I just picked up my lovely Acer 4005 laptop with all the bells and whistles.

The operating system is XP64 and it crashes when I'm dial-up surfing. Can't turn it off and must remove the battery for a moment.

Help, please.

Anytime you have a system freeze you can recover by holding down the power button for about 5 seconds solid; on any machine this will result in a physical power down. And as far as your problems, why not take it up with Acer?

Depends.. I have had lots of PC issues and lockups that needed a battery pull rather then press and hold on the off / on key..

I think it's nearer 10 or 15 seconds