
Any probs let me know.
 
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Very kind of you. We have rain in a couple of days, I'll take a day off and give it a go

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DBK

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But I don't want to overlay anything that may remain from W 8 and W8.1, is it possible to say categorically that only a new W10 will be installed?

Thanks DBK, I appreciate it may end up being a long drawn out process and a very steep learning curve but I am patient and love a challenge, not sure how much time I can give it though.

We're in the US in a few weeks time, if I decide to go the new system route is it probable that genuine full software is a lot cheaper there?
I would be careful buying software from the US unless you can be sure it will work in Europe. It probably will but you never know. However, reading the subsequent posts I think you are now planning to download the media disk, which is what I did.

Do let us know how you get on - or if it doesn't go to plan will we ever hear from you again? :) I've installed new operating systems on a couple of laptops and there is lots of other experience on here, so don't hesitate to ask for advice. Good luck!
 
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Decided to leave the update until we have returned from holiday as if it takes too much time to achieve a clean install or something goes wrong we'll be travelling without our notebook and we don't use smartphones. It's working ok with the basic graphics but do want to have a faster proper W10 on it so will come back to this thread at the end of October ish when we're back.

Thanks
 
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