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      Laptop Assistance

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      ayrton77
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      Laptop Assistance
      Jun 06, 2012 05:47:25 pm
      Hi guys, needing some help with my wife's laptop, if anyone is tech savvy enough to help.

      It's a HP, fairly recent, with which we've had no problems up until Sunday, when it suddenly started having some serious issues, and we haven't been able to get to the bottom of it.

      Basically, it started crashing a lot, wouldn't let us connect to the internet, wouldn't let us run any programmes, and was running horribly slowly.

      With some persistence on our part, we've managed to run the antivirus programmes, and Spybot, which were largely unfruitful, except for one little error pointing to Firefox. We managed to uninstall it eventually (curiously, the computer let us connect to the internet, but only through Internet Explorer) and re-download it.

      Things seemed to be fine, it was running quicker and quite smoothly, when suddenly it started crashing again out of the blue, and is now worse than ever.

      It does seem to work better in the first few minutes when we turn it on, which made me think it could be an overheating problem leading to the computer slowing down to reduce heat output, but have no idea if this is true.

      We don't know how to diagnostic the problem, is it mechanic or a virus?

      Any advice about how to get this sorted would be massively appreciated. It is, of course, no longer under guarantee, and taking it somewhere to be fixed would probably cost us the price of a new computer. We also obviously don't want to lose the 18 months of photos stocked on it!  :(

      Thanks in advance!
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #1: Jun 06, 2012 05:55:22 pm
      It does seem to work better in the first few minutes when we turn it on.

      Just ran this by the wife, and apparently that isn't true, it doesn't work any better at first.
      Keny
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #2: Jun 06, 2012 06:00:15 pm
      Try download SpeedFan to troubleshoot whether there is any heating issue.  SpeedFan is a freeware for accessing temperature sensor on your PC and it can control the fan speed on the components.

      Link:
      http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php


      Reslivo
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #3: Jun 06, 2012 06:03:41 pm
      Does it come up with a Blue Screen when it crashes? If so I'll need the error code.

      If not then it's definitely an overheating issue. It could be that the heat-sink attached to the CPU isn't on properly, which would explain the random crashes.

      Laptops often get extremely hot, and each time you turn it on you could be damaging the CPU more and more.

      I'd suggest RMA'ing it, if at all possible.
      Reslivo
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #4: Jun 06, 2012 06:04:41 pm
      Try download SpeedFan to troubleshoot whether there is any heating issue.  SpeedFan is a freeware for accessing temperature sensor on your PC and it can control the fan speed on the components.

      Link:
      http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

      If they can't connect to the internet how are they going to download that?
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #5: Jun 06, 2012 06:08:07 pm
      Try download SpeedFan to troubleshoot whether there is any heating issue.  SpeedFan is a freeware for accessing temperature sensor on your PC and it can control the fan speed on the components.

      Link:
      http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php




      Trying that now, cheers.

      Does it come up with a Blue Screen when it crashes? If so I'll need the error code.

      No blue screen, don't know if that's a good thing! ;)

      I'd suggest RMA'ing it, if at all possible.

      What does that mean? :D
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #6: Jun 06, 2012 06:10:33 pm
      If they can't connect to the internet how are they going to download that?

      We can, Internet Explorer seems to work reasonably well, Firefox makes the computer crash, amongst other things.

      The temperatures listed by Speedfan are:

      HD0: 49C
      Temp1: 67C
      GPU: 70C
      Core: 69C
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #7: Jun 06, 2012 06:11:08 pm

      Just dropped to 0C, oddly.

      EDIT: Back up to 50C, keeps changing.
      s@int
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #8: Jun 06, 2012 06:15:26 pm
      Could be a ram problem, I had a similar problem and that was a faulty stick of ram.

      I would first try loading the comp in safe mode with as little running as possible but with internet access..... see how that goes.

      If it seems o.k. in safe mode just download memtest (it's free), install and run it. Should tell you within 30mins if thats your problem. 

      http://www.memtest.org/
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #9: Jun 06, 2012 06:17:03 pm
      Could be a ram problem, I had a similar problem and that was a faulty stick of ram.

      I would first try loading the comp in safe mode with as little running as possible but with internet access..... see how that goes.

      If it seems o.k. in safe mode just download memtest (it's free), install and run it. Should tell you within 30mins if thats your problem. 

      http://www.memtest.org/

      Will download that as soon as possible, thanks mate.
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #10: Jun 06, 2012 06:21:58 pm
      The computer is actually working a lot better when Firefox is uninstalled, why would that be?
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #11: Jun 06, 2012 06:35:18 pm

      Just had a look at that site, any advice which version to download, there's about a million links!
      s@int
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #12: Jun 06, 2012 06:38:29 pm
      No idea mate. I just use I.E. as my computer used to run slow, I couldn't connect to the internet and it kept crashing when I used Firefox :D   

      I would get the computer working then worry about Firefox mate.

      Sorry, this is a better link just choose the first one 4.0a make sure you click on free download!
       http://www.memtest86.com/
      Dmasta
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #13: Jun 06, 2012 06:40:03 pm
      The computer is actually working a lot better when Firefox is uninstalled, why would that be?
      I'm nowhere near as tech savvy as some other people here but that'd tend to suggest a virus surely?
      RC9
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #14: Jun 06, 2012 06:46:36 pm
      The computer is actually working a lot better when Firefox is uninstalled, why would that be?

      Could be an add on you had with firefox, if you did have say a toolbar or an add on there prone to carry viruses or just in general slow down your computer.
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #15: Jun 06, 2012 06:50:07 pm
      I'm nowhere near as tech savvy as some other people here but that'd tend to suggest a virus surely?

      Maybe, struggling to get the antivirus programmes working.

      It just seems when we ask the computer to do too much, it crashes, which made me think heating/RAM, as Firefox is quite "heavy", I think.

      But it could clearly be a virus as well.
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #16: Jun 06, 2012 06:51:57 pm
      Could be an add on you had with firefox, if you did have say a toolbar or an add on there prone to carry viruses or just in general slow down your computer.

      But the computer still messes up when Firefox is completely uninstalled.

      It's weird and horribly frustrating.
      s@int
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #17: Jun 06, 2012 06:52:36 pm
      Maybe, struggling to get the antivirus programmes working.

      It just seems when we ask the computer to do too much, it crashes, which made me think heating/RAM, as Firefox is quite "heavy", I think.

      But it could clearly be a virus as well.

      Try running your anti virus at boot up or in safe mode if you still think there is a possibility it could be a virus.
      ayrton77
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #18: Jun 06, 2012 07:21:27 pm
      Try running your anti virus at boot up or in safe mode if you still think there is a possibility it could be a virus.

      Will try as well, cheers.

      EDIT: If anyone can sort this, I will personally give you 100+ votes, whatever it takes! :D
      AlwaysTheKop
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #19: Jun 06, 2012 07:26:45 pm
      Have you tried system restore? You could see if you have a restore point anywhere before Sunday when this started happening...

      Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore

      Should come up with a recommended restore point, or underneath check the other box to select your own, and in there you might see one which was before Sunday, try restoring back to that, let the laptop do its thing then when it comes back on it could be sorted..
      Reprobate
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #20: Jun 06, 2012 07:29:02 pm
      Unplug it from the mains, take the bettery out, put it back in, turn it on and kick it for good measure.

      Rarely fails.
      Reslivo
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #21: Jun 06, 2012 07:30:58 pm
      Unplug it from the mains, take the bettery out, put it back in, turn it on and kick it for good measure.

      Rarely fails.

      This.

      Don't forget the kick.

      But in all seriousness, all of the suggestions above are valid.

      Try them sequentially.
      RC9
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      Re: Laptop Assistance
      Reply #22: Jun 06, 2012 07:31:25 pm
      Have you tried system restore? You could see if you have a restore point anywhere before Sunday when this started happening...

      Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore

      Should come up with a recommended restore point, or underneath check the other box to select your own, and in there you might see one which was before Sunday, try restoring back to that, let the laptop do its thing then when it comes back on it could be sorted..

      Good shout.

      If this does not work it is 99.9% likely to be an hardware problem .

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