In other news, my computer still fails

[Sarpedon]

2.5 year old Thinkpad T60 with:

-Vista Home Premium (SP0, 1, 2, depends on how lazy I get in reinstalling) 32-bit
-2.0GHz Intel dual-core T7200
-2GB RAM
-100GB Seagate 7200RPM SATA Momentus (ST910021AS)

Most of these problems I have been over before:

-Fan rattling
-Overheating on left side, especially when running multiple applications (e.g. word processor and browser)
-Overheating sometimes causes computer to freeze permanently until manual shutdown
-Files keep on getting corrupted until something necessary for startup gets hit, then reinstall OS from factory partition; rinse and repeat every half year
-USB hardware randomly stops being recognized (e.g. printer, mouse, camera); problem not solved with OS reinstall
-Half the time, when laptop is started up without being plugged in, the screen appears fried; usually jams halfway through loading the desktop when this happens

Have a warranty on it, so I sent it in for repairs, explaining these things, and suggesting that it may be problems in the 1) fan, 2) motherboard (perhaps damaged from overheating), 3) hard drive (for good measure given the persistent file corruption). Got it back today, and they 1) replaced the fan, 2) ran PC-Doctor diagnostic software and decided there was nothing wrong with the motherboard and the hard drive, 3) but decided to reinstall the OS from the factory partition just in case (because clearly it worked the 5 times I have done it before).

Surprise surprise, first time turning on the computer and half the pre-loaded software is corrupted. Fan is running smooth, as it should now. Thoughts?

My current plan of action is to assume there is either a problem in the hardware (motherboard or hard drive) or in the factory image I keep reinstalling from, or a combination of the two. So:

1) Going to get a copy of the OS from somewhere else and install that.

2) If it doesn't work (or even if it does), get an upgrade to Windows 7 for 30 bucks.

3) If those aren't working, send it back for repairs and specifically tell them to replace hard drive and motherboard.

4) If they refuse...just sit it out for another year or so and it will be time to get another computer anyhow.

Currently working on #1, and will update as I go.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Heckling?

[Andrew]

Has windows ever said there is something wrong with the hard drive? Has it ever tried to run chkdsk when you start it up? It might not have been long enough, but go into computer management (right click on computer in the start menu and click manage). Then go to System Tools > Event Viewer > Windows Logs > System on the left hand side. Sort the errors by level and scroll around looking for the error ones with the red circle. Scroll through and look for anything that says disk, double click it and see if it mentions anything about bad sectors.

If so you would have a dying hard drive. You could try downloading a CD image of a drive diagnostic tool from the manufacturer of the drive. That might not work if windows has ever done chkdsk as that goes through to find bad sectors and replaces them. Diagnostics won't know that these sectors were replaced and say that everything is fine.

Laptops hardware is usually designed so it can run really hot if it needs to. But if it got to the point where it was locking up due to the heat, it could be heat damaged. The problem is that you can't really tell unless you can see damage on the board such as something blackened or some capacitors are popped.

If there is no physical damage, you might not be able to do anything. Motherboard problems are often random with no easy way to reproduce them. It could work fine for months or years with blown caps but then one day the whole thing just locks up for no reason.

The only real solution is to do a bunch of tests for the hardware that they probably didn't do or just demand that they replace the motherboard. Expect to get the runaround, and it's really just worth it to get a new computer.

[Legendary Heavy Glow]

Computer.


(/kəmˈpyutər/)