Dell laptop

harrys_nan

Does anyone know why my laptop has a problem loading up when I turn it on?
It takes a couple of goes on startup to get going, it starts up then stops responding and the screen freezes, goes blank and after a few mins, starts to go again. It can "stop responding" while I am using it as well.
I am going to take to someone but I wanted a suggestion of the fault first

AndyPix

At what point does it freeze at startup ?


Does it manage to get to windows ? ie can you see the desktop with all your icons on, or is it before you have logged on ?

harrys_nan

After I fire it up as it’s thinking about starting

grumpycrab

Either corrupt windows or disk on its way out. Backed up recently?

Biggus_Dickus

OP,
How old is your laptop?...has your fan been working properly in recent times?...have the air vents been kept clear?

A faulty fan or partially blocked vents can cause the machine to run at excessive temperatures which often leads to permanent (or intermittent) component failure. Once electronic components start to play-up due to being overly heat-stressed they don’t recover and often cause the kind of problems you are experiencing (even when cold).

Electronic failure (permanent and intermittent) can happen at any time for no obvious reason, ..however, increasing age comes with the increased likelihood of failure.

From your description I’d hazard a guess that it’s (probably/possibly??) an issue with the internal DC power converter/circuitry which supplies varying levels of DC to the different laptop elements,...alternatively, could be different failure on the motherboard (myriad possible culprits really) .

Unlikely to be the hard drive or op.sys,...but possibly could be;...laptop issues such as you describe can sometimes be a sod to diagnose and rectify .:(

harrys_nan

Thankyou Biggus,
The laptop is about 3 years old at the most, I am just going to take it to a local repair shop. I can use it as it is but it just frustrates me,

that

Before you take it into shop, or we try and get you to do stuff, copy off all your photos and other data to a usb stick or usb drive, and possibly making a second copy in the cloud may also be a good idea

EveryWhere

that wrote: »

Before you take it into shop, or we try and get you to do stuff, copy off all your photos and other data to a usb stick or usb drive, and possibly making a second copy in the cloud may also be a good idea

Probably best to remove the HDD completely, replacing it with an SSD.
Identifying the exact model, in order to determine whether that can be easily done, would be my first step.

that

EveryWhere wrote: »

Probably best to remove the HDD completely, replacing it with an SSD.
Identifying the exact model, in order to determine whether that can be easily done, would be my first step.

I'd gravitate to wards the drive too. Er, dont know if that disk should be removed. Damned if you do, and damned if you dont. Personally if it sort of works, would leave it in situe, get the stuff off asap first, rather than put it in a caddy that may relax or stress points on the drive. Been burnt by the ST225 - 20MB of unreliability too many times.

EveryWhere

that wrote: »

I'd gravitate to wards the drive too. Er, dont know if that disk should be removed. Damned if you do, and damned if you dont. Personally if it sort of works, would leave it in situe, get the stuff off asap first, rather than put it in a caddy that may relax or stress points on the drive. Been burnt by the ST225 - 20MB of unreliability too many times.

No harm in making a back-up beforehand.
Then I'd remove it just to protect my data from prying eyes. If it isn't connected to the drive, they won't need the drive to fix the problem anyway.

mksysb

You could try creating a linux live usb (xubuntu for example) and booting into it and run it for a while, to see if you get the same problems with a different o/s.