Laptop on last legs

[radders]

Hi Gurus,

I'll be buying a new laptop September/October, but need to keep this old one working in the interim.

Bought about 30 months ago from Tiny ( I now know that they use the cheapest crappiest componenets!), 112Mb RAM, 20Gb hard drive - not a lot, know, but at the time it seemed sufficient.

Some of the problems :

Extreme overheating of laptop & mains connector (within 5 minutes)
Very little free RAM (~80% utilised)
Programmes continually freezing
Extremelely slow response times from most programmes
More often than not, have to manually switch-off to reboot

Hard drive has ~ 25% free space.

I defrag & scandisk etc. pretty regularly.

Had the machine in at a repair shop thinking the overheating was caused by a broken fan, but appartantly not - they told me that Tiny machines had a limited lifespan due to inbuilt crapability.

So, after all that, are there any system tweaks anyone is aware of that will cool it down and keep me running for another 3 months?

Thanks & Regards
Radders

[Win2Win]

It's locking up because it's over heating.

You can purchase an additional cooler, highly recommended for the new one anyway.

http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xPP-System_Cooling--14114_price_range_20_30-type__mining__laptop_cooler

http://www.laptopcooling.co.uk/

I use the "PLATINUM MULTIMEDIA 3 FAN LAPTOP COOLER" as this has 3 fans. Anyone with a laptop should have one, it will extend it's life. Uses a USB socket.

Not sure why the power pack should overheat, seperate component and usually reliable. Maybe a spare available on Ebay.

You can also enter the BIOS on boot up, and lower the speed of the processor by some margin, this will also cool it down.

http://compreviews.about.com/cs/pchardwarebasics/a/aaBIOS.htm


If all that fails, you'll have to work in the fridge. Not kidding, if you don't keep it cool, it will lock up.

[radders]

Thanks Keith,

You're not kidding about the fridge - I store it in there prior to and after use!

I know the overheating is THE problem, but not sure if overheating is causing the problems, or the problems are causing the overheating - a chicken & egg scenario.

I looked at buying a fan/cooler but thought I'd try system tweaks first - looks like I might be best to go ahead with the fan for future use too.

Regards
Radders

NB. Platform is XP Home, with XP Pro over-installed.

[Win2Win]

Just lower the chip speed as low as it will go, it sounds like a either too much power is getting into the chip due to a failure, or the heatsink isn't doing it's job properly. It won't be anything to do with software.

This may be of interest.... http://www.itreviews.co.uk/forum/2941

Buy the new one off AJP

[Win2Win]

http://www.unusualpublishing.co.uk/forum/3619

[bigcumba]

http://www.unusualpublishing.co.uk/forum/3619

That pretty much sums up those machines! Every year they come bottom of reader's surveys in the PC mags... yet every year the daft uninformed public go on buying them.... I've been very close to slapping a few folk at work for buying that crap instead of asking me first!

[radders]

Do I feel stuuuupid ....

In my defence, I'd had years & years of corporate IBM's & DELL's provided to me without any thought on my part.

When I went into business for myself, I was overwhelmed by the range available, consulted a few pals and before you know it had spent £1,500+ on what is now evidently a piece of crap.

I'll be taking some advice on my next purchase from this site - AJP seems to get some good mentions.

Ach well, better get back into the fridge!

Radders

[bigcumba]

Keith certainly likes his AJP's and that's from experience, me - I like my Dell's been using them for years now, and they tend to be very reliable, plus the service is good when something does go wrong.

[Win2Win]

You pay more for Dell's though due to the name, I've had 3 laptop's off AJP, the first my Dad now has, and has been running no problems for over 4 years.

I'd say defo get a 1600x1400 screen, and no less. This is the part that companies screw you on, they blag about top of the range stuff, and you end up with a screen with few pixels on it.

[bigcumba]

Yep, a big hi-res screen is definitely a must - mine is 1400x1050 and that's a bit cramped!

[Alex]

Graham, the overheating is the only hardware problem and you dont need to lower your cpu speed.
I am convinced that your laptop needs a tune up software wise. Im sure that you have lots of unwanted programs starting up at boot time.
The windows defrag is crap. Within the industry it is known as a terrible piece of software that does more to hinder than help the average users drive fragmentation. Use diskeeper
instead: http://www.executive.com/coverpage.asp.
There is about a million things you can do to the registry to speed things up, the most basic is to turn off file indexing. it also sounds like your page file is far too small, and you may need to manually tweak its size.
There are many things to do out of the scope of this forum.


Id be happy to take a look at it for you as im sure it would only take me 20 minutes to get things working again. Let me know on this forum or contact me via email and i can advise you in much more detail.

Alex.

[bigcumba]

I'd certainly go with Alex on Diskkeeper - much better than anything else out there for de-fragging. As for him looking at your laptop - kind gesture Alex - have a few rep points for that!

[TheOldhamWhisper]

Graham, the overheating is the only hardware problem and you dont need to lower your cpu speed.

Slightly worried by this suggestion - I have 'fixed' several older model laptops using this method as the people I work for cannot afford to spend money introducing cooling systems to machines which are budgeted to be replaced in the next 6 months or so. It is an effective compromise and a redution in speed of around 10% often does the trick.

[Win2Win]

...and that's why the put coolers on the processor :)

You could always think GREEN Radders and fry your breakfast on it :D

[silax]

thanks alex
downloading diskeeper trial to give it a whirl

[radders]

Thanks All,

I'll have a fiddle with the suggestions.

Regards
Radders

[radders]

Id be happy to take a look at it for you as im sure it would only take me 20 minutes to get things working again. Let me know on this forum or contact me via email and i can advise you in much more detail.

Alex.

Thanks Alex,

I've PM'd you.

Regards
Radders

[Onlyforfun]

My laptop is overheating, how do I lower the CPU speed (Windows 2000)

[Win2Win]

Press delete on bootup and press DEL to enter the BIOS. Their is a setting in their, but buy a coller mentioned above first, this extends the laptop life, and is worth the money.

[Onlyforfun]

Belongs to work, when it blows up I'll get a Dell instead of this crappy Thinkpad, its small and light but the battery is rubbish.

[Win2Win]

I use two batteries on mine so I get 4-5 hours. I've also just got a battery pack for my portable printer, so I can run off the Betfair pages on the track & hand them out :laugh

[sparkyminer]

I use two batteries on mine so I get 4-5 hours. I've also just got a battery pack for my portable printer, so I can run off the Betfair pages on the track & hand them out :laugh
Any more battery powered appliances Keith? :wink

[Win2Win]

Come round and see, bring the vaseline though :yikes:

[sparkyminer]

I was thinking of torches, watches, calculators, etc, what are you going on about? Ooo