I bought a new laptop recently, which came pre-loaded with Windows XP Pro. One day last week I thought I put it into hibernation and packed it in the carrying bag. When I got home (1 1/2 hours later) and took the computer out, it was HOT. I mean really HOT. I almost couldn’t bear to touch the plastic around the keyboard.
Now (and I’m not sure if these problems started exactly around this time) the computer takes several minutes to boot, programs (like Sonic MyDVD) take several minutes to load, and I have once seen an “Inaccessible Boot Disk” BSoD on boot. The weird thing is that these problems don’t occur all the time. I have already tried restoring the hard disk to it’s original state. Does anyone know if overheating like that could cause these problems? I’m thinking I am going to take advantage of the warranty I purchased…
TIA!
–FCOD
Heat can certainly cause these symptoms. A couple of months ago, I had a laptop running overnight in a file cabinet (so it could be locked up) and it croaked, tossing up a variety of “where’s the disk?” errors. Letting it cool restored it to normal health.
If your laptop’s still acting funny after being shut off (and I mean OFF - take out the battery, if you can) for a few hours, take advantage of the warranty.
In my professional opinion, all those symptoms COULD be overheating.
The odd part is that they persist after a cool-down and an OS reload. They shouldn’t.
The only hardware-based explanation would be that the overheated state caused hardware damage bad enough to cause intermittent recurring faults.
Sucks. Sorry to hear about that.
Pain to send the stuff in, even if it all winds up being paid.
The vendor likely won’t say anything, but might not properly consider this warranty-related. That would depend on whether their directions prohibit the treatment the machine has been through.
Well, today the computer is behaving normally. I think I will wait a little while to see if the problems come back. Thanks for your responses.
–FCOD
Two anecdotes that I can share here, both of which involve desktop PC’s - so they might not be useful to you. Maybe, just maybe, they can help fight ignorance somewhere else, though.
Years ago, when I lived in Houston, my roommate and I hooked up a null-modem connection between two Pentium machines so we could play Command & Conquer against each other. Some time into the game, Michael’s machine froze up completely, and dropped its connection to mine. We figured it was probably some kind of bug in the game, rebooted, and began playing again.
This time, the game crashed much sooner, and we thought there might be more to it. We opened up the case - which was arranged vertically rather than horizontally - and found that the processor’s heat sink had come unseated and was dangling by its power cables. Fortunately, the machine was undamaged and after restoring the heat sink and letting it cool, commanding and conquering resumed unabated.
I remembered this story when, a few months ago, I was playing Dawn of War when my machine began to seize up for no reason after about 30 minutes of play. When this happened twice in one evening, I opened the case and found the interior positively coated in dust! I gave up for the night, but the following day returned armed with a screwdriver (to open up the case and remove the power supply) and a can of compressed air to blow out all the dust bunnies.
Lesson learned? Proper cooling and airflow are essential.
Does this mean that putting the machine into hibernation doesn’t really do that much? Or anyway, does not turn enough of it off to make it safe to put in a briefcase?
My half year old laptop started suddenly shutting of abruptly about six weeks ago. I took it back to the dealer who had to mail it to Toshiba who replaced the mother board and now all is well. But I had always turned it off, really off, before putting it in a case.
I forgot to clarify. I thought I put the computer into hibernate, but I didn’t. It was running while it was in the bag. When a laptop is hibernating, it doesn’t use any power, and will be cool. When it’s running on standby, it uses minimal power and shouldn’t get too hot.
–FCOD