My laptop is freezing a few minutes after power on

Avoriaz

PCease wrote: »

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.

I have done all that.

I did a format and reinstall of everything about 9 months ago. I do that about once every 18 to 24 months.

I also upgraded the memory to 2 gb and the disk to 250gb.

Avoriaz

PCease wrote: »

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...................................

The fans etc were largely dust free and I have cleared out what little there was.

The heat transfer paste has definitely dried out so that is probably contributing to the problem.

I'm not going to spend any more time on it. I am long overdue a newer better and faster laptop so this is a good excuse to go shopping.



Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and comments. Your help is much appreciated.