Laptop gonna die?

[Venusian Broon]

Mine shut down suddenly yesterday.

A brief examination shown that the vents were clogged with dust. Vacuum cleaner time again.

Shouldn't there be some kind of warning when the thing reaches a critical temperature?

You'd think that - my graphics card for the PC (notorious things for overheating, 'cause usually dust and crud will eventually always build up in the little fan that is required to cool it) has a app that does measure the temperature of the device...but if it overheats too much it just causes the whole PC to crash and gives you no inkling that that was the cause (other than bitter experience and on occasion the need to spend oodles of money on a new bit of expensive kit -- Hey, maybe that's why they don't have a warning?!?)

 

[David Evil Overlord]

My laptop gave me the Black Screen of Death(TM) twice more -- both times, the cursor froze, and then everything just went black.

I bought one of those laptop cooling pad thingies.

My laptop did the Screen of Death(TM) once more -- when I had the cooling pad set on "low".

With the pad set on "high", the laptop has behaved like a faithful lapdog again. So far.

 

[mosaix]

I bought one of those laptop cooling pad thingies.

Ordered one yesterday.

Yesterday's crash was the first in some time - but the final straw. I was online to a customer's site and had three logins going each one half way through editing a source file. Complete mess that took me about an hour to recover and another hour to get to the same point in the edits.

 

[Abernovo]

I invested in a cooler today and I'm now kicking myself for not doing it sooner. My laptop's already ticking over faster than ever and opening programs quicker. I didn't have it stopping before, but processing time was definitely higher than it should have been. The only factor I can come up with is heat.

Looks like it was just in time. The forecast is for another dose of heat in the coming days.

 

[Kylara]

my ancient craptop (7 yr old vaio) never seems to randomly die...it does however take about an hour to boot into the windows OS and everthing on their takes forever and then crashes it if I get too excited (I only use it now I have dual booted it with Linux so I can programme on it with no worry of destroying the laptop as it is only an old one) but for 7+ years it's pretty good. It gets burn worthy hot fast though, I always boost it up or hold it up in the fan area when it starts seriously overheating, it gets double bad because some of the rubber feet have disappeared, pushing the vents even further down...
My nice new massive beast of a gaming laptop however occassionally give me the BSOD but so fast even I can't read the error, it hasn't done it in a while and it seems to have unglitched itself, but it has an annoying habit of doing "important updates" without asking first heh...but it defo sounds like an overheating issue Mouse: vacuum the vents and keep them cool, cooling pads are great.

 

[mosaix]

Ordered one yesterday.

Arrived today. It's a NotePal U3 Cooling Pad. Ordered it from Amazon, cost about £35.

It's got 3 fans powered by a USB extender, so there's no additional cabling to be dragged around. There's a variable speed control and the fans can be set at any position under the laptop. It's a neat design.

My laptop's never been so cool.

 

[subtletylost]

Can I say my laptop used to do the same as Mouse's. Only mine done it whether or not I was using it, whether or not I was at it. It stopped doing it for a while then it done it one more time. I upgraded to windows 8 and it hasn't happened since.

 

[allmywires]

So I have a problem...

Yesterday while I was charging my laptop, the battery icon froze on 33%, but my charging light (which is orange when charging, blue when done) went to blue so I thought it had just frozen and all would be fine. When I pulled the power cord out, bam, it switched off completely. Now it won't charge at all and the icon is still frozen: when I hover over it, it says '33% available, plugged in, not charging.' I tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling, taking the battery out, etc.

I have a almost 2 year old Acer Aspire 4810T. Help help help! I don't want a new laptop, especially since it managed to fix its old problem of not actually letting me turn it on/log in occasionally...

(As an aside - I rarely turn my laptop off as a result of aforementioned booting/logging in problem, and almost always leave it on hibernate. Could that have knackered the battery?)

 

[David Evil Overlord]

My son's laptop has died. Oh, it still works, but there is an impact crater in the screen. Whether the laptop was dropped, kicked, drop-kicked, stepped on, frisbeed, attacked by wolves or hit by a comet, no one seems to know.

Quotes to repair:

Company that sold us the $400 laptop (warranty does not cover cometary impact): $350
Company that wants us to post laptop to them: $217 plus postage.
Company that wants us to bring laptop to them (and doesn't answer phones): $275
Company that comes to your home at no charge and repairs laptop on the spot: $199

P.S. allmywires, I had to replace the charger for my laptop, but it sounds like a different problem with yours. Mine just refused to charge when plugged in.

 

[Kylara]

I had a white screen of death yesterday - pretty sure it was Adobe's Flash Plugin. I have been having problems with it for an age, and it crashed and screen went white, well I am assuming it is it's fault because I rebooted the plugin and it crashed again and another white screen...been fine since...just weird that it happened twice in quick succession after never having had an issue and reading comments on here!

PS DEO what do you mean by impact crater? If it is just a load of pixels not working you can run a programme that can try to fix it byt unsticking the pixels but if it is a hole in the screen then that won't work...

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Big spider-web of cracks right across the screen, Kylara. New screen will be installed tomorrow.

 

[Kylara]

Ah interplanetary zombie attacks will do that :wink:

 

[CyBeR]

Mein Gott, it's the Marvel Zombies .
Flee for thy no good screens!

 

[Cayal]

So I have a problem...

Yesterday while I was charging my laptop, the battery icon froze on 33%, but my charging light (which is orange when charging, blue when done) went to blue so I thought it had just frozen and all would be fine. When I pulled the power cord out, bam, it switched off completely. Now it won't charge at all and the icon is still frozen: when I hover over it, it says '33% available, plugged in, not charging.' I tried uninstalling the driver and reinstalling, taking the battery out, etc.

I have a almost 2 year old Acer Aspire 4810T. Help help help! I don't want a new laptop, especially since it managed to fix its old problem of not actually letting me turn it on/log in occasionally...

(As an aside - I rarely turn my laptop off as a result of aforementioned booting/logging in problem, and almost always leave it on hibernate. Could that have knackered the battery?)

What version of windows do you have?

Try taking out the battery and the power cord and hold the power button down for 30 seconds. This generally can release any discharge.

Another option is to uninstall the battery driver through control panel, system, hardware, reboot and it will reinstall.

Also, I had this happen to be albeit with a Sony Vaio, it has it's own manager for the power and it had changed the setting on me and would always charge to 80% nothing more. This was to reduce the rate of degrading.
I don't know if your laptop has such a manager, but might be worth checking the power options and seeing if there is one.

I had a white screen of death yesterday - pretty sure it was Adobe's Flash Plugin. I have been having problems with it for an age, and it crashed and screen went white, well I am assuming it is it's fault because I rebooted the plugin and it crashed again and another white screen...been fine since...just weird that it happened twice in quick succession after never having had an issue and reading comments on here!

Event viewer and system restore. Always a good option if start like that happens.

 

[Kylara]

Haha yup, works like a charm Yet another reason my bf is trying to get me fully on linux (only dual booted on an old laptop at the moment) but I like onenote too much :wink:

 

[Erin99]

If the above options don't work, allmywires, I think it's time to try a) a new charger, and then b) a new battery: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=Acer+Aspire+4810T&_sacat=0

I saw a charger in the list there for £6, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to get it replaced. I've had to buy a fair number of chargers in the past to fix charging problems.

 

[allmywires]

What version of windows do you have?

Try taking out the battery and the power cord and hold the power button down for 30 seconds. This generally can release any discharge.

Another option is to uninstall the battery driver through control panel, system, hardware, reboot and it will reinstall.

Also, I had this happen to be albeit with a Sony Vaio, it has it's own manager for the power and it had changed the setting on me and would always charge to 80% nothing more. This was to reduce the rate of degrading.
I don't know if your laptop has such a manager, but might be worth checking the power options and seeing if there is one.

Thanks Cayal. I'm on Windows Vista, and I did try uninstalling the driver but it didn't do anything. Will give the power discharge thing a go later, fingers crossed...

Leisha, I hope it doesn't come to that, I don't fancy spending the £37-is that Amazon quoted for my battery...sigh. Although I suppose it's better than 500 quid for a new laptop!

 

[allmywires]

Yep, the power discharge didn't work. Thanks for the help though everyone.

 

[Erin99]

No, I meant buy a new power adapter first (under a tenner from eBay - the place I always buy my replacement adapters from), then see if that helps. If it doesn't, then look at buying a new battery. Sounds like an adapter problem, though.

This seller looks great and is who I would buy from (he includes the power cord, too, which saves you money, and the adapter has all the relevant safety features): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ACER-ASPI...Accessories_PowerSupplies&hash=item3caf55c713

 

[allmywires]

OK, I'll take a look at that, thanks!

There's another thing I've noticed which makes me think it might be something to do with my laptop rather than the battery/charger though: when I plug my laptop into the mains (on the lead), I have to press the power button twice for it to switch on: first time makes the blue 'fully charged' light come on, second time boots the laptop. Damn technology...