JediChris
01-08-2012, 12:25 PM
Situation:
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-NS295J, that I acquired used. The primary problem which caused the laptop to become mine, the HDD making screeching/scraping noises has already been resolved by replacement of the drive with a brand new, in the box seagate drive. What's going on now is that after reinstallation of the OS (Vista 64 Home Premium) from the factory reinstall partition (I was able to image it off the old drive and move it over to the new one), I experience random freezes. By freezes I mean that the screen is still active showing the last thing I was doing, but the mouse cursor is inactive, nothing is moving on the screen (to include the clock), and the HDD light is on and stays on (no flashing, no nothing). Ctrl-Alt-Delete to attempt to reboot/activate task manager does nothing. The computer is completely unresponsive to anything but holding down the power button and doing a hard power off, or pulling the plug and the battery. This will normally start occuring between 30 minutes to 2 hours after I turn on the computer. If I immediately try to restart the computer, it will typically freeze within moments.
I have tried running several Linux based LiveCDs, and instead of freezing, I get X crashing and console messages about Kernel Panics. I have gotten one or two BSODs in windows, of which I don't remember the type.
Strangely, I have successfully run Memtest86 for 10 passes, extensive testing without error or freezing, although when I tried to run a CPU stress test off one of the super boot LiveCDs I downloaded, it usually immediately causes a kernel panic and crashes the diagnostic.
This is sounding remarkably load dependent, and possibly heat dependent. I have opened the computer, reseated the CPU in the socket, and cleaned the fan and radiator. I believe the fan is spinning, because I can feel hot air being blown out of the vent, and SpeedFan says the fan is operating in the 2500rpm range. Strangely, I can usually get longer run times out of the system if I use SpeedFan's option that allows the software to control the fan speed. (Heck, I played WoW for nearly 4 hours this morning, and the system only crashed after I logged out and went back to windows).
The other thing that concerns me, is that instead of thermal paste, Sony apparently used something that looks remarkably like clay, and that was quite brittle on the cpu. I have some Artic Silver ceramic thermal paste mail ordered and on the way, and that is getting fixed upon arrival. I was hoping someone had some additional ideas as to what else could be wrong. Intel's CPU diagnostic utility runs through clean, so unless the CPU has a heat dependent failure, I don't think it's the CPU. I'm praying that the mainboard hasn't got a problem, since buying a new computer will be cheaper than a replacement mainboard.
According to SpeedFan, the CPU temp idles around 41C, and easily averages in the mid 50s during load.
My other problem is that the laptop will have slowdowns while accessing the HDD. I find this strange given that the HDD is brand new. Not sure if this is related or not.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
Memory: 1x 2GB PC2-6400 Ram (the system came with 4gb from the factory, but it only had 2 in it when I acquired it, and I didn't want to throw good money after the bad in adding ram if the mainboard was fried or something)
HDD: Seagate ST905003N1A1AS-RK 500GB SATA Notebook Drive
OS: Sony preload of Windows Vista Home Premium OEM (64-Bit)
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 (Supposedly it has 256mb dedicated memory, then has a dynamic allocation of up to 1GB of shared memory. I've not been able to verify this.)
Any help would be appreciated.
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-NS295J, that I acquired used. The primary problem which caused the laptop to become mine, the HDD making screeching/scraping noises has already been resolved by replacement of the drive with a brand new, in the box seagate drive. What's going on now is that after reinstallation of the OS (Vista 64 Home Premium) from the factory reinstall partition (I was able to image it off the old drive and move it over to the new one), I experience random freezes. By freezes I mean that the screen is still active showing the last thing I was doing, but the mouse cursor is inactive, nothing is moving on the screen (to include the clock), and the HDD light is on and stays on (no flashing, no nothing). Ctrl-Alt-Delete to attempt to reboot/activate task manager does nothing. The computer is completely unresponsive to anything but holding down the power button and doing a hard power off, or pulling the plug and the battery. This will normally start occuring between 30 minutes to 2 hours after I turn on the computer. If I immediately try to restart the computer, it will typically freeze within moments.
I have tried running several Linux based LiveCDs, and instead of freezing, I get X crashing and console messages about Kernel Panics. I have gotten one or two BSODs in windows, of which I don't remember the type.
Strangely, I have successfully run Memtest86 for 10 passes, extensive testing without error or freezing, although when I tried to run a CPU stress test off one of the super boot LiveCDs I downloaded, it usually immediately causes a kernel panic and crashes the diagnostic.
This is sounding remarkably load dependent, and possibly heat dependent. I have opened the computer, reseated the CPU in the socket, and cleaned the fan and radiator. I believe the fan is spinning, because I can feel hot air being blown out of the vent, and SpeedFan says the fan is operating in the 2500rpm range. Strangely, I can usually get longer run times out of the system if I use SpeedFan's option that allows the software to control the fan speed. (Heck, I played WoW for nearly 4 hours this morning, and the system only crashed after I logged out and went back to windows).
The other thing that concerns me, is that instead of thermal paste, Sony apparently used something that looks remarkably like clay, and that was quite brittle on the cpu. I have some Artic Silver ceramic thermal paste mail ordered and on the way, and that is getting fixed upon arrival. I was hoping someone had some additional ideas as to what else could be wrong. Intel's CPU diagnostic utility runs through clean, so unless the CPU has a heat dependent failure, I don't think it's the CPU. I'm praying that the mainboard hasn't got a problem, since buying a new computer will be cheaper than a replacement mainboard.
According to SpeedFan, the CPU temp idles around 41C, and easily averages in the mid 50s during load.
My other problem is that the laptop will have slowdowns while accessing the HDD. I find this strange given that the HDD is brand new. Not sure if this is related or not.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T6400
Memory: 1x 2GB PC2-6400 Ram (the system came with 4gb from the factory, but it only had 2 in it when I acquired it, and I didn't want to throw good money after the bad in adding ram if the mainboard was fried or something)
HDD: Seagate ST905003N1A1AS-RK 500GB SATA Notebook Drive
OS: Sony preload of Windows Vista Home Premium OEM (64-Bit)
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 (Supposedly it has 256mb dedicated memory, then has a dynamic allocation of up to 1GB of shared memory. I've not been able to verify this.)
Any help would be appreciated.