Laptop Blues

[mrbagwell]

I have a Ready 330T NEC laptop. It is running 128 megs of ram on Windows 2000 Pro. It is a P200 with a 4 Gig hard drive. The darn thing has been locking up on me for the last 2 months or so. I have tried it with Windows 98, I have tried new memory (still installed), I have reinstalled the OS several times ,formated the hard drive, the sledge hammer in my garage is looking like the only solution. The computer will run for any where from 5 min to 2 hours and then it just freezes. The screen remains frozen in place, mouse is stuck too. You cannot ctrl,alt,del. I have to shut down and restart and wait for it to happen all over again. I have tried several power saver options to no avail. I did recieve a message from one diagnostic program regarding the possibility of a MBR virus but I think that was a red herring because no other programs noted this. I was convinced it was the hard drive but before I spend $200 I was hoping for some second,third, etc... opinions. Please help

[BigBlue66]

Hi,

Boot to an MS-DOS prompt, then type the following:

FDISK /MBR

Type it exactly as it reads, i.e. a space between the 'K' and the '/'. This will repair the Master Boot Record. I think there is a good possibility that the one diagnostic program was right, i.e. you have a boot sector virus.

There are of course, a multitude of things that can cause freezes.

Try the above command for repairing the MBR and see if that helps. If not, post back and we will tackle it some more.

Cheers,

Big Blue 66


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You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you in a court of law.

[Paleo Pete]

ACPI power management could also be an issue, and several other things.

I think the most likely bets are ACPI, memory and software problems. Remove as many programs running in the background as possible, lower the video resolution, and get rid of any wallpaper and backgrounds that might be hogging resources.

Defrag the hard drive, clear out Temporary Internet files, and check the settings for that too. The default is 10% of the hard drive space, which is quite a lot...400MB I think in your case. I keep mine no larger than 15MB.

Also check the memory settings in BIOS. You might have the wrong speed set. Change it to 70ns, even if your memory is rated at 60ns. That can often make a difference.

I also agree with BB, run fdisk_/mbr. I use an underscore to denote the space. It could be a virus.

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[Randy_tx]

The greatest problem with a laptop is that if it IS HEAT causing the prob. you almost certainly have to take it to someone and spend an arm & a leg to get it checked out. IF(big IF) it has been stable in the past (on Win98 or 2000) and suddenly is not stable...it is usually a hardware issue with freeze up's that require a HARD reboot to get going again in my experience.
By HEAT...I mean overheated device...ie cpu, mobo, hard drive or vid card.
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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[This message has been edited by Randy_tx (edited 03-23-2001).]