Ok, so I apologize in advance for the long post that I'm sure this is going to end up being.
Just a little background on my situation:
A few months ago my dads Acer laptop [5515 series, Model #KAW60] starting having issues with the screen coming on. took it to a local computer shop [will not be doing business with them again mind you]. after about 2 days of them having it they called and said it was fixed, to come pick it up. first of all they said that they would calll before they fixed anything to make sure I had the money to fix it. so upon paying the guy tells me it was just a bad stick of RAM, something I could've fixed on my own, for less than half the money had I known the issue. No big deal, paid the guy and was on my way home. later that night we booted it up for the first time after the fix, all is well except for the fact that we cant connect to our wireless network, or even see any networks at all. after some snooping I found out that the driver for his network adapter was no longer installed. after multiple attempts of downloading and installing different drivers with no luck, I decided to try a system restore to the last point before we had the computer worked on. after this the computer worked fine for a while.
In the next few days however, we started getting numerous "windows explorer has stopped working" errors, and even a blue screen every now and again. but after the blue screens it would boot back up fine. after a few weeks of this same stuff continuing I decided to do a fresh install of windows. there were no files needed to be backed up, as my dad just uses it to get on the internet. this particular laptop did not come with a system restore disc so I had to order it from Acer. upon ordering it and getting it, I start reinstalling windows and it gets to 6% and dosent go any further for about 10 minutes, after that 10 minutes or so i get an error message saying "installation failed: press OK to restart". I sent an email to acer tech support telling them the issue and after a few back and forth replies they said that I needed to format the hard disk to a single partion in NTFS format, and gave me a link to software to do so. I downloaded the software, burned it to a disk and did what they said. still the same problem. I emailed back and was basically told that they could give me no further help, and for more assistance I would have to use their "pay for support phone assistance". That's not an option for me as I dont have any spare money at the moment.
After this letdown I to try Ubuntu, a free alternative that I've heard some pretty good things about. I go to the Ubuntu website and download the latest release, install it with no problems at all. It works fine except that it wont connect to our wireless network, our neighbor has an unsecure network so I gave theirs a shot and it connected no problem. our network had a password so i thought that may have been the problem, I removed the password and still no luck. I read up on Ubuntu and connection issues online and found multiple sources saying that 9.1 didnt have the connection issues that 10.04 did. I downloaded 9.1 and installed it, and once you enter your password at the login screen the loading screen passes and the screen comes up black and dosent go anywhere, the mouse is there and you can move it but thats it.
From here I have no idea as to where to go, or what to try. any help at all would be greatly appreciated. again I apologize for the long post and hope that someone decides to read it.
Thanks again.
Just a little background on my situation:
A few months ago my dads Acer laptop [5515 series, Model #KAW60] starting having issues with the screen coming on. took it to a local computer shop [will not be doing business with them again mind you]. after about 2 days of them having it they called and said it was fixed, to come pick it up. first of all they said that they would calll before they fixed anything to make sure I had the money to fix it. so upon paying the guy tells me it was just a bad stick of RAM, something I could've fixed on my own, for less than half the money had I known the issue. No big deal, paid the guy and was on my way home. later that night we booted it up for the first time after the fix, all is well except for the fact that we cant connect to our wireless network, or even see any networks at all. after some snooping I found out that the driver for his network adapter was no longer installed. after multiple attempts of downloading and installing different drivers with no luck, I decided to try a system restore to the last point before we had the computer worked on. after this the computer worked fine for a while.
In the next few days however, we started getting numerous "windows explorer has stopped working" errors, and even a blue screen every now and again. but after the blue screens it would boot back up fine. after a few weeks of this same stuff continuing I decided to do a fresh install of windows. there were no files needed to be backed up, as my dad just uses it to get on the internet. this particular laptop did not come with a system restore disc so I had to order it from Acer. upon ordering it and getting it, I start reinstalling windows and it gets to 6% and dosent go any further for about 10 minutes, after that 10 minutes or so i get an error message saying "installation failed: press OK to restart". I sent an email to acer tech support telling them the issue and after a few back and forth replies they said that I needed to format the hard disk to a single partion in NTFS format, and gave me a link to software to do so. I downloaded the software, burned it to a disk and did what they said. still the same problem. I emailed back and was basically told that they could give me no further help, and for more assistance I would have to use their "pay for support phone assistance". That's not an option for me as I dont have any spare money at the moment.
After this letdown I to try Ubuntu, a free alternative that I've heard some pretty good things about. I go to the Ubuntu website and download the latest release, install it with no problems at all. It works fine except that it wont connect to our wireless network, our neighbor has an unsecure network so I gave theirs a shot and it connected no problem. our network had a password so i thought that may have been the problem, I removed the password and still no luck. I read up on Ubuntu and connection issues online and found multiple sources saying that 9.1 didnt have the connection issues that 10.04 did. I downloaded 9.1 and installed it, and once you enter your password at the login screen the loading screen passes and the screen comes up black and dosent go anywhere, the mouse is there and you can move it but thats it.
From here I have no idea as to where to go, or what to try. any help at all would be greatly appreciated. again I apologize for the long post and hope that someone decides to read it.
Thanks again.
