Older Acer Travelmate i5 creators update issues

[David Cooper]

I was wondering if anyone has had the same issue and could help. My machine is Acer Travelmate Laptop (dont have the model just now). It was designed for windows 7, has 4GB memory and 500GB HDD, i5 3rd Gen processor. Worked perfectly on Win 7 and I took advantage of the free windows 10 upgrade. I was very happy with the way windows 10 ran on the machine. I used Windows 8 drivers supplied by Acer to make the machine work on Win 10. All was good until the creators update. Now I cant use the system tray icons such as date, time, volume control etc. They come up for half a second and then disappear. While the start button still works, I cant access control panel from the icon nor the shut down options icon (I have to use the power button to shut down). Occasionally the top menu bar flickers on some applications as well.

I have a friend with the same model acer laptop who also upgraded to Win 10 and has had the identical problem when creators update was installed. Unfortunately, restore points wasn't enabled on either machine and rollback on the update isn't available for some reason. Acer only supports drivers for this model up to Windows 8 so im unable to download Windows 10 drivers. I have phoned Microsoft and Acer support who told me that the machine is too old and no longer supported. They suggested I purchase a new computer. There is nothing wrong with my present one and I'm happy with its speed so, naturally, I will try to solve the problem first before having to replace it.

Is there some sort of patch or workaround for this problem?

 

[Norton]

The Fall Creator update 1709.16299.19 made some changes with Cortana and Windows Defender.
I'm now PC guru, but, I would think if your PC worked fine with Win 10 ver 1703, it should work on ver 1709. First, I would create a backup system image, and disable any 3rd party AV programs and Cortana, shutdown and reboot. Easy done nothing to loose.

 

[David Cooper]

The Fall Creator update 1709.16299.19 made some changes with Cortana and Windows Defender.
I'm now PC guru, but, I would think if your PC worked fine with Win 10 ver 1703, it should work on ver 1709. First, I would create a backup system image, and disable any 3rd party AV programs and Cortana, shutdown and reboot. Easy done nothing to loose.

Thanks Norton. I will be back with the machine tomorrow so will give it a go

 

[Norton]

Acer compatibility Win 10
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/windows10s-compatible-list

 

[Wolfie]

Also check to see if there are drivers available for your laptop model if you can, relying on the MS drivers can cause problems if the drivers are generic!.

 

[David Cooper]

Thanks Wolfie. I have tried Norton's advice of making sure all 3rd party AVs are disabled and turning off Cortana (I did this via the registry and rebooted). Unfortunately the same problem is still happening. Any system tray icon in the taskbar (eg clock, wifi, power, on/off/standy/log off) brings up the applet briefly then it disappears from the screen (less than half second like a flash). All apps work ok except sometimes the address bar flickers when trying to type in it in browsers.

I tried going back to the drivers I used when originally installing windows 10. They are the genuine ACER drivers for windows 8.1 from their website. Still the same problem. Interestingly, if I run the computer in safe mode with no drivers loaded, the same problem exists. ie no VGA driver, the applets still won't run. I put my friend's old windows 7 hard drive into my machine and it works perfectly on windows 7 (apart from wanting to be re-activated). I don't believe I have any hardware issues.

As I say, this has only happened since the fall creators edition loaded. The earlier windows 10 ran perfectly. Unfortunately, I have no restore points to load.

 

[Wolfie]

HI David,

can you find out what model it is then we can advise you further, if it is Nvidia; go here and install them via option 2:

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx

For AMD (Automatically detect drivers):

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

Intel (Windows 10, 32 or 64 bit download/Auto installer):

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24345/Intel-Driver-Support-Assistant

 

[David Cooper]

Thanks Wolfie. It is Acer Travelmate P653-M-53214G50. Manufactured in Aug 2012. The hardware is as follows :

Intel HD Graphics 4000
Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset
Intel i5 - 3210M (Dual core with hyperthreading) 2.5 GHz

I will try the driver you suggested and post again.

 

[David Cooper]

I tried the auto intel downloader but it said I had the latest driver installed. It tried to load a centrino wireless driver but the 80 MB download failed for some reason. I'm curious to disable the graphics driver in my old desktop at home (which is running Win 10 Creators quite ok) to see if the system icons stop working like they do in the travelmate. As I said in an earlier post, the same problem exists when the graphics driver is disabled such as in safe mode.

 

[Wolfie]

HI David,

you could also try dropping the resolution rate to see if that is part of the problem?.

Settings > System > Display > Resolution and drop it down a bit (go down one level), log out then back in again to see if things have improved.

 

[David Cooper]

Hi Wolfie, I tried dropping the resolution to 800 x 600 and restarted but the sys tray icons still don't work. I also tried deleting the VGA driver and running in basic mode but still no work on the icons. Its like somethings missing in the way the computer deals with win 10 creators edition. I also tried running the screen in portrait mode but still no work on systray icons. My friend has the same identical laptop and has exactly the same problem as me since his machine restarted after the creators update. Like me, win10 didn't automatically turn on restore point and doesn't allow update rollback.

 

[Norton]

David Have you run sfc /scannow to see if it can locate a corrupt file.
Right click on command prompt and run as administrator.
You wouldn't happen to be running in the Tablet Mode would you. Just a thought.

 

[Wolfie]

Hi David,

further to Norton's suggestions, you could try download a fresh copy of the ISO and create a new bootable USB stick then use the repair tools at boot time.

Media creation tool form here, click on "Download tool now":

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

See these threads for more info about repair/recovery/troubleshooting:

https://www.windows10forums.com/articles/reset-windows-10-when-windows-wont-boot.14/

https://www.windows10forums.com/articles/reset-windows-10-from-within-windows.13/

See also:

https://www.windows10forums.com/thr...ws-10-to-the-latest-version.13015/#post-73822