Laptop randomly crashing often but resolves itself

rpamatma · 26 Sep 2020

My Acer Nitro 5 (purchased in 2019) often crashes randomly, especially during gaming. Sometimes, my screen just freezes and I am forced to shut down the laptop. When I boot up the device immediately after a crash, I get the following "No Bootable Device" screen

Attachment 299193

In other times, my laptop shows the following error before crashing:
Attachment 299194

After getting this error, the laptop boots up and shows the "no bootable device" screen again.

When I get the "No Bootable Device" screen, I just wait for a while (around 15 minutes) and when I boot up my laptop it works normally, but the laptop working occurs randomly. My laptop is working now but is unreliable.

I checked the BIOS when the laptop works normally and it appears my HDD gets detected (check HDD1 Model Name below)

Attachment 299195

And when I check the BIOS when I get the "No Bootable Device" screen, my HDD does not get detected (notice that in the image below, the BIOS does not recognize the drive in the HDD1 slot)

Attachment 299196

I just did a fresh install of Windows 10 around a month ago and all my drivers are updated. Is there anything I can do to reduce the number of times my laptop crashes? It has consistently been crashing at least once every two days.

thomaseg1 · 26 Sep 2020

You can start by checking the Hard drive (SSD) connection to the motherboard.
when you do have it up run HDtune to check your drive for errors. HD Tune website
then run a memory check (This may take a long time)
To launch the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool, open the Start menu, type “Windows Memory Diagnostic”, and press Enter. You can also press Windows Key + R, type “mdsched.exe” into the Run dialog that appears, and press Enter. You'll need to reboot your computer to perform the test

axe0 · 27 Sep 2020

If you are going to test the memory, I would encourage you to run MemTest86. The built-in memory diagnostics test isn't known for being great.
PassMark MemTest86 - Memory Diagnostic Tool - Technical Information
NOTE: it runs four passes total, but eight passes minimum is what we're looking for. That means you would need to run the test at least two times. If you see any error, you can stop the test immediately as it indicates RAM problems. The number of errors should be zero at most.

I would also like to have a look at the health of the drive(s).
Please go to Download – Crystal Dew World and click the blue zip button which will download a portable version of CrystalDiskInfo. Extract the zip file and run diskinfo64.exe which will ask for administrator rights, please allow it.
CrystalDiskInfo uses 3 colors for indication

Blue = good
Yellow = warning
Red = bad

A little below the menu you'll see drives with each a circle with a color, if any of these is NOT blue please click it.
Before making a screenshot, please do the following
- Go to function > Advanced feature > raw values, change it to 10 [DEC]
- Make sure all attributes are clearly visible
Make a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo and post this screenshot in your next post.

Ztruker · 27 Sep 2020

The Blue screen showa iaSTORAVC.sys as the failing driver:

Driver Description: Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) driver
Driver Update Site: OEM or Drivers & Software

You could try updating it from the ACER Nitro 5 web site or from Intel, see if that makes a difference.

What is the full model number for the system?