Acer Aspire 4738 laptop intermittent shut off

Hi,
I have been using this Acer Aspire 4738 laptop for many years with no issue. Running windows 7 and use for my daily work but for last two months it is shutting off intermittently. Complete blank display, sometimes it shows blue screen and asked me to restart.
After restart it still the same problem of shutting off after about 2 min running. I have changed to another internal hard disk to see if it is a software issue but sadly it is not. Also i have replaced new thermal paste and new thermal fan but the same problem occur. The power adapter is tested 19vdc from my dmm.
Can anyone kindly assist in helping to solve the intermittent problem? Thank you in advance.

 

Hi,
Attached two image of aspire 4738 motherboard and thermal fan unit.
Hope it will help. Thank you.

 

Hi Martin,
Appreciate your reply. Initially when i thought it might be the hard disk, so i swap a Windows xp installed hdd. It lasts about 10 minutes running Windows xp, then it goes blank.
It is a regret i didn't keep an identical hdd as backup. Nor do i have any restore disks.
Whenever i restart the laptop from cold, it brings up a screen saying "windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change.....launch startup repair or start windows normally". I had selected both option of repair and start normal. The repair action is restore and result is completed successfully. Sadly after restore i still can't get into windows. It is surprising that pressing F8 key also unable to lead me to safe mode. Is the windows software corrupted?
Thanks for being patient enough. I hope for your answer on so many questions.

 

Hi,
I tried changed a new 1GB ddr3 ram and assume the old ram is spoiled. Turned on the laptop, go to bios and saw the ram. Restart but windows still failed to boot. It is the same blue screen. That means it is not a ram memory problem.
Can anyone help me on this?
Thanks for any advice out there to fix this issue.

 

Hi Martin,
As you suggested, i took out the hdd and switched on laptop. It displays " no bootable device. Insert boot disk...." It continues on more than 10 min without shut down. Later, i removed the laptop battery and run from mains.
I inserted Ubuntu live cd and run it for an hour with no shut down. No blue screen or black display or intermittent shut down. From your help it looks like we are reaching towards somewhere now. I hope this is a good sign.
Do advice on what is the next step to remedy this laptop to full use. Thank you.
Michael

 

Hi Martin,
Back to your questions, the fan continue to spin with or without hdd.
This Aspire 4738 laptop is a 64 bit os but the hdd running win xp is a 32 bit system. The system crash when i try boot using the xp hdd. Maybe due to a different bit system detected.
The other day you had suggested i removed the Win 7 hdd and run linux which i tried. The live cd runs with no hitch. So i had the idea of putting the problematic Win 7 hdd in an external case and perform check disk at my friend laptop which is running Win 7.
Using his Mini partition tool feature, i click the Rebuild MBR on my hdd since my Win hdd has a boot problem.
Later i installed this hdd in my Aspire laptop and voila! It boots direct to Win 7 and i test run it for hours last night. Shut down and start test again this morning. It runs smooth and browse internet like before.
Well, many thanks to you and few others who has been patiently helping to get this laptop to working condition.

 

Hi,
Sad to inform this morning the laptop show blue screen displaying "A problem has been detected....the system encountered an uncorrectable hardware error. Tech info stop:0X00000124"
Guessed i had celebrate too early by not doing enough on further test run.
I did what i did earlier by rebuild MBR again but this time the hdd do not boot normal to Windows. I ran out of what to do next.
Can anyone help me on this? Thank you.

 

Hi Martin,
Fyi, the hdd no clicking noise. I had checked for virus. Nothing found.
I had tried with a different hdd running a working Win 7 professional loan from another laptop. The Win 7 os boots properly, then i play a movie which just run about 2 minutes, then the laptop just reboots back to the screen before bios. It is a strange problem that the laptop just auto reboots even with a completely different hdd. Just can't seem to figure out why is this happening.
I think it may stir the same problem if i install Ubuntu. But it is not possible to install Ubuntu as the laptop does not run more than 5 minutes.

 

Hi Bertus,
Yes, the laptop has a cd drive.
I will try run Hiren boot cd and hope it keeps running. Wait for my report then. Thanks.

 

Hi Bertus,
It runs and boots from Hiren boot cd and i keep it running for hours. Then i use Avast to scan the hdd, resolved the issue created by Google Chrome. Maybe Google Chrome crash or conflict with my Windows 7. I uninstalled Google Chrome and use Mozilla Firefox now.
Restart Windows 7 after virus scan and installed Firefox. This time i will shutdown and restart few times and run the os for another week to see if it stays. Hope it is.