Troubleshooting a failing laptop
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My dad had a similar problem with an Acer laptop he bought. It would hang forever though. He'd take it back to the shop and they simply replaced it the system rather than repaired it. Twice. A third time, this time they upgraded his computer to a different model. When it happened a fourth time, dad returned the laptop and asked for his money back. They gave it back to him without a fuss. Now he has a Toshiba which runs like a charm.
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "The secret to a long and healthy life is simple. Don't get ill and don't die." Pete O'Hanlon, courtesy of Rama "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
He'd take it back to the shop and they simply replaced it the system rather than repaired it.
Dejavu :mad: They claimed the last time I had it in, they replaced all the insides. Even the hard drive... like that was the problem.
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 2 out now -
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
He'd take it back to the shop and they simply replaced it the system rather than repaired it.
Dejavu :mad: They claimed the last time I had it in, they replaced all the insides. Even the hard drive... like that was the problem.
xacc.ide - now with IronScheme support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 2 out nowleppie wrote:
They claimed the last time I had it in, they replaced all the insides. Even the hard drive... like that was the problem.
Pitiful really. You'd think that they might speak with a bit more understanding and knowledge. They never know when they actually meet someone that actually knows what the heck they're talking about.:|
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "The secret to a long and healthy life is simple. Don't get ill and don't die." Pete O'Hanlon, courtesy of Rama "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
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My dad had a similar problem with an Acer laptop he bought. It would hang forever though. He'd take it back to the shop and they simply replaced it the system rather than repaired it. Twice. A third time, this time they upgraded his computer to a different model. When it happened a fourth time, dad returned the laptop and asked for his money back. They gave it back to him without a fuss. Now he has a Toshiba which runs like a charm.
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "The secret to a long and healthy life is simple. Don't get ill and don't die." Pete O'Hanlon, courtesy of Rama "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
I have an Acer 5100 laptop. I have had it since late 2006. I keep it on ALL the time, 24x7. It never gets shut off. I have dropped it, left it on out in the freezing cold, and slept on it. It still works like a charm. The only problem is that the power supply is dead, so I have it plugged into a homemade variable power supply that my grampa built back in the 1950s. I am typing this message on the laptop, and its working fine, even when the voltage fluctuates, it does not fail.
The Digital World. It is an amazing place in which we primitive humans interact. Our flesh made this synthetic machine. You see, we are so smart, we know a lot of stuff. We were grown from cells that came from the universe, which the matter and physics I'm typing in it is amazing how the universe is working. Human life is very amazing. How I experience this sh*t its like wow.
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I have an Acer 5100 laptop. I have had it since late 2006. I keep it on ALL the time, 24x7. It never gets shut off. I have dropped it, left it on out in the freezing cold, and slept on it. It still works like a charm. The only problem is that the power supply is dead, so I have it plugged into a homemade variable power supply that my grampa built back in the 1950s. I am typing this message on the laptop, and its working fine, even when the voltage fluctuates, it does not fail.
The Digital World. It is an amazing place in which we primitive humans interact. Our flesh made this synthetic machine. You see, we are so smart, we know a lot of stuff. We were grown from cells that came from the universe, which the matter and physics I'm typing in it is amazing how the universe is working. Human life is very amazing. How I experience this sh*t its like wow.
You realize that my post was not an all out attack against Acer and their laptops?
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "The secret to a long and healthy life is simple. Don't get ill and don't die." Pete O'Hanlon, courtesy of Rama "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
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You realize that my post was not an all out attack against Acer and their laptops?
"Every time Lotus Notes starts up, somewhere a puppy, a kitten, a lamb, and a baby seal are killed. Lotus Notes is a conspiracy by the forces of Satan to drive us over the brink into madness. The CRC-32 for each file in the installation includes the numbers 666." Gary Wheeler "The secret to a long and healthy life is simple. Don't get ill and don't die." Pete O'Hanlon, courtesy of Rama "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon
Yes.
The Digital World. It is an amazing place in which we primitive humans interact. Our flesh made this synthetic machine. You see, we are so smart, we know a lot of stuff. We were grown from cells that came from the universe, which the matter and physics I'm typing in it is amazing how the universe is working. Human life is very amazing. How I experience this sh*t its like wow.
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According to the worse Murphy's Law, hardware fails when reliability is important. I have a few deadlines in the next fifteen days, and my main work pc (Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1439G) is experiencing unusual lockups. Sometimes, while doing even the most trivial things, like viewing a pdf file after a fresh start, the computer completely freezes. No BSOD, but the mouse pointer hangs, usb devices (wireless mouse) shut down, the fan starts running like crazy and even hardware-based switches like the one to disable the touchpad take tens of seconds to react. Pressing the on/off button for more than five seconds shuts down the machine correctly. The CPU temperature during one of these lockups is about 50°C, not unusual. I'm lost. I've seen a lot of hardware problems but this is my first laptop that fails this way. I can't trigger it by doing something, and I can't detach all the peripherals one by one since it's a laptop. I'm sure it's a hardware problem since it happens on both the OSs I have installed on that machine. Now I'm trying to copy the important data on an external drive, later I'll try a memtest (but shouldn't ram failures trigger a bsod instead of a freeze?). I've already tried opening the user accessible part, hoping it was just a dust deposit, but the inside was perfecly clean. Any other ideas? Similar experiences?
Luca The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. -- Wing Commander IV En Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað, Er Nýr Dagur. (But the best thing God has created, is a New Day.) -- Sigur Ròs - Viðrar vel til loftárása
Memory failure. Replace your memory. Or actually, before you spend $$$, open the computer up, reseat each connector and very importantly, remove the memory and reseat it. I've saved countless $$$ and time by this simple procedure. Marc
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Memory failure. Replace your memory. Or actually, before you spend $$$, open the computer up, reseat each connector and very importantly, remove the memory and reseat it. I've saved countless $$$ and time by this simple procedure. Marc
I recommend using a can of compressed air as well. Dust has a bad habit of screwing with electrical conductivity. :)
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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I recommend using a can of compressed air as well. Dust has a bad habit of screwing with electrical conductivity. :)
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
I recommend using a can of compressed air as well. Dust has a bad habit of screwing with electrical conductivity.
I usually just read one of Bush's speeches to my MB. The compressed hot air does a great job. Marc
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According to the worse Murphy's Law, hardware fails when reliability is important. I have a few deadlines in the next fifteen days, and my main work pc (Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1439G) is experiencing unusual lockups. Sometimes, while doing even the most trivial things, like viewing a pdf file after a fresh start, the computer completely freezes. No BSOD, but the mouse pointer hangs, usb devices (wireless mouse) shut down, the fan starts running like crazy and even hardware-based switches like the one to disable the touchpad take tens of seconds to react. Pressing the on/off button for more than five seconds shuts down the machine correctly. The CPU temperature during one of these lockups is about 50°C, not unusual. I'm lost. I've seen a lot of hardware problems but this is my first laptop that fails this way. I can't trigger it by doing something, and I can't detach all the peripherals one by one since it's a laptop. I'm sure it's a hardware problem since it happens on both the OSs I have installed on that machine. Now I'm trying to copy the important data on an external drive, later I'll try a memtest (but shouldn't ram failures trigger a bsod instead of a freeze?). I've already tried opening the user accessible part, hoping it was just a dust deposit, but the inside was perfecly clean. Any other ideas? Similar experiences?
Luca The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. -- Wing Commander IV En Það Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað, Er Nýr Dagur. (But the best thing God has created, is a New Day.) -- Sigur Ròs - Viðrar vel til loftárása
My guess would RAM. I had a similar situation with an old Thinkpad and it was a bad ram bank. In my case, I just replaced it and it was fine. You should remove the ram, check for any corrosion on the fingers and reseat them. You can use a pencil eraser to remove any deposits on the fingers (the gold connectors). When I've had the BSOD, it's been bad sectors on the drive or the drive failing. I would check the memory first. Good luck!
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Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
I recommend using a can of compressed air as well. Dust has a bad habit of screwing with electrical conductivity.
I usually just read one of Bush's speeches to my MB. The compressed hot air does a great job. Marc
Well, you've got less than one years supply of canned air. Then what are you going to do? ;P
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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Well, you've got less than one years supply of canned air. Then what are you going to do? ;P
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
Well, you've got less than one years supply of canned air.
I'm waiting for the rhetoric on attacking Iran to start resume. That'll provide a lifetime of hot air.
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
Then what are you going to do?
Hey, I can replay the press conferences of our illustrious governor of New York. Or Bear Stearns CEO who, 4 days before his company's liquidity crisis hit the street, was laughing in the face of reporter's questioning the company's credit. Man, this world is f.u. Marc