I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 and it wont turn on. I mean i can turn it on but it doesn’t go directly to windows like it always does but instead it just does a blank screen with a blinking cursor on the top left. Before my laptop just freezes and turns off by itself or sometimes freezes then a blue screen appears and then after 2 weeks that thing happened it doesn’t turns on. Please please please help me!!

Sounds like this is hard drive failure. The laptop starts with a blinking cursor on the top left side of the screen because it cannot see the hard drive or the hard drive doesn’t work properly.

You can test the hard drive with SeaTools utility available for download from Seagate site. This utility works fine for most hard drives and can tell you if your hard drive is failing. Download the utility, burn it on a CD and boot the laptop from this CD. Run hard drive diagnostic test.

If the hard drive fails test, you’ll have to replace it with a new one and reinstall the operating system. You can reinstall the operating system from the recovery disc which usually comes with the laptop. Insert the recovery disc into the DVD drive and restart the laptop. It should start booting from the disc. Follow the instructions on the screen.

My laptop will not boot normally. Comes on for a few seconds showing the Windows XP screen then freezes. It will boot in safe mode (most of the time).

I ran virus scans, no problems there. I tried restoring to a time before the problem (which did not help). I did get a “conflict error” once before it froze up, but no error code. It did boot normally for a while after problem first occurred.

Any ideas?

It’s hard to tell if your problem is software or hardware related without running some diagnostic tests.

In many cases Windows freezes like that because of memory failure. You can download Memtest86+ and run it on your laptop. If memory fails test, replace it with a new module. If memory passes test, move to the next step.

You said the system restore didn’t fix the problem, so you’ll have to try reinstalling Windows from scratch. Back up all personal files and run system recovery disc. This will erase the hard drive and reimage it back to factory defaults. There is a good chance that reimaging the hard drive will fix your problem.

My problem with my laptop freezing only happens when i’m running defrag. Obviously this isn’t a major problem but I’d like to be able to finish it completely. Any ideas?

1. Take a look inside the laptop heat sink and make sure it’s not clogged with dust. Maybe the laptop freezes while running defrag because of overheating. Clean the heat sink using compressed air if it’s clogged.

2. Run hard drive diagnostics utility. It’s possible the hard drive is failing. You’ll find many different hard drive diagnostic utilities on the Ultimate Boot CD (google UBCD). I use mostly Hitachi’s drive fitness test. Works fine for many different brand hard drives.

My Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop will not start for few days and then after few days later when I tried give another shot to restart. It does boot up then after few click it freezes and can turn off and boot up again.

So far I managed to boot up but in middle of boot up it freezes.

However, when I try to turn it back on, nothing happens. The screen doesn’t turn on, the fan doesn’t turn on. The only thing that happens is the LED lights turn on briefly.
I tried turning it on with and with out the battery and I get the same result.

This sounds like a possible problem with the laptop memory. It’s likely that one of the memory modules is not making good connection with the motherboard or failing. Try reconnecting both memory modules. Try removing memory modules one by one and test the laptop with each one separately. If you have only one module installed, try replacing it with a know good memory.

I have a HP laptop and whenever I turn it on, it seems to boot up fine. All the icons appear on the screen. Then I try to click on any icon and nothing happens. I cannot access the start menu either. Its like everything is frozen.

I usually have to turn off and on the laptop about 6-8 times before it actually boots up and can work normal.

I have never had a problem like this and I am scared that my laptop is dying.

There could be a few different possible problems with your laptop.
First of all, this might be a software related problem. Test if your laptop freezes in Safe Mode. Turn on the laptop and press F8 as soon as HP logo appears on the screen, select Safe Mode from the menu. If the laptop freezes in normal mode but works fine in Safe Mode, most likely you have some kind of software related issue. I’m not going to troubleshoot any software related issues because it might take hours and bring no results. In this case backup all personal data from the hard drive and reinstall the operating system from the recovery disc.
If the laptop freezes even in Safe Mode, I would run diagnostic tests on the hard drive and memory. You can test the hard drive with Hitachi’s DFT test and memory with Memtest86+. Links to both utilities are located in “Useful Links” on the right side of the website.
If the hard drive fails to pass the test, replace the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.
If the memory fails to pass the test, replace the memory module.
Also, try removing the wireless card and modem one by one and run the laptop without them. A faulty wireless card can freeze up the whole system.

I have a problem with my Laptop. I have got a Compaq Evo N1020v and recently bought a new PC2100 512MB Memory Module. I replaced my current 256MB one with the new one and it works perfectly. When I insert the 256MB in the second slot the memory increases to 768MB but while working after about 30 minutes the computer freezes, the mouse pointer even freezes and Ctrl + Alt + Del, does not do anything, it stays frozen. I thought that it might be that the memory is not compatible with each other so ordered another 512MB from MemoryX. After inserting the new one, the computer works for about 30 minutes then freezes. After changing BIOS Settings nothing helps. What I have noticed is after the first time I restart after it has frozen, the computer already freezes at the login and does not get further, after another restart the computer freezes before even getting to the login. After taking out the one 512MB the Laptop works perfectly again. Could you please help me as I don’t know what is wrong.

I think there is a problem with the memory slot on the motherboard. Here’s what you can try to narrow down the problem. Run the laptop with each memory module in each memory slot. If the laptop works fine with both memory modules installed into the slot A but freezes with both memory modules installed into the slot B, most likely the slot B is bad. Also, you can narrow down the problem by running memory test utility, I usually use Memtest86+. I linked to this utility in Useful Links.
If both memory modules passes test in the slot A but fail in the slot B, the slot B is defective.
Unfortunately, in this case you’ll have to replace the motherboard or use it only with one memory slot occupied.

I have an HP Pavilion dv6000 that came with Vista. I am having problems with it freezing literally “every 6 minutes” when I’m using wireless….this is NOT an issue at all if I have the Ethernet plugged in directly from the DSL modem. I have a Linksys router, and I installed the latest firmware. I don’t know if this is an HP problem, a Vista issue, or if I simply have a bad wireless card. Anyone else experiencing this? (I’ve had this problem both with the laptop plugged in and just on the battery).

Thank you in advance for any help!

Sounds like this one will be a tough one because I don’t know any utility for testing the wireless card. In most cases to find out if your problem is related to the wireless card is replacing it with another good working wireless card.
Here’s what you can try. Probably you have original HP software load and it has a lot of programs running on the background, you can see them in the notification area of the task bar (lower right corner). Try turning off these programs one by one and see if it makes any difference. It’s possible that you laptop freezes because of some kind of software conflict.
Try reloading your laptop from scratch. Backup all personal files and run the restore (recovery) CDs or DVDs.
Sounds like you installed the latest firmware for the router but did you check if you have the latest BIOS installed on your laptop? Sometimes these kind of issue can be fixed with upgrading the BIOS.

I have a Toshiba Tecra A3 cel-M 360 laptop and it was all working perfectly fine until recently. I use Microsoft Office 2003 and lately it has stopped working. T tried uninstalling it and re-installing office but it just wont work. If i click “Microsoft Word” the start up screen appears and it just freezes on that screen. I can run other programs and applications but that start up screen for Microsoft word remains frozen on top of my wallpaper. I was told that the hard drive could possibly be faulty but I’m not sure. Any help please?

I think they are right, you might have a problem with the hard drive. Turn on the laptop and listen for the hard drive sounds. Is it loud? Can you hear grinding or clicking noises? If you can, probably your hard drive is dying. You can test the hard drive with Hitachi’s drive fitness test. Download this utility, create a bootable CD, start the laptop from this CD and run the test. Also, you can find this utility in the Ultimate Boot CD.
I would recommend to back up all personal data as soon as possible because the hard drive can stop working any moment.

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.

My Acer TravelMAte 3650 (not flashy I know) is having issues! It freezes up when I am using it at home. It is a temporary freeze up, it used to go for about 30 seconds and occur every couple of minutes, I have run a heap of anti-virus stuff, adware and spyware programs to try and find out what might be the problem. All of the computers components seem to be find according to device manager as well. Now the freezing is down to about 2 seconds or so, (if you are playing music you can hear when it freezes because it will get stuck on that note). Here comes the confusing part, when I am using it at home I will have all of these troubles with it and at home I am not connected to the net or any wireless networks. When I use it at collage or at a friend’s house or any where else that I have it connected to a wireless, then it doesn’t seem to play up at all. I thought if my laptop was going to have any issues, it would have been when it was connected, not the other way around. Please help me because I travel a lot and need my laptop to show clients their work.

A problem like yours could be triggered by a piece of malicious code installed on the hard drive. It’s trying to connect to a remote server causing the laptop to freeze up. It might try to connect regardless if a network connection is present or not. There is no spyware or adware removal tool that can clean your system 100%. Some malicious programs are not detectable because they are new. Cleaning up a laptop from spyware and adware might take hours and hours and still there is no guaranty if it will help.
When I have to troubleshoot a laptop that freezes up, locks up or runs slow, I always install my test drive and reload the operating system. If the laptop works fine after the operating system is reloaded then it’s a software problem. If I still have the same issue then it’s a hardware problem. I understand that not everyone has a luxury of having a spare hard drive. So, if you don’t have it then I would go with reloading the laptop back to original factory defaults using a recovery media.
I know that it will take some time to back up the data and reload the laptop, but from my experience it’s still the best way to find out if the problem is caused by software or by a faulty hardware.