Please help me diagnose my laptop problem

Well as some of you heard my laptop decided to die last weekend when I was studying for some tests. -_- I was going to reformat the laptop to see if that would fix the problem but I can't even do that. Let me give some background on what I have done recently to see if anyone can figure out what is going on.

About three months ago I applied some arctic silver to my CPU. Everything worked fine. Then about a month after that I got a USB hub so I could expand the amount of ports available on my laptop. This worked fine until I overloaded it one day about a month ago. Then I kept getting an error saying a port was overloaded. This error message wouldn't go away no matter what I did so I decided to reformat on spring break.

Well about a week ago my laptop started slowing down for no apparent reason. I wasn't doing anything demanding, just surfing the web. This happened every once and a while but I thought it was no big deal and it would just go away when I reformatted.

Well the next thing that happened is my USB mice stopped working in all of my ports. The weird thing is my cooler still works. After this happened I knew I had to reformat but I was just too busy with school.

Then my laptop started to slow down to the point that I can no longer use it. I try to move the touchpad mouse around but it just isn't responsive. My laptop feels like it is lagging.

So today I was going to reformat but when I put in the disk to reformat it asks me to press enter to boot from the disk. Sadly it doesn't recognize any buttons that I press.

Sorry for making a long message but I really need to know what is going on. If this problem is terminal I really need to get a new laptop.

Thanks for the help
Tim

 

It's quite weird that you got such a long string of problems, and your Buttons dont respond before booting into the OS.

It really looks as if its a virus, thats hidden is some boot files or in the BIOS. Can you put an emergency virus program repair disc on? It could be a corrputed BIOS, or perhaps one of your components in disloged out of its port on the motherboard. I had similar issues, and tightening the screws on the bottom panel did the trick.

 

Actually, with progressive problems like that... you may have not put the northbridge or southbridge heatsink back on correctly, it may be overheating one of the other components of your machine. It's really hard to tell, but it sounds like just general hardware failure. I'd suggest taking it apart, checking for any scorch marks, and double-checking everything on the reassembly.

 

The only reason I am not sure if that is the problem is my laptop worked fine for a little over a month after I applied the arctic silver. I will still take a peak in there to see how it looks.
Tim

 

Okay here is a little update for everyone so we can start narrowing this down. I was able to reformat my laptop last night at 2am. This morning I just finished the reinstall and windows started for the first time. Bad news is that I am still getting a USB hub error. I wrote a thread a while back to try to fix this problem so I won't repeat everything here again.

I tried disabling the hubs and I found the one that was causing the trouble. Now I don't get the error message but all 4 USB ports don't work. Plus I still get a sort of lag/slowdown when trying to use my laptop.

My guess is that I fried something on the motherboard but I am not sure. Hopefully this will help to diagnose it.

Thanks
Tim

 

Like you mentioned, to me it sounds like you fried your CPU/something on the mobo.

The same exact symptoms happened to me about a year ago when I was a noob and had no idea how to OC - and OC'd too much. I didn't obviously get the USB error messages -- but the crawl, the slowdown, everything you dscribe fits my now (dead) 4600 desktop.

 

Is there any way to test the motherboard? My dad wants me to bring it in to a computer repair shop but I know they are just going to charge me a ton to look at it and then they will want to charge me to fix the thing. It looks like a new motherboard costs $300. -_-
Tim

 

Tim, you did not mention if there are beeps did you? Well one way to determine if something is wrong with the motherboard is something called beep codes: http://acronymsonline.com/lists/beep_chart.asp

also: http://www.cristina.org/guide/bios.html

 

Well if you possibly did do something bad to the motherboard -- it may or may not give you the beep codes right away --. Like you I had to reformat (twice?) over 2 weeks and then finally I started getting beep codes.

Also post your type of BIOS here Tim. Each BIOS has a different beep code and none-of-the-punks who thought of this test decided to use a standard.

 

Okay I will check it out and see if my BIOS starts to beep. Should these beeps happen immediately after I start up my laptop?
Tim

 

yeah, right when you have it compleltly off and then a fresh restart. unless these beeps show up later. I don't remember how long exctly it took me to get the beep codes from my desktop. less than a week I think.

if there is something more complex with the motherboard maybe you can find help here: http://www.motherboards.org/forums/

 

yes, they occur as soon as power up, before you boot into the OS. They will give a clear indication of the hardware problems.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7932518&postcount=3

More info on BIOS beeps.

 

So whats going on here now??

 

Well I figured out which hub it was and I disabled it. Only problem is then I can't use my USB ports which I need. -_-

I went to a computer repair place and they said it would cost $150 to look at it and then whatever else to fix it. -_-

I think I just need to convince my dad to let my get a new laptop. Sadly I don't think this problem is going to go away.

My laptop seems to be working fairly good now that I disabled the hub that was giving me the error messages. The only problem is now I can't use any of my USB ports. -_-

Tim

 

I'm almost certain you fried something on the mobo. I bet you'll eventually hear those beeps, esp if you mess around plugging stuff into the USB, restarting, taking them out, etc. In which case: new mobo ($300) or new laptop =/

 

I think that is BS that a place charges you 150 just to look at it!!! Try and find some better store because that is just unacceptable crap. Around here at least, the "look at" rate is $49 + cost to fix.

 

Yeah. Not to mention you've already done more than most repair shops can. They'll probably just replace the motherboard anyway.

Anecdote: My aunt took her computer to one of those repair shops because office took forever to open a document on her brand new Athlon X2 laptop (from 30-60 seconds, every time). They said she needed to get Office reinstalled, and they'd do it for $150. I looked at it, and removed Norton (put AVG on instead). All of a sudden, everything worked as it should, documents popped right open. They'd have done the WRONG thing to fix it, and charged her for it. As a result of that (and many other stories) I don't trust most repair shops.

 

Yeah I don't trust repair shops either but my dad doesn't want to believe that it is the motherboard I guess. -_-
Tim