Windows issues occasional freezes on the Acer Aspire ES1-521.
Windows issues occasional freezes on the Acer Aspire ES1-521.
Hi, I need assistance with my Acer Aspire ES1-521 (AMD A8-6410 with AMD R5 Graphics and 8GB DDR RAM). The issue began a few months ago, but I haven’t used the laptop much so it was just sitting on a shelf. It starts freezing every few seconds—about half a second after turning it on, and it lasts around 0.5 seconds before resuming. Running it longer doesn’t seem to make a difference. I cleaned it carefully and applied new thermal paste before installing a new HDD and OS. Both the 120GB SSD and 1.5TB HDD checked out fine. BIOS was updated. It freezes in Windows 10, after a fresh install, and also in Windows 11 (just to confirm). It doesn’t freeze on Win Server 2019, Linux Ubuntu, or Debian. All drivers are up to date from the manufacturers’ sites. I checked Task Manager, nothing unusual. Temperatures looked normal with HW Monitor. Set power settings to high performance. Ran Event Viewer and everything appeared okay. Tried disconnecting peripherals like CD-ROM and keyboard—no impact. Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic, no errors. Checked both HDD and SSD, still clean. Applied a Windows Debloater on Windows 10, but it didn’t help. My priority is to keep using Windows 10, as it’s for my wife, so Linux isn’t an option. Thank you for your help.