However, I will find fault on the designers for one issue. Why would you design a laptop, a machine that by it’s very nature produces an extreame amount of heat that requires a cooling fan, and not provide an access panel to the fan? How hard would it be to provide an access door directly below the fan that could be taken off so the fan could be cleaned on a regular basis. Is it neccessary to disasseble the entire computer to blow the dust out of it? It is like making a car engine that requires complete disassembly to change the air filter. It doesn’t make sense and is really an unforgivable design flaw.
Forgive me, but I’ve dealt with so many hardware issues over the years, including The Neverending Install, that there’s a certain amount of schadenfreude involved in hearing stories like this.
OK, I’ve confessed, now give me my damned wine and crackers.
Congrats on finally getting everything resolved. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. Like Caesar riding his chariot into the forum, I’m that little voice whispering that all computer victories are fleeting. 
They were desktops, not laptops, but…
The 2 times I had problems with my computers shutting down for no apparent reason turned out to be a bad power supply. Don’t know how complicated or expensive it is to replace a laptop power supply but I bet this thread that’s what your problem is.
It might be, time will tell on that one. But after many trial and errors things do seem to point to overheating as the culprit. The main things being that once the vents and fan were blown out the problem dissappeared. Also, once the vent in the back of the case was blown I could now feel heat exiting the case, I couldn’t prior to blowing it out and when I was having the problems. If it turns out to be the power supply I will deal with it then, but hopefully this is the fix. Once again, thanks for everyone’s help!
Power supplies. The Newmans of the computer world.
Grrrrrrrrrr Newman! *Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
Actually, I take that back. Let’s try that again:
Power supplies; the Red Shirts of the computer world.
(With special guest star RAM sticks; the cop that’s just a week away from retirement.)
Update Day 6: Eyes remain bloodshot, computer definitely hates me. I must watch my back as I believe it is becoming self-aware and trying to plot against me.
Okay, the saga continues. I think that I posted that I got the lappy to boot finally in XP only to realize that XP lacked drivers for a number of components of the lappy, the most important being able to use the wireless feature. Because of that I went ahead and re-installed Windows 7. The installation went smooth and booted fine, but everything was running terribly slow and browsers once again becoming non-responsive. Decided to run some diagnostic test on the hard drive and I have found a problem. Using Western Digital’s Data Life Guard Diagnostics I have discovered that there is a problem with the hard drive. It is reporting that the disc has failed the “Reallocated sector count” with a score of 130. I assume that this is not good, but I can’t seem to get a grasp on what this means. I don’t think that it can be fixed by formatting or by chkdsk or anything. I guess I am looking at purchasing a new hard drive. Can anyone confirm that this error is a death knell for the drive and that the correct option is purchasing a new one?
Oh, and after doing some Googling I have found out why the HP drive will not work in the Acer. The HP, although the disk is labled SATA, is using a IDE 44 pin connector, while the Acer drive is using a SATA type connector. I wasn’t aware that there were two different designs, so I apologize to any designers out there for my previous comments. Why you couldn’t leave well enough alone is beyond me, but hey whatever.
The lappy is only used for internet browsing so a large hard drive is not neccessary. Using Windows 7 what is the smallest hard drive that I can get away with using? Not being cheap, but there is no need for me to spend money on a huge drive that will never get used. I want to make sure I have enough space for 7 to install and run without a problem. Thanks again everyone for your help! I truly appreciate it.
A large drive is necessary for the simple reason of speed. Large drive = newer drive = denser platters = faster reads/writes. More slack space = less chance of fragmentation. You don’t save money going with a small drive now, not per gb per dollar atleast, it just gets way more expensive. Laptop drives are slow to begin with, so the extra speed with newer ones is important, and why folks get ssds.
I would have to tend to agree with you, however this lappy is really nothing more than a internet appliance at this point. I use it to read SD, Fark and check email. A huge drive would be wasted as aside from an anti-virus and an occasional hilarious jpeg that I download the drive is free of anything on it. It would almost be like buying a huge house and only living in one room.
500 gigs costs $80 at Frys.
And, since you said that the laptop is for online use only, and if you must absolutely be cheap, just bum a 4 gb USB stick from somebody and slap Ubuntu or Fedora on it, and boot from it. No harddrive necessary.
Or just buy the darn harddrive and slap Ubuntu or Fedora on that, and save yourself all these headaches. But, I digress. Glancing over this thread you come across as a bit of a masochist, so… 
I haven’t googled it, but realloc sector cnt sounds like it found a bad sector, tried to allocate a new one and this failed. It seems to me that it should be more concerned with finding bad sectors so this probably isn’t the correct interpretation, but if any of the SMART parameters are out of range, that’s generally not a good sign.
You might be able to do a chckdsk with the option to locate and attempt to recover bad sectors. That is a slow process and could take several hours or longer depending on the size of the drive. I don’t know if this would be worth the effort though.
As for size, I would recommend at least 60gig. You can get away with perhaps 40 gig if you don’t intend to install much software. However those are very small sizes and you probably won’t find anything under 100 gig. In that case, partition the drive and use the second partition for backups.
Almost
HArd drives have an area of “spare sectors” when a sector generate errors and the drives internal diagnostics notice it will “reallocate” that data to a spare sector. Alot of sector reallocation is a sign of a failing drive. How many depends on the drive, sometimes you have a drive that is stable with a bunch of bad sectors and is not getting any worse, sometimes its progressive.
Programs like drivesitter can help you tell the difference.
Just go get another hard drive (suggested 5 days ago and many posts back), reinstall Win 7, and be done with it. Unless you enjoy torturing yourself some more.
Well, I went to purchase a new hard drive tonight and while trying to decide on one my wonderful wife took it upon herself to purchase me a brand new tablet! The tablet is a perfect replacement for the lappy, as mentioned before the lappy was used as an internet appliance. This tablet kicks ass and I can even type on the virtual keyboard. She got me a Toshiba Thrive and this takes care of the problem. I wil keep the lappy and eventually find a deal on a new HD and give give it to one of the kids.
Oh, and just to clear up. I wasn’t being cheap about buying a HD, up until yesterday I wasn’t positive that it was the HD. If the problem could be solved without spending a $100 then I was going to find the solution. Too many times things can be fixed with more effort and less spending. Anyway, the problem, thanks to my wife, is no longer a problem. Eventually the lappy will work again when a hard drive becomes available at the right price. Thanks to everyone for their help, I do appreciate it!
Sounds great. I HAVE to touch type so tablets are never going to be an option for me, even with voice recognition. Doing the hunt and peck on a virtual kb would drive me insane (well, relatively speaking anyway 
). They ARE pretty sexy though. A friend has a color Nook which I think I might like for very light browsing and reading. Plus it’s small and light enough that the idea of holding all of the time would be fine.
But I’m probably just being an old fart. I though the 8.3 DOS filename system was also perfectly fine and resented having to move to windows. :smack:
[quote=“dzero, post:56, topic:616580”]
Sounds great. I HAVE to touch type so tablets are never going to be an option for me, even with voice recognition. Doing the hunt and peck on a virtual kb would drive me insane (well, relatively speaking anyway ). They ARE pretty sexy though. A friend has a color Nook which I think I might like for very light browsing and reading. Plus it’s small and light enough that the idea of holding all of the time would be fine.
But I’m probably just being an old fart. I though the 8.3 DOS filename system was also perfectly fine and resented having to move to windows. :smack:[/QUOT
I have to agree that one reason I never really considered a tablet was the lack of keyboard, I dreaded the thought of the hunt peck. However, this one has a very large keyboard that I can actually type on! It isn’t as easy yet as a physical keyboard, for you don’t actually feel the keys and you can,t rest you fingers on the keys. But, I have been typing with it for one night and am quickly learning to adjust. If I don’t like the virtual one it has a USB plug for a keyboard. What I do really like about it is the option of landscape or portrait mode. The portrait mode makes web pages easier to view. Plus I tend to use my lappy bed a lot as I have trouble sleeping. The tablet is a fraction of the weight of old lappy and can be held easier while lying down. Plus it doesn’t,t put off the heat of lappy. I am not a full convert to tablets yet, but in my short time using this one I am well on my way. Did I mention how incredibly thoughtful my wonderful wife is!
[quote=“obbn, post:57, topic:616580”]
As you can see from the few spelling and punctuation errors in the last post I am still adjusting to the virtual keyboard, but I think in a few days I will have it down!
Wonderful wife or evil temptress? We shall see. ‘Yes’ said the Lord Chancellor. ‘We shall see.’ 
I,ll go with wonderful :D, I already had the temptress or as I like to call her “the ex”:eek:, it’s quite easy to tell the difference, my wife has a reflection in the mirror, the ex strangely didn’t:D