Is my laptop worth saving or should I let it die a dignified death?

[Ulic]

Anything you can do for free, + the cost of a cleaning is worth while. After that buy a new one.

You may or may not repair the problem and there will be something else not functioning properly soon.

After 3+ years as you say it does not owe you anything and you can rapidly spend the better part

of the cost of a new computer trying to save it.

[Konini]

I have Malwarebytes but rarely use it, only to keep up with any changes on using it so I can give instructions to anyone I'm helping; plopping my new image on takes 2 minutes 10 seconds usually (closer to 5 minutes this morning) so it chugs away while I'm making a cup of tea and is ready when I sit down again.

As an aside, I used to write instruction sheets for mostly complete beginners to get onto our internet system - none of your plug and play, Windows 3.1 required and I sent out a floppy disk with 3 programs on it and step by step instructions for how to configure Trumpet Winsock, Eudora Mail and Netscape Navigator. Those really were the days (not).

[sean in udon]

Hmm. Do you think I might of omitted to click 'Add to post' after choosing it?.

D'oh!

That put a smile on my face

The current pending sector is a concern as is the reallocation event count and at 95 and 252 are consistent with the problems you are having. From past experience, I would recommend hard drive replacement fairly quick.

It would appear that there are some inconsistencies in the reported information relative to the raw values. For example the power on hours count (how many hours your hard drive has been on) is reported as 100 hours. The raw value says 11,278 hours which would be correct for the age of the machine.

The temperatures reported are not excessive and certainly nothing to indicate overheating. But if you are going for the replace the hard drive option, go belts and braces and get the fan cleaned.

The read error rate raw value is also a big concern.

[Rorri]

Replace the HDD with an SSD, will be faster than new.

[y2k]

I would say it is the HDD too. With age the number of bad sectors increases and the OS will exclude them from being used but that results in file fragmentation which will slow program loading times, file copying/moving and large memory operations that use the swap file(s). Replace it if you want to save money but in the long term a new laptop is the answer.

[Rorri]

biplanebluey, on 14 Feb 2014 - 18:45, said:

thailandbeachisland, on 14 Feb 2014 - 18:29, said:

Just bu ya new one, this is what they are mode for !

Yea------ I had a Toshiba for about 4 yrs and got the impression that no-one really wanted to repair----too costly----- Do not know if my method was "dignified" but I bought a new and took the oldie to farm and had a cremation for it

Most laptops, unless it's ram or HDD replacement, just aren't worth the cost of repairs, for a start they can't repair them locally because all parts and analysing hardware/software is held by the manufacturers, so what happens is a Thai "repairer" will take a guess, he will replace the ram, if that doesn't fix it, he will replace the HDD/SSD, if that fails I'm afraid it's a motherboard replacement, or a screen if that's the issue. So, Do it yourself, ram and SSD's are readily available, if that fails, buy another laptop.

[belg]

good advice? how many people are able to open up their laptop correctly and just go change that ventilator fan themselves?

[Pib]

OP: when you say you did a Clean Install do you mean where your hard drive is wiped/format and then Windows installs itself...then you must re-install all your programs/data? If not, you have only been doing a recovery/refresh of sorts...and if you are reloading a previous image that was actually corrupted you are doing nothing more than reloading an image that already has the problem you experiencing now.

I've got a going on 8 year old Toshiba laptop running Win 7 and going on 9 year old Toshiba running XP. Only the almost 8 year old Toshiba laptop running Win 7 has never had a major hardware problem and its first and only major hardware failure (video/display related) occurred in late Nov 2013. The first repair shop in western Bangkok I took it to repaired it 2 days at a cost of 3,000 baht and they provided a 90 day warranty (they said they replaced a chip on the motherboard)...it quit working 31 days later and I took it back to the shop...they kept it almost two weeks this time and I got it back repaired no charge...but it only lasted about another week and I took it back to the shop...after keeping it another 10 days or so they called and said they couldn't getting it working 100%, said they give up, please come pick it up...and they also refunded my 3000 baht...I didn't have to ask for the refund...they just gave it. I took it home, turned it on and it was indeed working but had some different problems caused by them damaging some small ribbon cables under the keyboard...I fixed that myself and the computer is working again. But within one day it was messing up again with a video problem (definitely hardware related and not software)...but the video problem was somewhat different than the original failure. I took it to another shop...I explained the problem...I had it back in 5 hours repaired and it been working like a charm for 6 weeks now. They fixed the problem by "reballing" the ATI Video chip on the motherboard which the first shop had replaced. This motherboard video chip has around a 100 solder connections between it and the motherboard...the 2nd shop had the right "reballing station (a.k.a., microcircuit removal and resoldering machine) to do the job right....ensure each and everyone of those 100 or so video chip connections were properly soldered to the motherboard. Total repair charge 1500 baht and I got a 90 day warranty...as mentioned I'm about half way ( 6 weeks) through that repair warranty period the laptop is working fine and its been turned on a lot...running many hours...I thinking this shop did the repair right since they had the right equipment to do the repair. Summary: in my case for my laptop the repair was cheap, but for another model laptop it may not have been...a lot depends on the brand/model of your laptop...it seems the newer laptops are tougher for any repair shop to repair short of complete motherboard replacement due to integrated circuits on the motherboard getting very hard to obtain and/or replace....but for older laptops the repair and obtaining parts may be easier in some cases....and of course the repair shop's expertise and repair equipment can make all the difference.

During this repair down time I used my other Toshiba laptop and also bought a new i7 CPU Lenovo laptop. A few weeks ago the new Lenovo developed a software corruption problem where it would not install Windows Updates....I'm running Win 8.1 on it...a genuine copy I bought and personally installed. Each update would attempt to install but would fail the install. I tried a bunch of Microsoft knowledge based fix actions but none worked. For several weeks after getting the computer Windows Updates would occur just fine but around the middle of January the Windows Update install problem developed. I then tried a Windows refresh, I tried reloading a backup image that I thought should be good....but it didn't fix the Windows Update problem. Otherwise the laptop worked fine. So, during the Clean install just using the original Win 8.1 DVD I had the install reformat the hard drive to ensure any possible viruses would be killed off (not to imply I had any viruses) and then the Clean install occurred. When done I had nothing but Win 8.1 installed...and Windows Updates would install no problem for Win 8.1 and the MS Office suite I have on it. Have reloaded most of my programs and data, and Windows updates continue to install fine. My diagnosis...just corrupted software and a format/Clean install fixed the problem. But what caused the problem...to tell you the truth it might have been a doggy piece software (if you know what I mean) which I installed...but for weeks after install this software Windows Updates worked fine...I even uninstalled that doggy software and a bunch of programs to see if that would fix my problem due to possible conflict, but it didn't.. But as mentioned the reformat/clean Windows install fixed the problem. I won't go into details but I think that doggy software may have corrupted my Windows registry at some point and it just took a while to show up. Knock on wood (my head)...time will tell if the Windows Updates problem returns...hopefully it won't...hopefully it was just that doggy software which will not get re-installed on the computer. Summary: try a format of the hard and a Clean install from your operating system disk (if you have a disk or the factory fresh image)...and of course use legit software. If that don't work take it to a shop and see what they have to say...but your problem really sounds software related to me.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Pib

[mikeoxwelling]

As suggested a few times, pull it apart (if you know how) and clean the dust out, especially from cpu/gpu fans. Replace the hard drive with an SSD, massive improvement if you still have a typical 5400rpm drive. lastly do a RAM test and update or upgrade if faulty/not as fast as your motherboard supports or isn't at max capacity. I only just replaced my work laptop after 5 years, and to be fair it's still going strong. You don't have to get a new laptop, or at the very least you can breathe new life into this one and re-purpose it.

Regarding your fresh Windows every week, I don't know why you would need to do that, and first thing that comes to mind is how do you stay on top of updates? simply taking care not to install crap, or uninstall any excess you don't need/want anymore, disable unwanted services and start up programs etc. and doing a crap clean (or similar) once in a while should suffice. Also you mentioned partitions, so ensuring you have the right type, with the right size allocation etc. is something to consider.

Good luck.

[konfuzed]

hiya...

complete techno/computer geek here...

i would say most likely (90%+) hard drive (hdd) problem and that by swapping your hdd (prob less than 4-5k thb) will fix it...

23k is cheap by laptop standards, but money is money and you expect a reasonable item at that price...

go swap the hdd and you'll be back to normality in no time...

if you want to confirm that its not overheating, then you can download speed fan here (free)

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

it will read the settings and if you're less than 70°C without a big load on the CPU then you're fine... but problems you described are unlikely to be heat and sound like HDD.

[akc1956]

I can't believe some of these answers. It sounds like you have a "worm" or some other type of "bug". Do you have a good anti-virus program like KASPERSKY or something else. Kaspersky is a Russian former hacker who turned something bad into a profit maker. Pure 3 covers everything and cost $69 for a year for 1-3 computers. Another help is a company called GuruAid. Google them. They have a service that costs $159 for a year but they will find out what is wrong with your computer and fix it remotely. I doubt seriously that you need to get a new computer. You also probably have too many programs running and don't know it.

Good luck.

He imaged the drive so this discounts all your suggestions.

I don't know why people with just a tiny bit of knowledge try to answer something that is obviously beyond them.

[JSixpack]

hiya...

complete techno/computer geek here...

i would say most likely (90%+) hard drive (hdd) problem and that by swapping your hdd (prob less than 4-5k thb) will fix it...

23k is cheap by laptop standards, but money is money and you expect a reasonable item at that price...

go swap the hdd and you'll be back to normality in no time...

if you want to confirm that its not overheating, then you can download speed fan here (free)

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

it will read the settings and if you're less than 70°C without a big load on the CPU then you're fine... but problems you described are unlikely to be heat and sound like HDD.

+1. New HDD ASAP. If you have your image on a different partition on the same drive, you're in danger of losing it, along w/ any current data.

[gandalf12]

Sounds like you may have a virus as your hard drive should last longer than that but maybe not. I would suggest you scan it with a good Anti virus (the free ones are ok but miss a lot of viruses), remove all the temp files (try ccleaner for this).

You could, if all of that fails try reinstalling the OS but as a last resort buy a new hard drive, they are cheap enough

[manarak]

Sounds like you may have a virus as your hard drive should last longer than that but maybe not. I would suggest you scan it with a good Anti virus (the free ones are ok but miss a lot of viruses), remove all the temp files (try ccleaner for this).

You could, if all of that fails try reinstalling the OS but as a last resort buy a new hard drive, they are cheap enough

Edited February 14, 2014 by manarak

[thrilled]

I paid 11000 baht on my ipad.I haven't used the desktop since.I doubt I will buy A laptop.This ipad works good

[Konini]

I'll try to answer a few in one go here. Firstly, a huge thanks to everyone for their input. I'm going to take it to Pantip today or tomorrow and get it cleaned up, a new SSD disk, battery and fan if necessary. At a push I could do it myself, but hardware isn't my thing and to be honest for what the labour costs are here I just can't be bothered. Everything important is backed up as I update the files, just transferring some new music then video's onto the external drive now, if it fails totally before I'm done I'll redownload what I want, really not a drama. In fact it could be a blessing, I have dozens and dozens of films that I haven't watched and likely will never get around to watching.

I have a tablet, but it's no substitute for the real thing. My husband uses it quite happily and needs nothing else. It really is great for what it does, and I love the fact that I can curl up in bed and watch a film or stream something from Youtube or read a magazine in total comfort, but I have a few very complex spreadsheets that I need the laptop for - I know I can get a keyboard, but I haven't come across an app that will do the same as a full 'proper' program (not that I've really looked, Google docs is OK for when I'm on holiday but I like the laptop for when doing major overhauls or creating a new spreadsheet from scratch). This is why my next laptop will be a transformer so I get the best of both worlds - fully functioning laptop and a big screen tablet for watching video, reading magazines and playing games.

I use very few programs nowadays. Apart from Chrome, Firefox and Internet Download Manager, I use Paragon for disk management, Acronis for imaging, Total Commander and Fast Copy for file management and copying, Gom for video, Foobar for music, OpenOffice for editing and Spread32 for reading spreadsheets, Polyedit for word processing, Calibre for organising ebooks and Foxit PDF reader/editor/, CutePDF writer, WinRar, 7zip, VoipDiscount, Comodo Firewall and Avast AV for obvious reasons as well as a few very lightweight utilities for keeping it all nice and clean.

Doing a clean image once a week is habit more than anything else, a hangover from visiting too many dodgy sites. Reimaging is done start to finish in less than 5 minutes from boot up to reboot, it really isn't a chore. As far as the actual image itself is concerned it takes a while to set it up but it's a once only big job. C drive holds only the operating system, program files on D partition, data spread over another two. Again, this 4 partition thing is habit, unnecessary but what I've been doing for almost 20 years. If the entire drive fails, I loose everything, if D, E or F corrupts (it has happened a couple of times) I lose either my programs, my docs or my music and video. Music, docs and ebooks are backed up, video - meh, I download it again.

Starting from scratch on a new image, I make sure I have the latest version of all drivers and programs I'm going to install. I install an ultra stripped down copy of Windows (for optimum performance) then install the drivers and set them everything up to my liking. I then tweak everything, point my libraries at the correct partitions, then install the dozen or so programs onto D, setting them up exactly how I use them and install bookmarks and passwords in browsers. Tweak again, change the swap file size etc, give it a good clean out and make a new image - this image I keep until I know I don't need it any more. Next, and only after all of this is done, I connect to the internet and finish installing or updating whatever needs it. Then a final tweak and I degrag to within an inch of it's life and another new image which I very originally call BSN, for brand spanking new. I copy this image to an external drive - in the early days before big storage was available, I risked losing this and all other images in the even of partition failure. And that's it, but here comes the sneaky part; next Sunday I plop the BSN image on, do Windows updates, update any programs or tweak them if I haven't got them quite right, defrag and create a new image called {date}. Then the following Sunday I plop on the latest {date} image, update and create another new image called {new date}. Over the years I've learned not to trust images, they do corrupt, so I always keep the old one until I know the new one is OK - literally the following Sunday, so I always have the one I've just done and the one from last week. This is because if I lose the latest one, I'm only going one back instead of reverting to BSN, which I do periodically anyway to keep things nice and orderly. Older than that are deleted. Depending on if I update programs, this takes as long as the Windows and program update and tweaking and defragging takes. Usually no more than 30 minutes in total, often quiet less. Small price to pay for a perfectly running machine.

That's the theory anyway. Now that we have broadband and updating Windows isn't the chore it used to be with a slow connection, I get lazy and go months without updating the image. Windows will update itself in the background while I'm checking emails and reading newspapers, so take out the time to create the original and I'm looking at 5 minutes a week tops. Even smaller price to pay for keeping everything perfect.

I've been recommending this to people for as long as I've been doing it, as I said, almost 20 years. Most people don't, because that initial effort is just too much. It sounds like a lot of effort for little reward, but I have a brand spanking new computer every week.

It works for me; what more can I say?

Thanks again, I really appreciate all the time and effort spent advising me what to do. I hope everyone has a great weekend.

[worgeordie]

Get it cleaned inside and out, fit a new SSD,and get a new battery, it

will be better than new, This throwaway society is no good for the Planet

or your pocket,I always try to fix stuff first,super glue is your friend !

regards Worgeordie

[mikeoxwelling]

If Fortune IT Mall (opposite Rama 9 mall) is not far I'd recommend it any day over Pantip (rubbish ripoff plaza..) IMO.

Anyway sounds like you have enough experience and know how, and you're right that it is cheaper to get someone else to clean it out for you..

Regarding your imaging, auto windows update and drive slowness. It sounds like you are using an external drive for a number of thing's right, and copying files around, both between partitions and between hard drives. As your image becomes outdated the number of updates required increases, and so does the amount of data being written to the disk. It's not just windows updates, but hardware drives and program files updates. Also I would assume this would be USB 2.0 which again will be a bottle neck.

It's good that you know how to do all this stuff, but old habits aren't necessarily good habits. FYI I too have multiple partitions and are doing some thing's similar to you, but it's worth re-evaluating thing's from time to time and making adjustments accordingly. I'm not going to tell you what to do as really it's a personal thing, but IMO I think your wasting your time, and flogging your disk with updates, by doing this clean image every week. You could also reevaluate if you need some of the programs (file copy/management, firewall/av) as they may also slow thing's down, rather than speed things up, and quite possibly aren't necessary (touchy subject for some maybe but just putting it out there for you to consider..)

[sunshine51]

Take your computer to a service centre or previously listed shop and have

it cleaned thoroughly inside & out. Have a new cooling fan installed. Make

a new disk image on a seperate removable HDD then buy a new HDD and

copy your old disk image to the new HDD. Solid state drive or nornal HDD?

Choice is up to you & your $$$$ availability.

Before you do the above listed items scan your system for any nasties which

be lurking on/inside it...not just with an anti-virus scan....you need to use a

malware scanner too such as Malwarebytes Antimalware AND...Super Anti

Spyware. If the scans are negative you're good to go on the replacements.

[lucifer666]

I use Ubuntu on my desktop but i still have XP on my ancient laptop, I have to agree with the other posters, it sounds like you have either a worm or a trojan ( easily fixed). Have used AVG Free edition on my laptop for years and never had a virus yet. Maybe downloading it could sort your problem ?

Edited February 15, 2014 by lucifer666

[impulse]

Get it cleaned inside and out, fit a new SSD,and get a new battery, it

will be better than new, This throwaway society is no good for the Planet

or your pocket,I always try to fix stuff first,super glue is your friend !

regards Worgeordie

I agree with your contention about the throwaway society. I actually repair and salvage a lot more than I bin.

But many of us use our computers as tools for business purposes. At some point, it costs more in labor (our's and others') to maintain the computer, restart it several times a day and wait for it to complete whatever task it's working on. When that point is reached, it makes business sense to bin it and get a new one. Keeping it alive is false economy.

The beauty of Thailand is that nothing worth salvaging actually stays in the bin. Someone will take it, and either salvage the parts or repair it- and the result will be sold on to someone that can't afford to buy a new one.

Back home, it would be in the landfill. Here, it will be helping some kid do his homework.

It's all part of the product "cycle of life" here, and I admire the Thai's for the way they waste very little. Detritus may hang around and look ugly for a while. But sooner or later, someone will cast greedy eyes on it and shazaam, it's gone.

Edited February 15, 2014 by impulse

[F4UCorsair]

It may be an overheating issue, and if you go to youtube, enter 'cleaning cooling fan ...(your computer model number)' there will be a video of how to go about it.

[F4UCorsair]

I can't believe some of these answers. It sounds like you have a "worm" or some other type of "bug". Do you have a good anti-virus program like KASPERSKY or something else. Kaspersky is a Russian former hacker who turned something bad into a profit maker. Pure 3 covers everything and cost $69 for a year for 1-3 computers. Another help is a company called GuruAid. Google them. They have a service that costs $159 for a year but they will find out what is wrong with your computer and fix it remotely. I doubt seriously that you need to get a new computer. You also probably have too many programs running and don't know it.

Good luck.

I can't believe that you can't believe some of these answers.

Computers are complex devices, and I've often found the fix is something completely illogical, and in my own case, spurious page presentations were being caused by overheating. I cleaned lint out of the fan duct, and bingo!! All fixed.

There are free anti virus programs available, and whilst I run Kaspersky Pure, my daughter who is in the computer business uses just a free program, and it's more than satisfactory. A virus has to get into the computer so if you don't go to sites that are suspect, and don't open emails from non trusted sources, you are almost there as afar as keeping viruses at bay.

If you go down the path of paying for an anti virus program, friends tell me that Norton is among the worst. I can't say how reliable that information is, but if you go to another anti virus program in the future, apparently not all Norton components can be removed and often interfere with the new anti virus program.

[ghworker2010]

get a new apple mac. Once you have mac you never go back. Microsoft is second rate mate

[Pib]

I can't believe some of these answers. It sounds like you have a "worm" or some other type of "bug". Do you have a good anti-virus program like KASPERSKY or something else. Kaspersky is a Russian former hacker who turned something bad into a profit maker. Pure 3 covers everything and cost $69 for a year for 1-3 computers. Another help is a company called GuruAid. Google them. They have a service that costs $159 for a year but they will find out what is wrong with your computer and fix it remotely. I doubt seriously that you need to get a new computer. You also probably have too many programs running and don't know it.

Good luck.

I can't believe that you can't believe some of these answers.

Computers are complex devices, and I've often found the fix is something completely illogical, and in my own case, spurious page presentations were being caused by overheating. I cleaned lint out of the fan duct, and bingo!! All fixed.

There are free anti virus programs available, and whilst I run Kaspersky Pure, my daughter who is in the computer business uses just a free program, and it's more than satisfactory. A virus has to get into the computer so if you don't go to sites that are suspect, and don't open emails from non trusted sources, you are almost there as afar as keeping viruses at bay.

If you go down the path of paying for an anti virus program, friends tell me that Norton is among the worst. I can't say how reliable that information is, but if you go to another anti virus program in the future, apparently not all Norton components can be removed and often interfere with the new anti virus program./a

I've used Norton 360 for around 6 years now...been renewing one of those 2 year licenses/subscriptions which allows it to be installed/activated on 3 different computers at any one time...usually able to find a 2 year license for the 3 PCs version for around $30 on Ebay or at least that is how it has worked out so far...I have never renewed my license/subscription via the overpriced/retail price asked by Norton. I have it installed on two of my computers and my sister in the U.S uses the 3rd license. If all three licenses are in use but you want to install it on another computer, say your new computer because your old one died, you just go online to our Norton account, remove the license from your old/dead machine and then you can activate it on your new machine. Both the sister and I have had no problems with Norton 360...it's done an excellent job. And I have uninstalled it a few times in doing some computer troubleshooting and it uninstalls completely and quickly....and reinstalls no problem. But that's been my hands-on experience; I'm sure other folks have had different experiences.

[jerome2]

WHAT ABOUT Baidu PC Faster

looks very good for me

ACER dont break