My client brought in his daughter's 3-4 year old gateway laptop. It had various problems. The first and most serious was the fact that the hard drive couldn't be accessed. I took it out, attached it to a desktop via USB and after running a very long chkdsk was able to grab her documents off it.
Then I put it back in the laptop but it wouldn't boot. It started and then would immediately shut down. That usually indicates overheating and in fact when I put it on end and shot a floor fan at the bottom I could boot it successfully and it would stay up. I tried an inland pro notebook cooling pad but that didn't seem to do the job. (That was only one test.) A better laptop fan might or might not take care of that.
Now I have to advise the customer whether the laptop is worth doing any more work on it. If it were a desktop and I could just clean it out and/or replace the power supply I would say yes. If I can get by with just a laptop cooler I'd say yes. If I have to monkey with a new power supply or anything like that, Id say no.
Is there any cleaning I can do to a laptop to make it run cooler? Is it worth putting more work into?
Thanks,
Al
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If you are charging $130 an hour, it is probably not worth it for this old of a laptop. I don't remember the model but we had a similar Gateway laptop where the issue was the thermal past between the CPU and cooler. Like rindi said, make sure the fan works, if it runs that hot that it won't boot, the fan should be running all the time.
Its got a 1.6GHz AMD processor, 1GB of PC2700 RAM, and a DVD burner that seems to be working.
I charge $75 an hour though I seldom charge for all the hours I put in. Cleaning out the fans seemed to have helped the overheating problem but Im still not sure if it will survive on its own even with the laptop fan.
Since I can now boot to Windows I tried running Seagate DOS utilities at boot just to see how bad the hard drive is. But that hangs and then one time it just shut down. Actually it can only boot to Windows every other time, because now Im getting a bsod unless I boot to last good. I can boot to last good but then the next time it boots it goes back to bsod. I can get it running in safe mode and safe with networking.
To make it work theyd need a laptop cooling pad, new hard drive and Id have to resolve the bsod issue. Im charging them $150 for the work so far, the most important thing having been saving the data. But theyre going to have to pay for that no matter what. So wed need a laptop cooling pad (I have one to sell them), a new hard drive (the only one I have in stock that might work is a 320GB drive I just bought at Zipzoomfly for $65, if I get the rebate. If not then it cost me $80.) So Id bill them for the cooling pad and hard drive and the labor to transfer data and put it in (Id clone the old drive using Acronis), and the time it will take to resolve the BSOD problem.
Considering what theyd have when it was all over, is it worth it for them to pay me to do all this?
Al
PS Dealtime sent me an alert for an OfficeMax Acer Aspire AS5515-5187 15.4" Notebook with almost the same specs for $380 and free shipping.
Thats here:
http://www.officemax.com/c
The specs of it still look OK. I don't have a laptop that good!
Zip the last 3 *.dmp files and upload them using the Link below:
http://www.ee-stuff.com/
It's easier with zip files, I only have to download 1 file then, and another reason for zipping used to be that ee used to block files with a dmp extension from being uploaded.
Anyway, it looks like either a BIOS or driver issue, but it doesn't show enough details. If you have the XP CD for that PC, start with that and run a repair installation. As there have been Harddisk issues and the need for running chkdsk in repair mode, it is likely that some of the system files have become corrupt.
If you don't have the CD, and if you can boot the PC without it crashing immediately, try running sfc /scannow from a cmd prompt, this checks for corrupt system files and tries to replace them from a cache, and if those files aren't in the cache, you'd again need the CD. Remove any additional devices from USB or PCMCIA ports. Also try replacing all the manufacturer's drivers with downloaded versions from their site (start with the chipset drivers).
There is also the chance that a BIOS upgrade could help.
If you have recovery media, a recovery to factory defaults should also help.
Forgot to add, have you tested the drive using the manufacturer's diagnostic utility? You'll find that on the UBCD:
http://ultimatebootcd.com
If I was in this situation. 1 hour of your time is the cost of a new drive. Even if you fix the errors or find the problem with the drive, you are most likely looking at a re-install of windows anyway. If you don't re-install all the lurking problems from winrot and the crap they installed over 3 years will still haunt the machine. Any future problems will be thought that you caused them. Save yourself and the client future headaches, by replacing the drive. They will benefit from a faster (likely) machine with more drive space.
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by: rindiPosted on 2009-06-26 at 13:17:00ID: 24724377
Sure you can clean the laptop. The best thing is to open the case and then remove all dust. On laptops the cooling grids are usually finer, and the dust will therefore clog the vents quicker than on a desktop. You can try using a can of compressed air to blow out that dust, but opening the thing is better. At that point you can also check whether the internal fans turn smoothly. You probably won't be able to check whether they are actually working though, as on most laptops the fans only come on when required, and when the case is open it can be difficult to start the PC.
In my point of view it is certainly worth the work. I've serviced many laptops that are a lot older than that.