Help! Spike is dying!

[cindergal]

Spike my beloved laptop, that is. He won't stay on (no jokes, people) for more than 5 minutes without just shutting off. No blue screen. Just...off. I assume he is overheating, but I'm not using him (could there be more puns?) any differently than I always have. Even just sitting on a hard table top - poof, he shuts off. I have used the

Comments

[boschette]

I love that your laptop is named Spike! And I hate that he's dying! I really can't offer anything constructive or remotely helpful, but you have my hopes for his speedy recovery. Also? I read your post twice, the second time managing to mentally weed out the very entertaining double entendres. ;) Good luck!

[cindergal]

I couldn't write that without the double entendres! And I tried. ;-)

[cindergal]

And sorry you got 18 copies of that - lj hiccuped or something. *g*

[scarlettgirl]

Oh Noes! ::clings to you::

Don't send it to Best Buy! Don't! They'll send it to their re-souling service center in Africa except they're so incompetent it will end up in a hell dimension known as "Boise" where you won't see it for 100 years.

Spiiiiiiike!

[cindergal]

Dude, I had to take it to Radio Shack. They are the "official" Compaq repair place - which means they send if off to the manufacturer where it will languish for God knows how long. I hope they don't expose him to sunlight!

::wibble::

[slackerace]

Okay. It's probably an overclocking problem (overheating) which means that your fan is probably dying.

How old is Spike? The life of a laptop is pretty short. I trade mine out every 2 years...

The lifespan of a laptop cooling fan is about 1/2 that of a desktop. I think that about 10,000 hours is what average runs.

Let's say you keep your laptop running for 10-12 hours per day. That would be about 3650-4000 hours a year. It would take you 2 1/2 years to get to the 10K hour mark. So, if Spike is older than that, then he's likely needs a new blowjobby thingie.

[cindergal]

You are correct - it is the fan. He has been sent off to Africa to get a soul to be repaired. :-)

[slackerace]

Hee. I love your icon.

I hope whatever surgical intervention is needed is swift and painless, and that Spike comes home soon.

[xionin]

sounds like you need a new cooling fan. is it still under warranty? it could also be the power supply.

[cindergal]

You are correct - it is the fan. And it's not under warranty, but has been sent off for repair.

[spiralleds]

It could be the fan. Do you have one of those separate fan units under Spike? If not, go to Target or WalMart or whatever you should be able to pick up a basic unit for under $15. If that helps, it is the fan. (Plus if you don't hear the fan sounds you should hear, it's the fan.)

However, it could be that you've got too much stuff running at start up. That was my problem earlier this year. Try paring down to the bare bones of things that automatically start up. And running cleaners to make sure there aren't any backdoor bugs running in the background is a good thing too.

I did end up taking it to Best Buy, as in Minnesota the Geek Squad is stationed inside their shops and they did a clean and removal of extraneous stuff that was running and more or less my computer has been just fine. (Which is impressive for a nearly 6 year old machine.)

[cindergal]

Yeah, it's the fan - it's completely dead, and needs to be replaced.

And I'm glad you had good luck with the Geek Squad - I (and several others I know) have had bad experiences with them.