Boot and Shutdown Issues on Aspire E 11 model E3-111-C0WA

I am new to Ubuntu and Linux and this was to be my learning project.

I purchased an Aspire E11 model E3-111-C0WA (cheap and had 300GB hard drive)

Used Linux Live USB Creator to create an install thumb drive with the following image: ubuntu-gnome-14.04-desktop-i386.iso

First I changed the boot order (usb drive first), then switch to legacy boot.

Ubuntu installed with no issues, then I opened package manager and went into an update - also with no issues.

Problems began when I tried to shut down. Acer began the shutdown process and then just stopped - froze (not sure the right word). I had to hold down the power button to get it to switch off.

Starting was also problematic. When I press the power button to start I get a black screen and Acer just hangs out there. When I press the power button it switches off completely. When I repeat the process a couple of times Acer will eventually boot normally. On average its about 5 cycles to get a proper boot. Matter of fact I am using Acer to ask this question.

How do I go about correcting this boot/shutdown issue?

I was having the same issue of hangout on startup/shutdown with Ubuntu 14.04 on an Acer E3-111-C9NY, found a solution for it on:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1341925

Basically, you have to blacklist the modules dw_dmac and dw_dmac_core, you do that by adding to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf the following lines:

blacklist dw_dmac
blacklist dw_dmac_core

After that, the laptop start/shutdown/suspend works fine.