My Compaq laptop started acting all weird and would constantly freeze on me
I bought a Compaq R3000 about a year ago and it seemed to run fine until recently yesterday. It started acting all weird and would constantly freeze on me. This would cause me to constantly having to restart the computer. Then finally today I have decided to reboot the computer, but now I can’t even get through the whole process because the computer continues to still freeze!! I’ve formatted the whole HD and everything. I thought it was a virus, but now I’m thinking it is a hardware problem. Please help me.
I think you might have a problem with your hard drive. Very often a laptop would freeze up because of installed spyware/asware programs, but by reinstalling the operating system you’ve eliminated any software related issues. Test it with Hitachi Drive Fitness test to see if it fails the test. User guide for Hitachi DFT test utility is located on the same page.
February 4th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Geoff,
Then there is nothing wrong with the power I think.
Try removing the wireless card and run the laptop without it. Try booting the laptop from a live Linux CD (I usually use Knoppix) WITHOUT hard drive installed. This CD will load a Windows-like environment from the CD, bypassing the hard drive. The laptop still freezes in there?
February 4th, 2007 at 12:27 am
My bios is up to date and interestingly the laptop will run forever left in the bios setup without freezing
February 4th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Geoff,
Have you tried upgrading the BIOS?
February 3rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I have a Gateway Solo 9300. Recently it froze up and I could not even get it to boot after powering it off. It would not even get to the BIOS. I removed the battery and tried again. This time it worked fine. I popped the battery into the running laptop and it immediately froze. It seems that the battery is completely dead and does not get charged and putting it into the laptop locks it up. What is the cause? Should I just get a new battery and not worry about it?
February 2nd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Hi I have an IBM A31 that will continualy freeze, sometime straight away after boot sometimes it wont boot at all and sometimes it will run for hours without problems. I have reinstalled Windows xp,tested the system with IBM PC Doctor and Hitachi hdd tester, all telling me that everything is fine. I installed a new stick of 512mb ram. The only thing i can think is it is a power problem (it still freezes when run on AC without the battery installed). I hope someone can help
January 17th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Thanks for the idea to check my hard drive. I haven’t done that yet but I will. I do have another clue.
I don’t think the fan being quiet has anything to do with it. For the last couple of weeks, I have made sure to close MS Outlook before I let the laptop go to sleep. I haven’t had any problems at all. Could there be something with MS Outlook that would cause the whole OS to freeze when it comes out of hibernation?
I suppose it could be the hard drive because my MS outlook file is quite large (emails stored for years)?
January 9th, 2007 at 5:49 am
Hey guys,
It turns out that it is the hard-drive that the noise is coming from. And another strange thing is that when i turn the laptop off the disc seems to be spinning in a decreasing speed for about 20seconds until a complete stop. I am in the process of purchasing a new hard drive. I’ll give my vaio a 120GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM as a treat.
thanks for your help
January 8th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Viktor,
Are you sure the noise is coming from the fan and not from the hard drive? I would test the hard drive first. Also make sure the fans spins. If you have a stuck cooling fan, it’s possible that laptop overheats.
January 8th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Matt,
When you put the laptop into hibernation mode, it takes a snapshot of the active memory, wrights it on the hard drive and then shuts down. When you turn on the laptop, the information written on the hard drive goes back into the memory and the laptop returns into the state before hibernation.
So, you said the laptop works fine except when it comes out of hibernation. It’s possible that you have a failing hard drive. You can test the hard drive with Hitachi drive fitness test, from my experience it works fine for most laptop hard drives, not only made by Hitachi.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Leisha Major,
Check if there a newer version of BIOS available for this model. Updated the BIOS and test again. It might help. Also you can try this. Take one machine that freezes and install a test hard dive into it. Load generic Windows XP and install drivers. Test if it still freezes.
January 7th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Hi guys,
I hope you can help. I have a Sony Vaio V505 laptop. I have had it for about two years and started considering selling it a few weeks ago. Two days ago strange things started happening to it. Sometimes it would not boot at all and just show a well known ‘blue screen’. But sometimes it would log into windows no problems and then make a weird noise (the fan i believe) and just completely freeze the system. I opened the laptop cover in order to clean it. and decided to try and boot it before i close it up. Strangely the system runs perfectly when the laptop is upside down!! Any ideas what the problem might be? I was thinking of bad either bad RAM or a problem with the HD connection.
Thanks for your help
January 6th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Hi,
I have a Toshiba Satellite 5205 series with XP Profession (latest updates) installed. I’ve had the laptop for 4 years now. Everything is working great … except … when the laptop comes out of hibernation, then sometimes (maybe 25% to 50% of the time) the laptop freezes up. I can click on a few of the programs I was running and the windows move, but the programs do not respond. I can CNTL-ALT-DEL one time, select a program, get the program, but that is usually the end. After that, I can no longer click on anything nor will CNTL-ALT-DEL work again. I have no choice but the hold down the power button to shut it off.
I am running a couple of database servers on it (for testing purposes only), MS Office 2002, do some software development, etc. I’ve tried different RAM, but the problem persists either way. I have 512MB in it now, but have had 1GB before.
The laptop works flawlessly otherwise. I can work for hours without a problem. It seems like it is more likely to freeze up if I leave it overnight. This problem started about 3 months ago. Oh, and one other important clue. Normally, the CPU fan runs nearly constantly. After I open the laptop up to wake it from hybernation… I know I will likely have a problem when I do not hear the CPU fan startup. The laptop is “too quiet”.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Matt
January 6th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I work in the IT department of an Australian pharmaceutical with 2 other people. We have 160 laptops that we look after.
We have recently bought the Lenovo R60 model. The issue we have is that it freezes at random. We just unpacked and built 20 Lenovo R60 models (2 were allocated to IT, one for myself). Out of the 20 laptops about 18 have frozen.
One of the IT staff beleives it is software that is causing the freezes. Is there any software that I can run to see what software could be causing the issue?
There is nothing in event viewer. The machines are brand new so it can’t be spyware or a virus that could be causing the freezes.
I hope you can offer some suggestions.
Thanks
December 14th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Sam W,
I think that you might have a few different problems at the same time.
This description tells me that you might have a faulty memory or hard drive. Listen for the hard drive sounds when the laptop freezes. Does it sound strange? Can you hear any clicking or grinding sound coming from the hard drive? May be the hard drive makes repetitive sounds, like unsuccessfully trying access something? If it does, then you might have a faulty hard drive. You can test the hard drive with a free utility called Hitachi’s DFT, I use it almost every day find this utility pretty accurate and this utility works on most drives. Run an advanced DFT test. For the memory, you can use Memtest 86+ utility. Make sure that it passes a few times. If the memory fails, replace it.
What if you leave the laptop turned off and plugged overnight? Next morning it still shows only 50% charge? Did you have the same problem before you reinstalled Windows XP? If yes, then I think you might have a bad battery and new AC adapter will not fix it. By the way, try running the laptop without battery installed. Will it shut down by itself after some time or the power is stable?
It’s also possible that there is a problem with the charging circuit on the system board, but it’s really hard to find out until you test the laptop with a known good battery.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:43 am
Sorry about this, but I think I have worked out the problem with my packard bell.
Working on just battery the system works fine, but on the mains (through the AC adaptor) it freezes unpredictably. The charger will only charge the battery to roughly 50% though, so as you can probably geuss it is not ideal.
Do you think a new AC will do the trick? Or could it be a mixture of the AC and battery (hence the battery not charging to its maximum?
SW
December 6th, 2006 at 1:54 am
I own a Packard Bell Easynote h5 and it has a similar problem to this. It was running windows XP home fine, until Norton Autoprotect one day told me that I had a “Trojan.Busky” in a file by the name of “utvgume.dll” in the System32 sub-folder of the Windows folder. It deleted this file, and since then, the notebook keeps freezing up. I bought windows XP professional, and installed this onto the notebook, formatting the HD completely before doing so, and it still hasn’t stopped the problem.
The notebook will work for a few minutes (sometimes not even getting past the “Welcome” screen) and sometimes for a couple of hours (for example letting me install Office XP onto the system) but there are some actions that it will not let me carry out without freezing (for example, completeing a download of MSN LIve messenger).
It even froze while the new windows xp professional was installing, but after one re-boot, it worked fine.
Also, after any reboot after freezing, the notebook comes on as if nothing has happened, and seems to work perfectly again!!
ANY help would be great!
Thanks.
SW
November 15th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Doug,
At the next step I would probably minimize the system as much as possible. You need to leave only 3 major components: motherboard, CPU (with the cooling module) and memory. Disconnect all other parts like touchpad, keyboard, etc… Unplug the LCD screen from the motherboard (to eliminate the entire LCD assembly) and try to start the system with an external screen. If it still will not boot with video, then one of three abovementioned components is bad. It’s unlikely that both memory modules fail at the same time so let’s assume that modules are fine. So we have only 2 components: CPU and motherboard. CPU failures are not very common and I would say that you have a failed motherboard.
November 15th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Dell Inspiron sometimes boots, but then freezes after a few minutes. I’ve got a Dell Inspiron 1150 that worked fine until last week when it stopped booting up. When I turn it on, the hard drive and cd/dvd light flash once, the fan turns on and runs for about 1 minutes, then the fan stops. Nothing displays on the screen. If I don’t touch the laptop for a full day or two, the laptop does start to boot but can freeze at various times: sometimes on the Windows XP progress/splash screen, sometimes it will completely boot up and run for about 2 or 3 minutes, but then the screen freezes up and it does not accept any mouse movements or keystrokes.
I’ve tried several suggestions from this site: I’ve swapped out my two memory modules (put module 1 into slot B, and vice versa; same with the second module). I’ve removed the hard drive and tried booting from the CD. I’ve used an external monitor but don’t see anything (when the laptop doesn’t even start to boot). I’ve hooked the hard drive up to another laptop and was able to grab some files that I needed.
Any ideas for something else I can try? Thanks for any suggestions.
November 12th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Well I’ve started to notice that my laptop when I press the power button, the button comes on but I can’t hear the fan starting up or any other noise? This is very strange, I’ve never encountered this problem as well. Any ideas? Maybe that’s the problem why it freezes on me.
November 10th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I have a Compaq laptop that started having memory problems. As far as I can tell, it runs fine with the older 64 MB and 128 MB memory chips that I got with it initially, but if I try to run it with newer 256MB chips (it has two slots for a maximum capacity of 512 MB), it eventually seems to burn out the RAM (it took a couple of years the first time, but only a couple of weeks the second time). I deduce that the RAM is being burned out because in the case of all 4 chips, they worked fine for a while after I bought them, but then they started getting flakier and flakier, and eventually they got to the point where the machine wouldn’t even boot with them in. I am getting fed up with buying new RAM chips – is there anything I can do besides live with 196 MB of RAM? (Windows needs a little more than this these days.)
November 9th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Randy,
You might have a loose cable inside the display assembly. When the screen goes black can see a faint image on the screen? If yes, then I would check cable connectors on both sides of the inverter side.
Just recently I had a similar situation with Toshiba laptop. The backlight was turning off when you move the screen. I took it apart and found that the screen cable got jammed between the screen and the hinge. The cable shielding got cracked exposing the wire. When I moved the display, the wire touched the hinge and shorted the inverter board. The problem disappeared when I put some electrical tape over the cracked spot on the LCD wire.
November 9th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I have a Dell inspirion 1000 that my son is using for colege. Recently it has started the screen going black and locking up if you attempt to move the screen while the laptop is on. you have to reboot by turning the laptop off with the on off button and then turning it back on. any thoughts about the most likely cause or place to start looking. Thanks
November 8th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Luis,
The best way to narrow it down is to test components. As I said before you can test the memory with Memtest 86+ utility, for the hard drive test you can run Hitachi drive fitness test.
OK. Here’s what I do sometimes to narrow down the problem, but it takes some time and requires some knowledge. You can download a live Linux operating system named Knoppix. After you download an iso image, you burn it on a CD. This OS runs from a CD and you don’t need a hard drive to be installed in the laptop to boot it to Linux. You remove the hard drive from the laptop, install the Knoppix CD into the drive, reboot the laptop and make it boot from this CD. The laptop should boot into Linux (similar to Windows environment by the way). The Linux OS loads into memory and if the memory is bad the laptop will fail to boot into Linux. As you see this test takes more time then testing the hardware with Memtest86+ and Hitachi DFT, but it’s an alternative way of testing.
Knoppix should run fine on most laptops and doesn’t require any special Linux knowledge.
November 7th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
I installed XP successfully, I found out it does have 512MB stock, and the one I was looking at is the expansion slot. I wanted to run a HD recovery but it never gives me enough time to, it always freezes. Could it be narrowed down to either HD or Memory problem? I’ll try to see if I can remove the keyboard tom. Thanks!
November 7th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
Luis,
I think you are right, when a laptop freezes up during Windows installation it could be an indication of a bad RAM.
If you cannot find the memory module anywhere on the bottom of the notebook, then most likely the memory slot is located under the keyboard. You’ll have to remove the keyboard to access the RAM slot/slots.
If you are lucky, both memory sticks in this model are removable and you can fix the laptop by replacing the failed RAM module. Some laptops have memory integrated into the system board. If the onboard memory fails, you have to replace the entire motherboard.
For testing laptop memory you can use Memtest 86+.
November 7th, 2006 at 9:45 am
I just got a Westinghouse laptop free from a friend. He said it froze at random times. I got to his house and it booted up fine. Although it had some extra things on there. I decided to re-format the HD and install a fresh copy of XP Pro. It froze @ 49%. I was in shock, after that it would cut on but the screen would stay blank. Other times it would get to the bios and I would try to install again, and it would freeze. I took the bottom of and I can’t see the memory? But I am more than sure that laptops or any other computers do not go pass BIOS without memory? I use to have a older Dell Latitude that froze too, and the the same thing because of the memory being loose or overheating. But I can’t seem to find the memory? I took off the bottom panel even. I have pictures.If anyone could help, I would REALLY appreciate it. Someone stole my last laptop and I am too broke to get a new one, so when I heard about him not wanting it because of the problem I figured it was something small. Well thanks in advanced!
October 10th, 2006 at 6:36 am
Hi,
I also bought a Compaq about a year ago and have had identical problem. the laptop will start intermittently and also freeze randomly(by itself when it feels like it). I initially thought it was the hard drive so tried formatting it first, which didn’t work so then i replaced it, which also hasn’t worked. Is the only, or most likely next explanation bad RAM.
Any ideas appreciated
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 am
Both problems could cause symptoms like this. I’ve encountered more problems with memory than disk, but regardless of which is more likely, testing memory is quicker and easier.
August 1st, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Zak,
From my experience, if the laptop memory is bad, the laptop will not boot at all or will fail to boot intermittently. I agree that the problem might be just a bad memory module, but the hard drive would be the first suspect on my list.
August 1st, 2006 at 7:11 pm
This sounds like bad RAM to me. The free memtest86+ utility from memtest.org can tell you if that’s the case. Most of the time, fixing the problem is as easy as replacing a DIMM – the owner’s manual will tell you how. Sometimes, there’s memory soldered to the motherboard, which is not so easy to replace (I’m the only person I know who’s done it successfully).