Is my Laptop dying?

white_star

Hi,

Sorry, Im a tech's worst nightmare , not a clue about computers .

My main problem is my laptop is taking a very longtime to start-up, and constantly freezing every 10minutes or so. Does this sound like my Hard drive is dying? my laptop is over 4yrs old now.

The problems all started last week, and don't know if its connected with being unable to access Yahoo.co.uk pop mail through OE, as it all happened at the same time.

Tbh not a clue what I've done as my ISP POP settings have now
been changed that many times, but im still getting the error msg CN Server cannot connect, and only way to get emails is buy submitting Yes.

Having read lots of posts and advice from here, I've downloaded and the run the following....
SpyBot / CC Cleaner/ Avast (previously AVG but read a few posts on here that Avast better) Defrag / System Restore / Disc Clean-up / malwarebytes / Ad aware /Revo Unistaller and PC decrapifier

Im on AOL, and I've a netgear router, which has been reinstalled, and have spoken to AOL helpdesk, which basically didnt help at all!

Any advise Please

evilgoose

Try running scandisk to check on the HDD, it will report and try and repair (or mark so not used again) bad sectors on the disk.

My Computer ---> right click the drive ---> properties ---> tools --->error checking

It's possible the files becoming corrupted thus causing crashes and other 'issues' with your computer are a sympthom of HDD problems,

but also

It could just be that your machine is suffering from the detritus of four years use and needs cleaning up.

1st thing to do if you suspect a drive dying is to make sure that you've got any files which are important to you backed up.

white_star

Thanks evilgoose,

I've done as suggested, and things a running a little smoother. cheers :beer:

evilgoose

Glad its helped - you could also try a defragmentation on the disk. It basically re-organises the files on there so that they aren't split up all over the disk.

You find it in the same place as the scandisk - its the option below that. Click it to go and then pop the kettle on and watch a movie! - depending on the amount of free space on you disc it can take a long time, a hour or so is not surprising. (it can take a long time anyway)