My laptop is freezing a few minutes after power on

Avoriaz

Hi, do any of you experts have any helpful suggestions?

My elderly, 6 year old, Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop must be feeling its age.

It boots up normally, works fine for 5 to 15 minutes and then freezes solid, refusing to react to the mouse, track pad, keyboard, Alt/Tab, Ctrl/Alt/Del etc. It just displays whatever was on the screen when it froze and refuse to react to any input. Any download stops and the internet connection drops.

The only solution is to force a power off by holding down the power button. It then refuses to power on again for a while. After an hour or two, maybe when it has cooled down, it will work normally again but then freezes again after another few minutes.

I’m fairly sure that it isn’t a virus as I have 2 separate boot disks and it does the same with either. My backup boot disk has not been connected to the internet for a few years so can’t have picked up a new virus.

Maybe it is a BIOS level virus or a long ago downloaded virus but again I doubt that. I have Windows Firewall and AVG anti virus and I am fairly sensible about what I download and which sites I visit. I have tried to run an AVG scan but it freezes before that finishes.

My (probably ill informed) suspicion is that it is a thermal problem and some vital component is overheating. I have stripped it down and looked for obvious problems and found nothing. There was no obvious failure, no excessive dust build up, both fans and fan outlets were clear, both fans work normally etc. There was no sign of excessive heat build up and no components got more than vaguely warm before it froze again.

It has 2 x 1gb DDR memory cards. I have tried it with just one card, then just the other. It freezes with either so that rules them out.

I normally use a 250gb disk. I have a backup 80gb disk. It freezes with either.

I have removed the DVD/CD and the wireless card. It still freezes.

I have removed the battery and tried it on mains power only. I have tried battery only. It freezes just the same.

The things I haven’t yet tried are a BIOS refresh/update or a Windows reinstall but I’m not sure that would make any difference to what appears to be a hardware issue.

Any suggestions? (other than scrapping it and buying something a bit newer which is what I will be doing soon anyway)

Thanks

aliEnRIK

I doubt its heat, as usually it would reset (restart) at that point

My guess is you have things running that are slowing it down

id check with malwarebytes first as AVG isnt the best at finding things (especially malware)

Then a hijack log so we can possibly determine what the problem is if it isnt malware

Download MALWAREBYTES (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware/
Open malwarebytes and goto UPDATE and click 'check for updates'. After its updated goto SCANNER and click PERFORM FULL SCAN then click SCAN
Post the COMPLETE log here AFTER youve deleted everything it finds

reboot
Download HIJACK THIS (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/
Click MAIN MENU then DO A SYSTEM SCAN AND SAVE A LOGFILE(Takes seconds) then post the log so we can see whats running
(do NOT do anything else with Hijack but scan and post the FULL log)

Avoriaz

My problem is that the laptop won't stay on long enough to do very much.

Can I remove the hard drive, put it in a USB caddy and run Malwarebytes and Hijack This from a working computer?

aliEnRIK

My bad

On a re-read it probably is heat induced (Probably miss read as im a tad tired now)

Youve tried the obvious so unless you wish to throw money at it it probably is time for a new computer

That said, goto DEVICE MANAGER ~ are there any yellow exclamation marks present?

[Deleted User]

Avoriaz wrote: »

Windows reinstall but I’m not sure that would make any difference to what appears to be a hardware issue.

Try running a bootable copy of Ubuntu for a few hours. That should rule out hardware.

gonzo127

yes you can run a virus scan over it if you connect it up to another computer, just remember to leave everything on the hard drive alone until the virus malware scans have run, unfortunatly hijack this isnt worth it running as a seperate HDD but thats something we can think about later,

the ubuntu livecd idea might be a interesting test to see if it is a case of windows rot or if it is a hardware issue as if it runs the live cd well without freezing it would put doubts into it being hardware at that point

Avoriaz

aliEnRIK wrote: »

My bad

On a re-read it probably is heat induced (Probably miss read as im a tad tired now)

Youve tried the obvious so unless you wish to throw money at it it probably is time for a new computer

That said, goto DEVICE MANAGER ~ are there any yellow exclamation marks present?

I did check Device Manager and everything showed ok.

As it is 6 years old I won't be wasting money on a repair. It has given excellent service and owes me nothing so I will just buy a newer and better laptop. Fortunately I have been able to borrow a laptop for a while.

I can reuse the hard disks and sell the rest for parts on Ebay.

Thanks for your help.

Avoriaz

Deleted_User wrote: »

Try running a bootable copy of Ubuntu for a few hours. That should rule out hardware.

Thanks.

I will try that when I have time but, as above, I think a new laptop beckons anyway.

[Deleted User]

Avoriaz wrote: »

Thanks.

I will try that when I have time but, as above, I think a new laptop beckons anyway.

There's some good deals on Dell's here: http://www.dmxdimension.com/

PCease

Sounds like a cooling issue. The is very common in older laptops. Probably one or both of the following:

[1] Dust builds up in the fans and heatsinks. Put you hand next to the vent... can you feel much air (hot or cold!) coming out? Probably not...

Dust blocks the fans and heatsinks which stops the flow air and then the processor heats up because it cannot remove the hot air which causes the cpu to go into protection mode (shut down).

[2] Also common in older laptops, there is some heat transfer paste between the processor and the fan that sits on top of the processor. The paste dries out eventually and the heat transfer from the processor to the fan is much less inefficient.

Download a program called SpeedFan. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Install it and take a look at the temperature. If it is over 50degrees (I guess closer to 80+) then this is the problem. Ideally, the temp should be around 30-40degs.

Or, when you turn on the laptop, look for a message saying "Press F2 for BIOS options" or "Press Delete for BIOS options" or similar. Look for a section called hardware or monitoring and you may see cpu temperature here.

Let me know how you get on.

Paul

PCease

also, after 6 years its probably time for a full windows re-install... (and maybe a memory upgrade). These are the cheapest performance upgrades you can make to extend the life of your laptop.