laptop overheating
Author
Discussion

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
call me sceptical but had a problem with my laptop in that for no reason it decided to overheat and shut itself down,this only happend in the last week ,so fine sent it back under warranty (minus hard drive as data was confidential) and they have come back and said there is no problem with the machine and the fault is probably due to a piece of software i installed ,(no new software has gone on recently) so wipe everything off the drive and reinstall everything , oh and by the way we are going to charge you for any testing we did.


any one else had a problem with software overheating machines ?

slapmatt

1,132 posts

252 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
I would ask them exactly how a piece of software can "overheat" a laptop. It sounds to be like a dreadful excuse, did you buy it from a high street PC retailer by any chance?

Incidentally, you can download software that will monitor CPU, motherboard and RAM temperature. It might be worth checking some of that out and seeing if anything is amiss (sorry, I can't recommend a specific piece of software, as I've never used it myself).

pdV6

16,442 posts

291 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
A colleague of mine had an overheating laptop due to the cooling fan being stuck. Can you see yours? Does it spin?

r988

7,496 posts

259 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Only if that software turned off your fan and made your cpu run full speed constantly.

Otherwise maybe they meant the 'new' software caused the computer to turn off.

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Bought from a specialist manufacturer , fans spin ok and cooling appears to be working i think i will ask them to clarify what software they suspect

pdV6

16,442 posts

291 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
spivvy said:
Bought from a specialist manufacturer , fans spin ok and cooling appears to be working i think i will ask them to clarify what software they suspect


Odds on they don't have anything to suspect - they're just palming you off. Probably didn't even fire it up as you retained the HDD.

schueymcfee

1,577 posts

295 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
I had a laptop that had the same problem - it turned out to be the fan even though it seemed to run fine.

Apparently the bearing can go and it won't cool as well as it should.

If its a well known make you should be able to replace it for a few quid from one of the many laptop parts websites.

Jonna_Rex

1,500 posts

261 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
I´d say you have a fan problem, same as I did on my Compaq Presario 700 which I got rid off and replaced it HP dv4020EA. The Compaq as it got older started to act just like yours is doing, cutting the power off which totally pissed me off because I ended up losing my stuff. My advice, make them look at the fan, it´s not working in a proper manner, maybe getting stuck and thats why the comp overheats.

Plotloss

67,280 posts

300 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Have you checked your disk with a spyware checker?

Its an outside chance but a trojan maybe thieving CPU time in a big way which is causing the extra load and consequently the heat problem.

Jonna_Rex

1,500 posts

261 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Plotloss said:
Have you checked your disk with a spyware checker?

Its an outside chance but a trojan maybe thieving CPU time in a big way which is causing the extra load and consequently the heat problem.


Good point there btw...

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
laptop isn't even a year old yet i have a number of checks in place for spyware and AV software so don't think it could either of them , i am using omega drivers for the graphics card which allow you to overclock the graphics processor (which i left at defaults ) not sure if that would cause it to shut down ?

Jonna_Rex

1,500 posts

261 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
What comp do you have?

aldi

9,288 posts

267 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Sorry to be a pain but how do you know that overheating caused it to shut down?

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
aldi said:
Sorry to be a pain but how do you know that overheating caused it to shut down?


fans kick in at high speed and issue an error code beep on shutdown and the on startup and informed by supplier that this is what it is




rico

7,917 posts

285 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
If its an Apple powerbook get used to it... the b*ggers don't know the meaning of fans!

aldi

9,288 posts

267 months

Tuesday 25th October 2005
quotequote all
Sometimes if it's on a blanket or a cushion that can cover vents and hinder cooling, could that be it?

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Wednesday 26th October 2005
quotequote all
aldi said:
Sometimes if it's on a blanket or a cushion that can cover vents and hinder cooling, could that be it?


no majority of work is done in air conditioned office kept quite cool , sent an e-mail yesterday questioning their diagnosis will let you know results

aldi

9,288 posts

267 months

Wednesday 26th October 2005
quotequote all
Fair enough, they probably just ran it for 10 minutes on the where's my hard disk screen and shipped it back...

SPIVVY

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Saturday 29th October 2005
quotequote all
Latest ,ok sir our engineers can find nothing wrong with it so you have to pay for shipping and labour charge ,

had no choice so paid up and got machine back , B****DY machine won't stay on for longer that 10 minutes so can't even reinstall operating system ,so much for a software fault ,can't wait till monday to tell them what C**P they are talking and i want me shipping charge and labour refunded and machine replaced or refunded !

will keep you posted ,

spivvy

Original Poster:

1,535 posts

284 months

Tuesday 8th November 2005
quotequote all
apparently still no problem now it is my CD i attempted to install from or the temperature of the office i sit in or the electricity supply .what the F**K