My laptop has died, and before I book it in for repairs...

[meriad]

I figured I'd ask here to see if anyone has a suspicion what it may be so I can sound at least a bit knowledgeable when I make the call

In December last year I had to bring my laptop to work. I don't have a proper laptop bag for it, so it was in a soft bag that offers no protection whatsoever. I was cabbing it to / from the station that day and the cabbie had to brake quite hard at one point and the laptop slipped off the back seat onto the floor. I switched it on when I got to work and all seemed fine but that evening when I got home and was using it it all of a sudden made a really horrid noise. The only way to descibe it would be to compare the noise to when something electric is shorting (if that makes sense) which made me think it was the charger / battery. But even when it's not plugged in the noise would still happen. It's rather intermittent so difficult to pin point and at one point I thought it may be the actual disk spinning away in the hard drive and coming into contact with something? But besides this odd noise it's been working fine.

But come yesterday I wanted to look up something, so switched it on and it came up with the screen saying windows hadn't closed down properly last time (like it does when the battery runs low and it switches off) and how do I want to continue; I always choose normal windows start up... The computer then continued like normal, windows started up but before it got to the part where I click on the icon with my name on it (it's Windows 7) the laptop switched itself off. And then back to square one - switch it on, the the same error message again, windows starts up and then the computer dies... whether plugged in to a power source or not

Stupidly I haven't made a back up - but then thankfully there's nothing overly important on there. Photo's that have sentimental value yes, but nothing important that I can think of. But given the computer is actually starting up maybe it's not the hard drive?

Any ideas you clever people out there xxx

[lissie]

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 850AAK7Pgx
Is this any help?
Might give you some idea.

lissie

[Suff]

Hi Ria,

From what you have described I would suggest that the fall dislodged something in your fan on your processor heatsink. That would cause quite horrible oscillating noises whilst the laptop was running, either on battery or mains power.

CPU overheating would happen between the time you took to start the machine and between starting up and logging on.

Another indication of this would be that Windows would fail faster and faster the longer you leave it turned on because the processor is already hot. So first start up it would go a long way towards starting up and each successive boot would fail more quickly.

You could check this out fairly simply by putting some airflow over the heatsink. If your laptop vents lend themselves to this you could stick the hoover tube against the vent and switch the hoover on whilst the laptop boots. If it boots and functions normally with the air flowing in this way, then you have a heating issue.

Personally I'd take the access cover off and check to see if the fan was still working, but I accept that you might not want to do that and I think the hoover solution might be your best bet.

I don't think it is the hard drive as that kind of catastrophic failure (with the noise), would probably fail the hard drive in a much more concrete way, like not finding the drive in the first place or never even getting to the Windows boot.

Worth a try.

[meriad]

thanks both

lissie, thanks for that link but I'm fairly certain it's not the battery because the laptop does boot up and I know the battery is charged.

Suff, I didn't think of the fan - it could well be that, thank you! I haven't switched on the laptop since my attempts yesterday morning so I'll try again when I get home and see what happens. And I'll do my best to figure it out with the hoover - if nothing else the laptop key board can get a good clean whilst I'm at it

[Workingman]

Ria, it could well be the fan/heat sink and if you are going to use the hoover to clear out the vents, that's OK, but be careful when doing the keyboard that it does not suck up the keys! Put a piece of cloth over the vac tube and suck up through that.

For the excessive overheating you could try this. Put the laptop on a couple of batons - to keep the vents clear - and lay it over a bag of frozen peas. This will make it suck up v. cold air and might be enough to get it to boor properly and run for a while.

You could always try continually pressing F8 as the laptop boots and opting for Repair Your Computer rather than Boot System Normally. This should lead to System Recovery Options and from there you follow the Wizards for the repairs offered.

The thing is that they are all software cures and if it is the fan then the laptop shop will be your best option, but at least you will know.

[Suff]

I was suggesting put the hoover end next to the output grill for the processor heat sink. It would then cause the airflow that the broken fan was not doing and would cool the cpu heatsink.

But the peas would be a good idea too. The idea being to keep the environment cooler and therefore keep the CPU temp down. It's only to check if it is the fan.

I had thought of sticking it in the fridge for a while or cranking it up inside the freezer but didn't go there due to moisture issues....

[meriad]

I had thought of sticking it in the fridge for a while or cranking it up inside the freezer but didn't go there due to moisture issues....

Suff - could you imagine explaining that one to the repair guy? Too funny

Well I switched the laptop on last night and it booted up just fine. And now knowing what to potentially do / listen out for I didn't hear the quiet whirr of the fan that usually kicks in when the computer starts up so I would assume you're spot on with the fan being the issue - phew!

so now next challenge is to find a decent repair place that won't charge me a small fortune. There have been a few recommendations on a website called Streetlife (you register for your area and get local people recommending local trades people etc - really good website for all sorts of things) so I'll call a few and see if they can give me a rough estimate for the repair

Thank you everyone - I knew I could rely on you x

[Workingman]

I was also going to suggest the freezer!

Ria, is it the Aspire that is broken? You are probably not going to need a new fan, just have the old one reseated and locked down properly - not a big job. However, the motherboard clip is a white nylon job and the lugs could have broken. A perfectly serviceable used heatsink and fan can be had for a fiver.

I joined Streetlife up here and it is pretty good for getting tradesman references.

[meriad]

Yes Frank - it's the Aspire. I had a quick look on the internet to see how much a new bit would be and you're right they're not expensive, but then that seems par for the course these days... the spares are cheap, it's the labour to fix everythign

A friend of mine works in IT and I've asked him if he knows of someone local that can help me with the repair, if not then there's one particular company that's been recommended a few times on Streetlife and I'll be in touch with them.

[Suff]

Hi Ria,

Glad that it looks like the fan. Much easier than dealing with a crippled hard drive.

It just sounded like that to me. Contrary to popular belief, Windows is actually really stable and it is usually hardware failures or broken drivers which cause it to fail. My issues recently have been every single SDD has had to be repaired within an 18 month window.

Sadly I can't use Streetlife as I'm not in the UK, but if someone is recommended on a site like that I'd be inclined to go with them. Well given that I couldn't do it myself. The techies at work are amazed that the PM can change his phone screen (short story with a smashing lament).

Good luck with it.