My laptop (Taiwanese Asus bought about 18 months ago) has started playing up in the last couple of weeks.
It is just switching itself off for no apparent reason. It isn’t doing it much, once every few days (maybe four or five times so far). Sometimes it will do it when I am right in the middle of typing, sometimes I come back and find it has just switched off while I was away.
The first few times this happened it ran through a ‘disk consistency check’ when I switched it back on. The last time it just powered back up normally.
I did let my virus updates (PC Cillin) get a few months out of date. Since I stopped subscribing to PC Cillin I installed AVG a couple of weeks back (after the problem started). AVG found a couple of viruses and apparently dealt with them.
The probelm keeps happening though. But like I said it is just an intermitent thing. I work on my computer all the time, and I can go days with no trouble.
Any insights into what the problem is?
I have hardly any software installed on my computer, so there is a ton of free memory. Using up too much memory can destabilize things, right?
I keep a firewall up (PC Cillin). Run the Lavasoft Adaware every few days.
Should I run some other virus checkers and see what they come up with? Or could this be a hardware problem?
I know bugger all about computers so any help is most sincerely appreciated.
If it’s like a system shutdown it might be Sasser (do a search). If it’s just a sudden black screen it might be what I had last week. Running AVG and Spybot Search and Destroy didn’t help. Then I tried the Panda online virus scan which found and immunized two viruses. Has been OK so far since then.
OK. . . I just ran the Panda online scan and it found nothing. There were something like 300 ‘messages’ generated by the scan though. No way to see what these messages were (files that couldn’t be opened for checking?)
AVG is picking up nothing. Although When I check the scan log it lists a couple of dozen files that couldn’t be opened for scanning. Is that normal or are these likely to be viruses hiding themselves?
I haven’t looked specifically into Sasser, but I assume the Panda online scan would have picked that up if present, right?
Any suggestions? Should I keep downloading different virus scanners or should I now assume this is a hardware problem and take my laptop in to be looked at? I don’t want to do that without being pretty sure that I have excluded all virus possibilities.
The shutdown is more like a simple switching itself of than a windows shutdown. I think anyway. The thing just powers off without going through the normal extended shutdown proceedure (i.e. the windows chimes etc. . .).
The problem hasn’t happened again since I originally posted here BTW.
Seems unconnected to the battery if a hardware problem, because I have not been running the computer on the battery when the shutdown has happened.
Goes through the entire boot-up routine when I switch it back on. Often (but not always) goes through a disk consistency check before starting the normal boot up routine.
The AVG is updated, but was only installed after this problem first started, so I supposed it could have become infected. AVG found a couple of viruses when I first installed it, nothing since. Panda found nothing.
The problem hasn’t happened again since I first posted here. Happened maybe 4 times during the past fortnight.
It might be a simple case of overheating and or due to a poor or non-standard signal from your CPU fan. (Google it.)
Random, frequent reboots; disk consistency checks after the reboots; I had the exact same problems with my computer, which has an ASUS motherboard.
I thought it was a incredibly sophisticated worm that had infested my computer, something like the mentioned sasser rascal. So I ran every virus program I had, combed my computer files, and was to the point of retiring from computer use and moving to a small village in Caotun.
Then, through a little more research, I found that it was simply that my computer was overheating, something that’s easy to occur in the summer in Taiwan.
Read about some laptop overheating prevention methods, try them, and you should be back to normal.
If the overheating prevention doesn’t work, verify the maker of your laptop’s motherboard and fans, then check to see if any problems have been reported about them, such as poor or non-standard RPM signals of CPU fans.*
(ASUS motherboards have been known to have these problems.)
*One way of checking whether or not your fan is bad, look at it when you boot your laptop. If it doesn’t move as soon as your computer boots, it is likely not a good fan.
Two of my laptops (one is firewall and not actively used) sit 1cm from desk on cut down wine bottle corks. Problems that were heat I guess went away. For some reason wife’s Acer has no problems
What about a desktop? I’m pretty damn sure I’ve zapped all the viruses, worms, trojans etc, but it’s still turning itself off once or twice a day. I’ts not cold here.
Hi namesake Well if the problem started with summer it is probably heat- you can get extras fans that fit in desktop card slot. Drape a wet (not too wet) towel over the PC - put an add-on fan on the processor - although it may not be the processor that has the problem. If you are a wild gamer it might be the video chip. Fans also available for this
Bu: see if your motherboard has a utility that gives the temperature of its bits, mine does. If the CPU goes above about 60C, it’s too hot.
When we first got 486-66 's we weren’t told to put any cooling on, and by lunchtime they just went weird :loco:
Thanks for the tips. I suspect it is an overheating problem. The first time it happened was an extremely hot day, no air con on, the computer sitting direct sunlight.
Would it be an idea to have the fan replaced?
I have noticed that the fan is much noisier now than when I bought the thing, but my old laptop also got noisier as it got older (with no problems).
The fan is probably getting gunked up with a thin layer of dust. Try cleaning it out with a q-tip if it is exposed enough, but be careful not to insert it too far or you might pierce your ear drum… whoops, wrong topic… Seriously though, I have to periodically clean out my laptop’s fans or they just gunked up and start making weird noises.
You’re right, this is indeed a very effective method. I use pieces of styrofoam myself for the same reason. It works even better if you place a fan near the table and have it blowing across the computer - all that air circulating under the machine cools it down real fast.
You can buy notebook coolers, which are basically a metal plate (metal conducts heat well) with fans underneath that your laptop sits on.
Before, I had a huge fan next to my laptop that I would turn on whenever I used my laptop, and my laptop was propped up on top of one of those metal steamer trays you use for cooking to allow the air to circulate freely beneath. That stopped my laptop from freezing. Then I got the Antec cooler, thinking I could stop using the fan. I found it’s still not enough, though. Even with the cooler, the laptop would still freeze without the big fan. So it’s probably not worth it to get a notebook cooler, a big fan would be cheaper and has alternative uses too.
If you’re still interested in coolers, here are some links to coolers that I looked into a long time ago, not sure if the links are still active.
My laptop was suffering from overheating problems, causing the fan to run on high and sometimes leading to a blue screen and memory core dump.
I removed the base panel and used a compressed air can to clean the air vents, blowing at them from the outside. Some clumps of dust shot out. Now my laptop hasn’t suffered from any overheating since.
It could also be overheating due to the surface the laptop is on. I tried using my laptop in bed once and it overheated right away…if the surface is soft at all it fills the vents under the computer. Right now mine is on a tablecloth and usually it’s fine, once it bunched up a bit underneath and it overheated though, so it doesn’t take much.