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Damn computers

OhioTC18

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Last night when I logged off and went upstairs my wife was sitting there just staring at her laptop. It was off, for about the 10th time according to her. Of course I didn't know anything was going on. She said it just keeps shutting down. I put my hand on it. It was extremely hot. I hit the power button and within 15 seconds it turned back off. I turned it over, the intake for the fan had some dust on it but nothing extreme. I got the vacuum out and cleaned that. We let it set for about 30 mins, same thing. 15-20 seconds it was back off. We just decided to let it sit overnight to cool off. This morning it ran through startup, desktop began to appear and poof, off again. The area where the CPU is was very hot again. It had only been on maybe 90 seconds.
Since she needs this for her small business, she was freaking. She had orders that needed to be shipped today. No way to print shipping labels or postage. We only have one working printer in the house (I know, go buy some ink for the others). She did get on one of the other computers to get shipping addresses and what not and actually had to hand write labels AND go to the Post Office to ship the packages.
This laptop is 5-6 years old and a cheapie model. We just put almost $200 in it with a new power supply and battery and RAM, so I was not going to try to get it repaired. I picked up a new one today at lunch. Skipped out early this afternoon and got home to get it going. That all went well. She's back online, email and printing. I'll need to retrieve some files from the old one when I get a 2.5" external enclosure for the HDD as I don't think it's a HDD failure.

Now I may try to resurrect the old one some day. But for now she is happy. It sucks, how much these things run our lives. But I will also "try" to do backups better if she'd just shut the damned thing down once in a while. :biggrin:
 

thcri

Gone But Not Forgotten
Ooops, 5-6yrs old. Couldn't have been a Dell.

My last one was a Dell. It was 6 years old when she got retired. It started acting funny and was told I needed a new hard drive. Put that in and kept doing it so then was told I need a new processor. I said nope, time to get a new one so I ended up with an HP Compaq Business Notebook that now is three years old. Don't think it will make it 4 years as I am really hard on them taking them out to construction sites. Did I ever tell anyone that sheet rock dust is hard on them. The case on my existing one is cracking all up. When I pick it up you can hear pieces moving around. The program I use though is outdated and runs on a 9 pin serial for connection. HP is about the only one that still has serial connections available. USB to serial converter doesn't work with this program.


murph
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Jerry, you need to get an external hard drive and back her files up nightly for safekeeping. (via Automated Job)
I agree that it does not sound like a hard drive problem, so with an enclosure you should be able to retrive the data. Actually your problem sounds like the CPU fan has died. The processors get extremely hot and shut down whenever that little fan dies.
 

OhioTC18

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
It could be Doc. I just didn't have much time to tear it apart and diagnose it.
 

pirate_girl

legendary ⚓
GOLD Site Supporter
Nope. Compaq. Never a problem with it until lately.
This is why I'll never own a laptop.
My computer was almost 7 years old Jerry.
I'd done 5-6 recoveries on it, the monitor was going black for a while.. lots of problems.
Yesterday, I took the tower to pieces on the old one.
OMG!
The shit that collects in there is unreal.
Anyway.. I am jacking the thread.
:bonk:
 

pixie

Well-known member
SUPER Site Supporter
Glad you got the problem solved. A new one usually solves the problem :hammer:

Who wants to recomend an external harddrive. I bought one and copied my files to it twice in 2 years. It doesn't work, now :rolleyes:
 

pirate_girl

legendary ⚓
GOLD Site Supporter
Glad you got the problem solved. A new one usually solves the problem :hammer:

Who wants to recomend an external harddrive. I bought one and copied my files to it twice in 2 years. It doesn't work, now :rolleyes:
Ouch Pixie! Sorry to hear that.:sad:
 

Bobcat

Je Suis Charlie Hebdo
GOLD Site Supporter
<snip>
Who wants to recomend an external harddrive. I bought one and copied my files to it twice in 2 years. It doesn't work, now :rolleyes:

Buy two cheap ones and alternate them weekly.
 

OhioTC18

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
I have an external enclosure for a 3.5" HD. It works good for retrieving info from my old HD's. Now I need to get a 2.5" for the laptop HD.
 

NorthernRedneck

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
The old one was a Dell, wasn't it?

We've got three dells. Two are laptops and one is a desktop. The desktop is 7 yrs old now and has not given us a seconds problem. The older laptop is 6 yrs old and never gave me any trouble. My wife bought herself a new one a few months ago so I'm left with the old one. No problem though. it still works great!!!

As for compaq.........I'll never get another one. We bought a new one back in 2001. It lasted two years before a whole bunch of problems. The power supply fried, the fan died, you name it, it happened to that P.O.S. It did make a good target for the ole 12 guage though.:biggrin:
 

California

Charter Member
Site Supporter
Long ago I got a new supervisor who was all about image.

With only a $10,000/year budget for PCs in a 60 person shop, I had been getting competitive bids from the local clone builders and never had reliability problems. Then new pointy-haired boss took more than a third of the whole shop's budget to put a 386-16 on his desk. Monitor included of course although the old one was fine. He also wanted a Compaq 386-16 laptop for compatibility when he traveled a couple of times per year - There went the second third of the entire shop's budget. Both were already obsolete but these were what he had drooled over in his previous job. I could't stop the desktop but got Purchasing to substitute a Toshiba 386-20 laptop with a much larger HD and $1,000 cost savings. (Because it was outdated).

At the end of the year the lady who hired him had left, and this guy got rolled for stupidity. He didn't pass probation as a supervisor and went back to where he came from as a journeyman, travelling, field auditor, a job he had loudly proclaimed he was better than. (Government does have some control over promoting idiots, regardless of what most of the public believes! Some day I'll tell you the story of where I figured in his downfall :D).

By that time the Compaq was so obsolete (and always was slow) that nobody wanted it. Over my objection $1,000 was spent for a memory card to upgrade it from 2mb to 8mb then it was given to me with instructions to use it for our first network fileserver. It lasted a year then burned up. Your Tax Dollars At Work. Bah.

Moral of the story: That fancy trademark and (then) $2,000 premium for fancy name brand doesn't mean much. Read reviews and ask around instead.
 

California

Charter Member
Site Supporter
Yesterday, I took the tower to pieces
OMG!
The shit that collects in there is unreal.
Wear a dust mask (surgical mask), and clean it with a vacuum cleaner, before you poke around in there. That superfine dust can give you respiratory problems.
Anyway.. I am jacking the thread.
:bonk:
Like you never did before? :yum:
 

pirate_girl

legendary ⚓
GOLD Site Supporter
grrrrrrrrr! you're asking for it buster!
ahhh.. just kidding of course.
you're the only member I fear..
eeeeeeeep!
hiding!
 

Bobcat

Je Suis Charlie Hebdo
GOLD Site Supporter
Fear him not. He lives in the PRC. Soon he will be living in a cardboard box. :rolleyes:
 

jwstewar

Active member
Are they replaceable on a laptop?

Yes, the fans are replacable. I've done a few of them over the years. A lot of times you can search ebay to find the replacement fan. Last one I did was a Toshiba (my favorite laptops) that was about 6 or 7 years old that the lady used for her photo business and as their mobile DJ business. Found instructions on the net on how to take it apart (notebooks can be weird). Stuck the fan in it and all was well. I think I paid about $10 for the fan off ebay and I charged her $20 to put in. She was happy and as far as I know, still using it.
 

bczoom

Super Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Pixie,

I have a couple Seagate external drives and they've both worked flawlessly. I don't believe the newer ones have software included (which is a good thing). Just plug it in and your computer will recognize it. A 1 Terabyte drive can be found for about $100 now at most retailers. I keep one at my computer(s) for quick, incremental backups and another in a remote building that I bring in monthly to do full system backups.
 

muleman

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
I just cleaned my desktop out yesterday. Took my air hose and blew all the crap out of the power supply and fans. Then added another gig of ram to try to speed up the wife's games on facebook. I try to clean mine every 6 months. Do the computers and the fridge as both like to collect dust and pet dirt. I have only ever had a hdd and video card go bad so I can't complain. Do have a thinkpad laptop the puppy shorted the onboard charging system out by chewing the cord while it was plugged in. Looks like I need a new motherboard to fix it. cheaper to toss it.
 

OhioTC18

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Yes, the fans are replacable. I've done a few of them over the years. A lot of times you can search ebay to find the replacement fan. Last one I did was a Toshiba (my favorite laptops) that was about 6 or 7 years old that the lady used for her photo business and as their mobile DJ business. Found instructions on the net on how to take it apart (notebooks can be weird). Stuck the fan in it and all was well. I think I paid about $10 for the fan off ebay and I charged her $20 to put in. She was happy and as far as I know, still using it.

I did confirm, the cooling fan does not run. Also confirmed that Jim is right about taking it apart. I'll have to try again when I'm in a different frame of mind. :yum:
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Yep, laptops are a bear to work on. :yum:
Maybe a couple of beers prior to working on it will help your frame of mind .... or you'll want to get a 3lb hammer and take care of it that way.
 

OhioTC18

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
Maybe a couple of beers prior to working on it will help your frame of mind .... or you'll want to get a 3lb hammer and take care of it that way.
I did have one while trying to work on it and the 3lb hammer almost came out. But, I did find the disassembly instruction online. I'll try it the right way next time. I see there are a few screws that are under the keyboard before the bottom will come off.:yum:
 

kitty

New member
I did have one while trying to work on it and the 3lb hammer almost came out. But, I did find the disassembly instruction online. I'll try it the right way next time. I see there are a few screws that are under the keyboard before the bottom will come off.:yum:
ha ha
 

Kwiens

New member
I'll third DaveNay's suggestion. Best money I've spent on backup was for a three year subscription to Carbonite. I've already used it and restoring a deleted folder was a breeze.

K
 
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