? for Computer Guys

[GilpinGuy]

I'm about to throw my laptop into the fireplace. It's been acting weird for months and I can't find anything wrong with it. I run Norton and Malwarebytes and nothing is found.

Sometimes it takes several (6 or more) attempts to start the machine. It will either lock up with a black screen and I have to hit the power switch or it'll keep going back to the login screen over and over and over until I have to hit the power switch. Either way, I can tell the hard drive is working HARD while trying to start. Eventually it will start fine, but this can take a half hour of trying sometimes. And it seems to be getting worse.

My plan is to backup everything and just do a full system restore (like I got it from the factory).

Anything else I can try before going ballistic on this thing? It's gonna be a PITA.

Thanks for the help!

[BuffCyclist]

Any chance its a 17" laptop? If so, it could be overheating and getting a cooler pad could really help it operate at a cooler temp. My Fiancee's laptop was just doing this, took forever to boot and shut down randomly without warning. A large cooler pad fixed it and now it runs at a nice cool 50C.

If it isn't a 17", what brand and how old?

[BuffCyclist]

But, to find out if it is indeed the hard drive, download hdtune ( http://www.hdtune.com/ ) and run the "Error Scan". It will scan through the hard drive and look for disk errors, if there is a lot of red (bad sectors) the hdd could definitely be the cause. If so, backup, get a replacement hdd, reinstall, restore from backup, and hopefully the problem goes away.

[DireWolf]

Could be any number of things, anything from malware to corrupted fules or a bad drive. You may want to start by running msconfig and looking at what is set to automatically start at boot-time (programs and services), then try disabling anything that looks fishy (be a little careful here). You can also try booting into safe mode by pressing F8 immediately after the power-on-self-test but before windows actually starts to load. If you can boot into safe mode and it's working then the likelihood that it's some software, other malware/spyware, or corrupt files goes up. Lastly, you can try running chkdsk /F (will need a reboot and a looong time to run) to check the drive for errors and attempt to fix...


hope that helps...

[GilpinGuy]

Any chance its a 17" laptop? If so, it could be overheating and getting a cooler pad could really help it operate at a cooler temp. My Fiancee's laptop was just doing this, took forever to boot and shut down randomly without warning. A large cooler pad fixed it and now it runs at a nice cool 50C.

If it isn't a 17", what brand and how old?

This is a Gateway, about 2 years old, Windows 7, screen is 15.5" corner to corner.

This is having most problems when it's first starting up, so I don't think it's overheating.

[Ridge]

Could be the hard drive is dying. In which case you will want to replace it, then toss the hard drive in the freezer overnight (in an antistatic bag), then copy the data across using a USB adapter. Freezing the hard drive helps the platters contract, and gives them a little bit more life before they die. Can only do this once or twice, though.

But you'll want to make sure that is the problem first.

[GilpinGuy]

But, to find out if it is indeed the hard drive, download hdtune ( http://www.hdtune.com/ ) and run the "Error Scan". It will scan through the hard drive and look for disk errors, if there is a lot of red (bad sectors) the hdd could definitely be the cause. If so, backup, get a replacement hdd, reinstall, restore from backup, and hopefully the problem goes away.

Running Error scan now....

[cfortune]

How does it run after it boots? Does opening "computer" or the navigating through the C: drive cause the machine to become unresponsive? If so, you probably have a drive on it's last leg. Like Direwolf said, it could be a number of things though.

[jhood001]

Probably heat issues, trashed OS, or HDD failure.

Back it up like you plan. Then take an air compressor or compressed air cans and clean the living daylights out of it. If you're afraid to open it up yourself, make sure you direct a shit-ton of air through the intake to move as much dust as you can out the exhaust.

If that doesn't improve things, start up a command prompt as Administrator and run CHKDSK. Fix any errors reported. Reboot and see if things improve. If they don't, try your reload/factory restore. If the restore fails, or your symptoms occur during the restore process, you probably have a bad HDD.

If all else fails, follow the devil down to Georgia and PM Byte.

[jhood001]

Freezing the hard drive helps the platters contract, and gives them a little bit more life before they die.

First I've heard of that, Ridger. Nice tip! Let's go shoot soon!