I am upset. I took this laptop in to fix the monitor they fixed that part but found viruses on here that where making it slow. They gave me 2 choices remove the viruses for $189 or reinstall windows for $89 to get rid of them. I picked option 2 because it was cheaper. Well when I went to pick it up he told me that it had hung up a time or 2 so they blew out the fan and it was working fine.

I got home and not even 30 min later it hung up on me. It kept doing it over the next few hours and since it was Friday I had to wait till Monday to call them and took it in Tuesday. The guy looked it over and called me to pick it up today. Said it worked fine there no issues but they did blow it out really well and said it had a lot of stuff in there.

I tried it out there and no problems but of course I figured I wouldnt. So it just locked up on me again a few minutes ago and the only way to unlock it is to push the button and turn it off and let it reboot.

I have had this laptop for 3 yrs and had no problems ever with it locking up this way. Now after the reinstall it is doing it. I think something went a bit wrong on the reinstall since that is when the problems started.

Could it be that it is overheating something it has never done before? I keep it on a metal mesh laptop stand all the time so it gets air. The stand looks like this http://www.gotoforms.com/images_products/4551_large.jpg Could that even cause it to lock up this way?

The guy told me that if it does it again I am basically out of luck since there is nothing wrong with it :(

Any thoughts on what I should do? I am so upset since I love this laptop it is an offbrand Everex but it has been a great computer and it has a nice wide screen getting a new used one isnt an option since we just bought dh one.

Overheating can cause a computer to lock up. What happens is that dust gets in there and collects on the motherboard and causes the system to overheat. Sometimes blowing it out can help, but more often than not you have to replace the motherboard.

The other thing could be the hard drive is starting to go out. If that's the case, a new hard drive isn't that much. And quite honestly, you could reload Windows yourself...it isnt' that hard.

Lastly, it could be the software install didn't go well for them and that's causing the lockup. I couldn't tell you how to fix this without seeing the laptop other than reloading Windows.

I downloaded something called speedfan to see what my temps where and right now it is sitting a 37c HDO and 48c temp1 that shows a green check mark beside it but it jumps up to around 50c and the red flame shows up so I guess that is hot.

Let me guess replacing the motherboard would run me a couple hundred?

I couldnt reinstall windows since I dont own a disk to do it with.

It just seems so odd that the locking up started after the reinstall when before I have never had this problem yet they can find nothing wrong.

I am desperate here I cannot afford a new laptop :cry: Why oh why did I let them do the reinstall. I went from a slow but working laptop to one that might lock up on me at any moment.

Overheating can cause a computer to lock up. What happens is that dust gets in there and collects on the motherboard and causes the system to overheat. Sometimes blowing it out can help, but more often than not you have to replace the motherboard.

The other thing could be the hard drive is starting to go out. If that's the case, a new hard drive isn't that much. And quite honestly, you could reload Windows yourself...it isnt' that hard.

Lastly, it could be the software install didn't go well for them and that's causing the lockup. I couldn't tell you how to fix this without seeing the laptop other than reloading Windows.


Exactly....Steve what were you doin up so late.

Exactly....Steve what were you doin up so late.

Waiting for the wife...

I downloaded something called speedfan to see what my temps where and right now it is sitting a 37c HDO and 48c temp1 that shows a green check mark beside it but it jumps up to around 50c and the red flame shows up so I guess that is hot.

Let me guess replacing the motherboard would run me a couple hundred?

I couldnt reinstall windows since I dont own a disk to do it with.

It just seems so odd that the locking up started after the reinstall when before I have never had this problem yet they can find nothing wrong.

I am desperate here I cannot afford a new laptop :cry: Why oh why did I let them do the reinstall. I went from a slow but working laptop to one that might lock up on me at any moment.

I don't know the exact circumstances around them "fixing" your laptop because i wasn't there, but don't jump to blame them...it certainly could be coincidental that this problem surfaced at around the same time. It's happened to me more than once.

Replacing a motherboard would likely cost a couple hundred. If your fan temps are running that hot on occasion, I'm pretty apt to think it's a motherboard problem.

I am going to get a cooling fan to put under it today and see if that helps. If not then I guess I am screwed. I was so happy that dh and I both had a laptop now I should have known better my luck sucks to bad any more for anything good to happen to me like that.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

Is there any way for them to check if it is the motherboard?

I havnt updated sorry bout that.

I bought the fan it didnt help at all. But the temp runs way cooler on it than it does on this dell laptop I am using right now. Like a full 20 degree cooler so I am pretty sure it isnt an issue with overheating. It also locked up when the temp was well below normal like down in the 80 degree F range.

I took it back over there last week and he said there was a very real possibility that the mother board was going :( but they did agree to keep it and work on it and see if they couldnt get me a more definite answer. I told them to keep it as long as they needed to.

So he just called me a few minutes ago and said that he had been running some diagnostics on it and it had locked on him once so he was pretty sure that it was a driver reinstall that went wrong. So he is reinstalling windows.

I am praying so hard that this time everything goes smoothly and the reinstall fixes the problem. I have no idea what the odds are that will happen but surely there is a good chance it will reinstall right this time :crossed: