My wifes laptop was working fine up until recently. For some reason after it turns on, at undetermined amounts of time, the screen will flutter, or flash a pattern of boxes across the screen. It will then freeze, turn of the screen then turn back on but the resolution is huge. A normal sign-on box goes from 4"-2" to just seeing the corner on the bottom half of the screen. At which point you have to shut down being un able to see anything(everythings way to big). It is sometimes fixed by restarting, not always though. And just the other day it would not find any bootable devices. So we restored it. Fixed it for a day or so now its starting again! Any suggestions? I’m normally pretty good with computers but this stumped me.
Sounds like a heat problem, often a big issue with laptops. Your first description started focusing me on the video subsystem, but when you indicated it couldn’t find any bootable devices, I think maybe the problem is system wide. I am unsure how comfortable you are about opening up a laptop, as it is much more involved and requires a much finer touch than opening a PC case, as it can get scratched and/or cracked.
When I had unusual problems with a laptop at my old job, I did the following. PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Open up the access point to the processor if possible, if not; open the case to expose the processor. Carefully remove the heat sink (I think they are all different, so you have to figure it out for yourself) and see if the thermal compound hasn’t dried out or whatever. If it has, it is probably the problem. Regardless of whether it is dry or not, you need to clean it off and replace it with a new thermal compound. I used Artic Silver, replaced the heat sink, and solved the problem. Understand that if you remove the heat sink, and it looks OK, you will still need to clean off both the processor and heat sink and put new thermal compound back on the heat sink.
When I succeeded with the above, I thought I might as well do the second laptop we had, as it was the same model and age, so I figured I would take care of it before it was a problem. When I was removing the heat sink, the processor came out of the ZIF socket with the heat sink, even though I hadn’t lessened the tension. I was able to separate the two and replace the thermal compound with the Artic Silver, and the system ran fine, but it underscores the possibility of problems, so again, I suggest you be careful. You may be able to get a tech company (local computer store that offers repair service) to do this for you at a nominal cost if you aren’t comfortable with doing so yourself.
Good point about temp! I actually did take it apart looking for the motherboard battery to clear out the bios and removed the memory to clear that as well. I took a look at the processor, the heat sink was clamped down pretty well onto the processor. But there was no compound inbetween. Now the only thing thats making me think it isnt the temp is that the comp will sometimes run for over an hour either idle or 1/2-3/4 load with out any problems. And then sometimes we would just turn it on from a cold 8 hour rest, and the problem would come up. I’ve taken pc’s apart before but let me tell you, this thing was a pain to take apart, I’ll give the thermal stuff a shot but I’m not looking forward to ripping this thing apart again. Thank you for the suggestion!
Hey Tim,
I’m far from a computer expert, but if a
restore to your system “fixed it for a day”
I would suspect software rather than
hardware problems.
I would google up Trend, Panda, Adaware
and Spybot and use their free online scans
or downloads and see what they might find.
There are a lot of miscreants out in cyber
space that get their jollies by infecting
computers of complete strangers. Just
because one virus scan or adware program
does not uncover a problem, don’t hesitate
trying others. I ultimatly found 192
instances of adware, 3 instances of hack
ware and 9 trojans which were inducing my
computer to act as if it had hardware
problems. Good luck! Warm regards, Jim
You may have video driver issues. Try going to the web and downloading new video drivers for your video card. This might help.
jed
Jim, I’ve been using the windows Beta spyware and it blew all those others out of the water. It found 30-40% more spyware then Adaware. I used that daily before hand. And during the problem time. So I doubt its spyware related. But a possibility. Jed, true but would that cause the computer to give out to the point where it cant find an O/S? The computer 2-3yrs. old and had been running fine. I know memory issues can cause a ton of headaches, I didnt know video card could too. I have a feeling its not a visual thing its further in then that. I’m also going to pull the hard drive and put it on another computer. If the problem occurs again that will narrow it down a bit. Thanks guys!! Keep the suggestions coming!!
Tim, … I use Xoftspy and a few other.
imho, … I believe you have a virus!
Do you have a good AV program??
Christopher Chin, Jonquiere Quebec
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Not as of yet. But soon. We get a watchdog log report with a serial number after it. Anyone know of this watchdog log program?
Hey Tim;
Keep in mind that some unusual memory problems are actually sector failures for the swap file. I have had this before. I don’t know how you might check this, but maybe schedule a full disk scan including sector checking for your next boot. Maybe disable the swap file before doing so to allow for the scan, and recreate it after the boot. Sounds like I don’t have to warn you, but make sure you will have enough contiguous space for your new swap file after the reboot.
The only way I know of checking the memory is to either get its scanned, or buy/swap each stick one at a time. Scanning her runs like $60 not worth it really. Better of just buying some cheap memory and testing it myself. I’ll try the scan. I’ve never had to play with the swap file before. Any info on what to do? Thank you!
Sorry for the delay Tim. I am guessing you run Windows XP given that you indicated you were using Windows beta spyware. To do this, you need to right click on your My Computer on the desktop, select the Advanced Tab –> Performance Setting button –> Advanced tab in the resulting dialog box –> Change button for Virtual Memory. You can set your paging memory or swap file to whatever size you want, or you can disable it with the appropriate choices.
What I was suggesting was disable the swap page, run a thorough disk scan on subsequent boot, reenable the swap file on subsequent restarts back to the amount indicated above (so track it somehow I guess) or if the system manages it, reselect that option. Just make sure that the drive does have enough space for one file of the suggested or configured size, just in case there are bad sectors where the swap file is and the OS marks the sectors bad (you probably don’t want a swap file around bad sectors even if the OS lets you, as bad sectors tend to grow around a problem area).
If you are worried about contigious space, you can use the Disk Defragementer tool found in Computer Management to free up some contigious space for the new swap file. I find it best to just run the defrag tool on a system left alone (and if possible, kill as many unnecessary processes as possible) to allow the defrag to progress quickly.
A file could have gotten corrupted. The software might be on the video card manufacturer’s website.
jed
Hey Jed; doesn’t address the failure to find any boot devices though…
a few things would help such as make and model of the laptop and the peripherals. What service packs you have and a basic blurb on what other programs, eg, CAD, office, gimp, flysim etc. Without knowing these things its impossible to make an educated guess.
sjay,
thats true. Maybe a hard drive issue which could manifest itself in a corrupt sector that effects the video driver or in a no boot device error.
jed