theories why my netbook croaked?

[Tom_ZeCat]

I have two netbooks, an Acer Aspire one 532-2588 and an Asus Eee PC 1015 PEB. On the former I have installed Linux Mint/KDE 32, on the latter I have Kubuntu 32. The former has just died on me. Fortunately, it's the most expendable of the two.

I was working on a friend's old Dell Windows XP Desktop. The plan is to make it a dual boot w/ Kubuntu. I had the desktop plugged into a surge protector and copied a bunch of its files to an external hard drive. Later I decided to copy those same files from that same external drive to another one. However, I decided to do it with my Acer netbook. I had it plugged into that same surge protector (really just for convenience because its charger should have surge protection). I had two external hard drives each plugged into a usb port and a Logitech mouse plugged into its last usb port. I had it booted to Windows 7 and was coping a large number of files from one external drive to the other with a utility named Total Commander. I went off to do other things and when I came back the computer was dead. At first I thought the battery had died, but then I remembered it was plugged in.

Any ideas? Was it bad practice to plug both this netbook and a desktop PC into the same surge protector for some reason? Or was it bad to use the netbook to copy a lot of files from one external hard drive to another? They were both portable external drives, btw, the ones that plug into a usb port with no external power source.

I tried plugging it in overnight and then starting it with battery only this morning. No dice. The thing won't start up. . This is the netbook that previously was dedicated to running Windows 7 and Magic Jack for me. Since I quit using Magic Jack, it's no longer a computer that's used very much, but I was planning on maybe turning it into a jukebox PC with Amarok.

At least I still have my Asus.

Edit: Okay, this is weird. Immediately after I finished writing this, I plugged the little Acer in, hit start, and the thing booted up. WTF? It must be playing jealous games with me because it's my only Mint/KDE computer with the other two being Kubuntu.

[life0riley]

I have a few thoughts on this.

First (Capacitor age on the motherboard): How old is the Acer Aspire One 532-2588? I looked it up oneline and it looks like it dates back to 2010. I had an older desktop fail to boot to the desktop. After a lot of googling I read something about capacitor aging. It said that older mother boards can draw a lot more energy. I didn't see anything about the power supply for that. The fix for my old desktop was to replace the 300 watt power supply with a 500 watt power supply. After that it booted to the desktop without issue.

Second (overheating): Do you think the Acer Aspire One 532-2588 overheated while copying the files over?

Third (dirty power): What is the rating of the surge protector plug strip you were using? Did you have both plugged into that same plug strip when you tried again after posting?

Another possibility is the hard drive on the Acer Aspire One 532-2588. Is it starting to fail?

What do you mean it died? What did it do? What happened when you pressed the power button?

[Tom_ZeCat]

I have a few thoughts on this.

First (Capacitor age on the motherboard): How old is the Acer Aspire One 532-2588? I looked it up oneline and it looks like it dates back to 2010. I had an older desktop fail to boot to the desktop. After a lot of googling I read something about capacitor aging. It said that older mother boards can draw a lot more energy. I didn't see anything about the power supply for that. The fix for my old desktop was to replace the 300 watt power supply with a 500 watt power supply. After that it booted to the desktop without issue.

Second (overheating): Do you think the Acer Aspire One 532-2588 overheated while copying the files over?

Third (dirty power): What is the rating of the surge protector plug strip you were using? Did you have both plugged into that same plug strip when you tried again after posting?

Another possibility is the hard drive on the Acer Aspire One 532-2588. Is it starting to fail?

What do you mean it died? What did it do? What happened when you pressed the power button?

You're probably right about this netbook being from about 2010. I got it used at a pawn shop. I think it is possible that it overheated. It's still relatively hot here and we're not overusing our air conditioner. When I tried again after posting, it was no longer plugged into that same plug strip. I don't think the hard drive is starting to fail. It hasn't shown any of the classic signs of a hard drive going bad such as occasionally coming up "no OS found" or simply not booting. Last night, this simply went completely dead when I was not looking. It was copying files and I went to do something else and came back to find it completely dead.

Fortunately, I would not have lost any data. I would not lose any data even if somehow, against all odds, all three of my laptops died at the same time. I keep all my data on dual thumb drives. For example, I have one named "writing" and another named "writing_bk", and I keep them synchronized and identical.

[Snowhog]

Your battery could be on it's last legs too.

[millusions]

it's a big mystery! one of those things!
as mentioned before, maybe the power supply ran dry...

speaking of good/bad practice, wouldnt it be better to boot linux to copy large amounts of data?
thats what i do on my only dual boot machine.. when finish editing/sorting itunes library, back to kubuntu and to usb3 external hard disk (i think its about 90 gigs at the moment).
at least the computer is usable when im doing this, not doing the windows crawl

+ and you can see exactly how much time it will take, not the windows bollocks - showing 2 hours then 40 minutes, then 3 hours and so forth.

[GreyGeek]

In 2010 I bought my wife an Acer Aspire One D521 notebook computer. I added 1GB of RAM to it, which made all the difference in the world with its speed. It has been running Kubuntu 14.04 since I upgraded to it from 12.04 using the Konsole to do it, instead of burning an ISO and reinstalling fresh. The upgrade was perfect and that little box continues to run like a jewel. She keeps it plugged in when she isn't using it but ALWAYS uses it with the batter as the power source. Her most recent long distance run with it was a couple months ago during which it was on for between 2 and 3 hours and still had some battery life left. IIRC, I got it through Amazon as an after XMass fire sale for about $260, supposedly down from $500. Regardless, it has been worth every penny and as reliable as the rock of Gibraltar.

As someone pointed out, however, capacitors age, mobos crack, bad things happen and the electronic gremlins will take advantage of every possibility. But, I keep it clean, keep the airways blown out, and always make sure it is plugged in when not in use. Four years in, if it dies it dies. Since my wife's only tasks with it are browsing and emailing (through her google account) if it does die then a $200 Chomebook will probably replace it.

[Tom_ZeCat]

it's a big mystery! one of those things!
as mentioned before, maybe the power supply ran dry...

speaking of good/bad practice, wouldnt it be better to boot linux to copy large amounts of data?
thats what i do on my only dual boot machine.. when finish editing/sorting itunes library, back to kubuntu and to usb3 external hard disk (i think its about 90 gigs at the moment).
at least the computer is usable when im doing this, not doing the windows crawl

+ and you can see exactly how much time it will take, not the windows bollocks - showing 2 hours then 40 minutes, then 3 hours and so forth.

I thought of that, but I wanted to mass copy with Total Commander, which is a Windows program. I guess I could install that thing under WINE if I wanted to.

[mbohets]

Krusader is a good alternative for Total commander, use this instead of having to install total commander in wine.
You can install it via software center or another package manager.
more info: see http://www.krusader.org/