Dying or not?

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PhilANZ

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#68065 14-Sep-2010 13:17

I have a laptop that's just gone out of warranty - very sad. I have an extra two years warranty I bought with the machine - hooray. I rang them and have almost decided it's not worth it. They'' look at the machine - but if not faulty it's my charge. And it will take two weeks. As this is the system I work on I simply don't have the luxury of letting it go that long. So I thought I'd see if anyone here has any wisdom on what to do next.

My laptop was less than 100% - and eventually died. I decided it had done two years - so I'd do a full reinstall. All went well until I needed to print. I'd forotten to install the printer - and no matter what I did, it wouldn't install. Eventually did a second re-instal - which for some reason just didn't seem to work at all well. I should say at the point the reinstall's are from a backup of the system done when I first got it. Third install and everything's fine - mainly. Once - and only once - it died again. This time I left it doing a slow boot-up - usually there's 10 or so crosses of the progress bar before it presents the login sceen. When it was "dead", it would hang on this. Often there would be a very slow progress - as in minutes per cross of the screen. Sometimes it would go on - sometimes it would die. Usually I just rebooted.

Having this sole incident wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the recent history - I'm afraid to go any further. Any further includes installing a few programs I seldom use (I need one now) - and most importantly, it means reinstalling MS fixes. I have installed FP3 - and IE8 - and a couple of other things required for use. But I've ignored (this time) the many MS fixes. I could go ahead and install them - but apart from the one incident (which I got through fine with a little patience) I'm reluctant to jeopardise the relative reliability.

Every time my system starts up I find myself holding my breath. It's been fine for well over a week. So I figure it's time to move on - but my recent experience has made me gun shy. Any suggestions greatfully received.

robbyp

1199 posts

Uber Geek

#379659 14-Sep-2010 13:39

PhilANZ: I have a laptop that's just gone out of warranty - very sad. I have an extra two years warranty I bought with the machine - hooray. I rang them and have almost decided it's not worth it. They'' look at the machine - but if not faulty it's my charge. And it will take two weeks. As this is the system I work on I simply don't have the luxury of letting it go that long. So I thought I'd see if anyone here has any wisdom on what to do next.

My laptop was less than 100% - and eventually died. I decided it had done two years - so I'd do a full reinstall. All went well until I needed to print. I'd forotten to install the printer - and no matter what I did, it wouldn't install. Eventually did a second re-instal - which for some reason just didn't seem to work at all well. I should say at the point the reinstall's are from a backup of the system done when I first got it. Third install and everything's fine - mainly. Once - and only once - it died again. This time I left it doing a slow boot-up - usually there's 10 or so crosses of the progress bar before it presents the login sceen. When it was "dead", it would hang on this. Often there would be a very slow progress - as in minutes per cross of the screen. Sometimes it would go on - sometimes it would die. Usually I just rebooted.

Having this sole incident wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the recent history - I'm afraid to go any further. Any further includes installing a few programs I seldom use (I need one now) - and most importantly, it means reinstalling MS fixes. I have installed FP3 - and IE8 - and a couple of other things required for use. But I've ignored (this time) the many MS fixes. I could go ahead and install them - but apart from the one incident (which I got through fine with a little patience) I'm reluctant to jeopardise the relative reliability.

Every time my system starts up I find myself holding my breath. It's been fine for well over a week. So I figure it's time to move on - but my recent experience has made me gun shy. Any suggestions greatfully received.

If you go into the device drivers for windows, it should show you if you have any problems. Also try doing a memory test, as well as a harddrive test, as those are the bits that can often fail.

Extended warrenties are a rip off, unless you purhcased it for business, and they maybe changing the law to protect consumers againest extended warrenties.

kobiak

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#379668 14-Sep-2010 13:58

Yeah I would check HDD and Memory too. these a cheap now to replace.

helping others at evgenyk.nz

PhilANZ

352 posts

Ultimate Geek

#379884 14-Sep-2010 22:05

>> If you go into the device drivers for windows, it should show you if you have any problems.

Well, the device drivers are all OK - except for some network drivers I've disabled. But they work if I turn them on.

>> Also try doing a memory test, as well as a harddrive test, as those are the bits that can often fail.

OK - in the old days of DOS I used to have a few utilities to do that sort of thing. What now? The only diagnostic I know is the one to check the hard disk - which passes well.

>> Extended warrenties are a rip off, unless you purhcased it for business, and they maybe changing the law to protect consumers againest extended warrenties.

I usually agree with you - can't imagine what I was thinking when I bought this one - only excuse is it wasn't long enough after my stroke. Never bought one before - never will again. That was just a moment of mental weakness.

Strange thing is just after I sent the message, I had to install another version of QuickBooks to process info sent to me by a client. On reboot, my system was dead again. I've been down most of the afternoon - finally going to bed now and I have a course in the morning. But I tried various tricks and finally got it rebooted - but without from an earler restore point - so still don't have the version of QB I need. I guess I'll try again tomorrow.