? 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!

[Gman]

My guess would be a failing HDD. If you can get into it, run "eventvwr", expand Windows Logs, and check the System log for disk or controller errors.

I've seen diagnostic apps say a drive is fine, but you can tell by the unusually high activity that isn't the case. The manufacturers of the drives usually will have a utility to thoroughly test the drive for excessive bad blocks.

[GilpinGuy]

Well, looks like the hard drive doesn't have "much" damage...or am I wrong? Trying the other suggestions now. You guys rock!

http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/juanez3248/06-February-2013_01-27_zps55b12008.png

[GilpinGuy]

My guess would be a failing HDD. If you can get into it, run "eventvwr", expand Windows Logs, and check the System log for disk or controller errors.

I've seen diagnostic apps say a drive is fine, but you can tell by the unusually high activity that isn't the case. The manufacturers of the drives usually will have a utility to thoroughly test the drive for excessive bad blocks.

Damn. Looks like you may be right.
http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/juanez3248/DiskErrors_zps02012c45.png

[Zundfolge]

Might try backing your data up (which you need to do regardless of the problem). Then wipe the drive, reformat it and reinstall the OS. If the hard drive is physically fine, it might be a file system problem (which would be cured by the reformat).

[BuffCyclist]

Well, looks like the hard drive doesn't have "much" damage...or am I wrong? Trying the other suggestions now. You guys rock!

http://i1018.photobucket.com/albums/af308/juanez3248/06-February-2013_01-27_zps55b12008.png

No, that looks perfectly fine to me. I have a hdd with more damaged sectors on it than that, and it operates perfectly fine. The "eventvwr" log does show warnings, at this point I agree with zundfolge, backup your data and reformat hdd, reinstall windows and see if it continues to misbehave.

Hopefully you have access to a second computer that you can continue to look up things online and report in.

[Gman]

SATA controller errors and disk errors. I've seen that a "few" times (I manage over 22,000 Windows systems for a living). Sorry about that. I'd hate to see someone go through the trouble of a system restore on a bad HDD to only find that the problem didn't go away.
How much bacon did I win? [microwave]

The slowest part of a system is usually a HDD. The most delicate part of a notebook is the HDD. The HDDs are built to try and cope with errors on the fly, but the same technology often hides the real problem. The only other moving parts that wear out are the cooling fans and maybe an optical drive. The manufacturers have attempted to deal with the combined problem of portability and the tiny tolerances in the notebook HDDs, but it's a tough mix to successfully combine those mutually exclusive elements.

I'm really happy to see SSD prices coming down. Whatever you want is just a millisecond away. Couple that with lower power consumption/reduced heat to dissipate/better battery life and no moving parts.

If you're comfortable swapping the HDD on your own, that's probably the most economical approach. I'm not sure of the performance spec's of your notebook, but another option is to pick up a new cheap laptop or figure in what your costs to repair would be into a newer system.

I definitely wouldn't recommend doing your taxes on that laptop this year. [panic]

If you now the manufacturer of the HDD (Seagate/Western Digital/Other), I'd recommend downloading their diagnostic tools. I've had a number of bad personally owned WD desktop drives over the past couple of years. They quick test indicates the drive is fine. Running the thorough test usually results in my having to cancel the test after 24 hours with a smoking hot drive, and only after cancelling does it burp out the error that there were too many bad blocks on the failed drive.

[brutal]

Try clearing the page file and reboot.

It may be overlaying a bad sector.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2533911

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2533911)
We got my wife a new (refurb) stinkpad. Even with an older tech SSD drive it screams. That reminds me, I need to go wipe and restore he old tablet and get rid of that POS Vista install.

[Gman]

The paging error is usually a symptom, not the cause. You're not often writing or modifying files on the system as most of the activity is read, but it's pretty much constantly paging OS code which includes write/modify. The drive is built to automagically move data from bad blocks to good and mark the bad blocks so that they aren't used again.

...but sure, give it a try. I personally wouldn't trust it any further than I could throw it.

[hghclsswhitetrsh]

Made it this far and no one said quit watching porn? Really? I'm disappointed...

[Ridge]

Made it this far and no one said quit watching porn? Really? I'm disappointed...

Because it's just. not. an. option.

[hghclsswhitetrsh]

Because it's just. not. an. option.

Haha. Discussing the issue, or discussing not watching porn?

[Ridge]

The latter.

[Gman]

http://youtu.be/T-TA57L0kuc

[Ridge]

Nearly 8 million views can't be wrong!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWEjvCRPrCo

[Gman]

The WoW version...there's another WoW joke that the Paladin class was made for porn. Autoattack, tab out and surf porn, tab back in and gather loot and repeat.