Passed memtest but ultrabook frequently locks up, becomes unusable

[xeitgeixt]

Have an Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook. Nifty and thin.

Was working fine until one day the system froze up like nobody's business.

Couldn't boost past the Acer logo. Uh oh. Couldn't even do a factory reset. Things were bad.

After a long haul and several late night pepperoni pizzas, was able to do a factory reset.

Decided to run a memtest. Yay, I passed. No hardware issues or so I think.

Now the system works for a space of time but then locks up severely or 'skips' every now and then as though memtest kept something secret from me.

Onboard memory. 4gb of ram. Checked around to see if the hdd cable was loose. Tried everything.

Thoughts? Its just getting to be that I can't use this damn PC.

 

[C12Friedman]

Although new enough I normally wouldn't consider it yet, I'm going to go with overheating as a possible cause of your issues here. I will suggest running coretemp http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ and seeing what it reports for temps. Under normal use, what surface is the laptop used on?

 

[xeitgeixt]

Although new enough I normally wouldn't consider it yet, I'm going to go with overheating as a possible cause of your issues here. I will suggest running coretemp http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ and seeing what it reports for temps. Under normal use, what surface is the laptop used on?

Ultrabook is normally used on a flat, cool surface. Overheating may be the issue- and thanks for the coretemp suggestion.

From what I now understand, Acer machines commonly employ a low grade/faulty fan which often clogs with dust or outright ceases to function.

A good cleaning of the fan may resolve the issue.

I am interested in a few other suggestions however before moderators close down the thread.

 

[xeitgeixt]

So the temperature is just fine. Overheating is not the issue.

I contacted Acer support. Still under warranty. They said to send in the machine and they'll repair the defective hardware for free (if it is defective hardware).

However, if any one else has an opinion, please suggest it here before I ship this beast off and wait an approximate two weeks just to get it back in my fingers.

Constant freezing. Sometimes not however- like right now. Things are running quite smoothly. Moments later though, BOOM. Its back to square one.

Passed memtest. Windows memory diagnostics and start up repair. All is in good order (or so the friendly messages on my screen say).

But if this was defective hardware, wouldn't such be recognized by memtest or other utilities?

Confused.

 

[C12Friedman]

Two diagnostics tools that you may be interested in trying before sending your PC off are SIW (works from windows) http://www.gtopala.com/ and Hiren's BootCD http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ usually used when things are really bad and you can't get into windows