At A Loss 13

[tekbytes]

I really tried to avoid this i really did, but here is the situation

being a tech i come across all sorts of strange issues but this one has me stumped and its on my personal machine which makes me even more mad

windows 7 pro SP1
4 gb ram
2.0 duo core AMD Turion X2
320gb sata primary, 600gb sata secondary
machine is an HP DV7 laptop

i first wanted to go with overheating, the system is just real slow, it freezes and the whole screen locks up completely, if i rake my hands over the keyboard it will "beep" once and then the thing will come back to life, i have tested the memory (all slots) over a 5 hour period using dimsoft as well as memtest86, all dimms came back after 5 full passes and they all showed healthy, no errors writing or reading memory,

moving onto the hard drive i decided to try an extreme and i pulled the drive and replaced the drive with a new drive with a fresh copy of windows 7, no difference, so i cloned the hard drive completely then reformatted and reloaded the original drive, no change, as a last effort i backed up and reformatted the original drive and reloaded 7, it worked OK for a couple days but then the problems come creeping back, im usually at around 95% cpu load and memory usually has like 9 mb free, so this machine is choking itself, on a lark i checked both hard drives but since i put a brand new primary drive in i know it cant be the drive,

so not hard drive and not memory, not operating system since i wiped it out

browsing is painfully slow and when i click a tab it takes two minutes before i see the tab show up, sometimes if i switch between applications the audio on my pc stutters and the machine freezes, i have skype, i use it to edit videos, i use it to browse, i edit audio, it has outlook, but all the applications are constantly "not responding" i sometimes have to crash them or wait 5 minutes, its like the cpu is dragging down, im running coretemp but its running at about 137F and thats with its cooling pad on,

so not memory, not overheating, not hard drive, not operating system

i run superantispyware, as well as the updated avast pro, and i also have afew other spyware removal including cc cleaner, everything is updated and comes back negative, i wanted to throw it out but i figured id give it one more go here, also i ran hjt and nothing abnormal, im missing something somewhere

any thoughts fellow techs?

Jay

 

[spamjim]

Were the good ol days lol in early August 2013, when you joined this forum?

You might attract more flies with honey. Some may have perceived this as condescension.

Check your heatsinks, look for bulging/leaking caps.

this is a LAPTOP lol, the mobo doesnt exhibit that kind of setup (ummm i mentioned that in the original post .)

FWIW, technome's advice applies to all computing devices, even laptops.

 

[guitarzan]

If tek tips has outlived its usefulness for you, feel free to leave and not come back

 

[sbrews]

Have you tried any of the sysinternal tools to see if there are any hidden/rouge processes? Just because your antivirus/malware software says no doesnt mean there is nothing there. If its something new and they dont what to look for, they wont report on it. The sysinternal tools can be found here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545021.aspx

On a side note I - for curiosities sake - would love to know how the laptop performs when booted from a live-cd. There are many you can choose from here:

http://livecdlist.com/.

When I suspect there may be some deep embedded virus/malware, I usually try a live cd to see if there is any performance difference or if the hardware is having actual issues. You did say that you reloaded the OS... what else did you reload with it? Is one of the other things infected (even though various antivirus/malware says no)?

 

[tekbytes]

first off their are no "real professionals in the basement" this is tek tips for COL lol

second yes i thought of that, why do you think i said all that stuff in the original post, this has stumped even me and i got more tech creds then most people see in a lifetime,

sorry you dont "appreciate" something, thats your problem, people on forums seldom get any sympathy from me as that just sounds too fake

here is a video for anyone interested of the machien today, you can clearly see it flaking out, the only thing running was a video being rendered, but that should NEVER take down the entire machine

Link

 

[DSummZZZ]

till then this issue is UNRESOLVED

And as far as I'm concerned, it will stay that way. I don't come here prodding brain cells, making suggestions and trying to come up with solutions for pompous asses. I do it on my own time for free, for people who appreciate the effort. So whether unresolved or not, it's closed in my book.
Feel free to go elsewhere for your solutions. "Yahoo Answers" may be the best bet for you.


-Dave Summers-

Even more Fox stuff at:

http://www.davesummers.net/foxprolinks.htm

 

[flyboytim]

I have a few experiences that may have relevance or not:

I had an Acer Aspire notebook that was behaving badly in all departments (slow and erratic when working, random reboots and start-up failures), but the device that was failing at that time was the DVD RW Drive. It became evident slowly, first with apparent inability to eject every time, and then with failure to write, then failure to read. Of course, Windows was not able to pinpoint the DVD Drive failure. Once that DVD drive had been removed from the case, in anticipation of getting a replacement drive, all the other problems disappeared. The problem with the drive was a ribbon cable that had become crimped and was possibly shorting to the drive case or the enclosed leads had gone open circuit. The electronics of the drive were otherwise OK. The slow-downs were primarily down to Windows Explorer trying to read the faulty DVD drive, it seems.

This was a simply tested device - close the laptop down with the DVD drawer open, then just remove the screw that fixes the device to the main body of the laptop and extract the drive, then reboot.

The one universal problem with notebooks is overheating. Blowing through the heat exchanger with compressed air may not remove all the lint present - only a strip-down of the cooling arrangement and thorough brushing down of the heat exchanger fins, cleaning fan blades with damp Q-tips, and lubricating the fan bearing, together with renewal of the thermal paste over GPU and CPU surfaces will do the job properly. On some laptops, a copper shim may be required in addition to thermal paste over the GPU to give additional heat transfer efficiency. On the other hand, laptop overheating may have already caused real problems with solder ball grid array mounted components over time as the solder connections between motherboard and components such as the GPU chip can deteriorate leading to poor connections, and apparent component failure. This can be corrected with a reflow, or if the problem was due to poor solder alloy quality, a strip and reballing of the component.

Two other notebook devices that commonly fail are keyboard - usually due to foreign bodies - compressed air and bristle brushes may help, as may a vacuum cleaner nozzle (Care required! use adhesive tape to reduce nozzle orifice to less than the size of the smallest key), but keys may stick for other reasons, too - and touchpad which may need disabling and replacement with external pointing device. These rarely cause system slowdown though.

Finally, the power supply. The mains adaptors often overheat and their output may vary over time. The battery cells invariably fail with use. A combination of these issues may lead to system instability or damage (e.g. leaking caps comment above).

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Best no longer responding and simply red flag the inappropriate posts. I for one have just done so...

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[tekbytes]

wow flyboytim, thanks for the decent solid post with information actually relevant to the topic, i thought about the DVD causing an issue (truth is this one is never used) but like you said windows is not going to tell me that in any scan

The battery is aftermarket but it is healthy for what it can do, keep in mind with a huge 17 inch screen battery life is never optimal to say the least

As for the power supply without tearing the mobo apart there really is no way to test that, and the fans and cooling units were cleaned about a few months ago, i clearly remember dissasembling the entire thing

heat signatures according to core temp are within normal range,

oh and btw im a "pompous ass" with a few certs and even more knowledge, so if someone doesnt like this thread the server room door is behind you!

thanks for the constructive help, although always an academic exercise i dont know if we can save this thing

 

[technome]

oh and btw im a "pompous ass" ..

Tekbytes, I am giving your very first star for admitting your a pompous ass with a few certs.

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, 1949

 

[tekbytes]

awesome technome, thanks

 

[SkipVought]

Check for Milton in the basement!

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[EmuDan]

He's busy taking care of the cockroach problem. Also, I thought I heard him mutter something about a stapler. LOL

Dan

Live every day as if wild dogs were chasing you!!
Wild dogs....everyday....LIVE!!!