Need laptop diagnostic tool

[adam30]

Guys

Could do with a reliable tool to find whats going wrong with my lappy? Have tried hard drive inspector for notebooks and think its shite!

Pls help

Thanks Adam

[evilsatan]

There isn't a tool that magically tells you what's wrong unfortunately but there are tools to test specific components, but even they aren't perfect.

What are the symptoms?

[akimba]

Wots the symptoms

[adam30]

ok the lappy freezes every so often upon start up, i then have to restart in safe mode then restart in normal win 7 then all is ok.
really getting on my tits

[tombott]

Could be OS related.
Try using a Linux Live CD or Hiren Boot CD.
Hiren has various hardware testing tools on it, so you could leave it running a 'Burn In' test for a few hours that will test each individual component and hopefully show you where the fault lies.

[evilsatan]

Could be software, RAM or hdd. Do you have a lot of personal files on there and programs?If not it might be wise to backup your data and just format the machine. If it still causes problems afterwards then you know it's a hardware issue.

[akimba]

Ultimate Boot CD got plenty of HDD testing software

I know you say its on boot up but are you sure its not freezing due to overheating?

[adam30]

thanks will try Hiren Boot CD

[eblaster101]

Or you could take an acronis image of the machine then wipe it just incase it is hardware. Seems like a software issue though. Make sure you have done the following

disk check on windows
system restore if it still fails to start up at times.

[WRATH OF BOD]

get Hirens 10.1 if you can as the newer ones dont have a great deal of testing tools, or atleast as good as 10.1

[DejaVu]

Don't forget Windows own Memory tester.

I've found recently that most the jobs I'm getting are Hard Drive related problems. Dunno if it's the heat we've had or just a coincidence.

[riget]

Don't forget Windows own Memory tester.

I've found recently that most the jobs I'm getting are Hard Drive related problems. Dunno if it's the heat we've had or just a coincidence.

Same here, seems the quality as well as the price dropped on them.

[plug1]

Nearly all hardware faults on laptops are due to overheating , caused by the heatsink vent blocked by crud,
and usually it's the bga bridge or gfx chip lifting , CPU usually ok as there in a socket .
on better designed units the access panel on the bottom lets you clean the vents without striping it down .

[Over Carl]

There are tools available for the job e.g. https://www.google.co.uk/search?site...12.6iLSkypSzqA

Never needed one myself though. From messing around for a long time I can get an idea 90% of the time whether it's hardware or software. One good place to check is c:\windows\minidumps to see if any dumps have been left after blue screens. If I'm still not sure then:

If I have a moody machine and I'm not certain where the problem is, *I will run memtestx86 for at least 24 hrs, followed by prime95 hammering cpu for at least 24 hours, followed by another 24hrs caning the cpu and chipset. While that's happening I will run seatools on the hard drive.

*Also don't forget oem's utilities - I normally only play with dells and I will always use their utility before the ones I've mentioned.

When this fails to show anything of interest, you should then be thinking whether you wish to investigate hardware or software more thoroughly. If it's software, a new install will cure it. If it's hardware, you will need to remove all parts not necessary to work (e.g. only leave one ram module in, rip out DVD, Bluetooth, wifi, etc), then substitute parts one by one until you get there.


@DejaVu: I find with laptops hard drives often die sooner than expected. I remember when I was last doing commercial IT support, rate of hard drive failure with some models we had was up to about 40% while desktops rarely had drive replacements. I suspected users abusing their kit was the only reason the rate was so jhigh.

@ Plug: Not always. For example the Panasonic Toughbooks always have soldered processors, but your general point is true. Rather than strip it down, I normally just blast compressed air or a hoover over the vents, but if you do this always test it before giving back to customer as I remember once I did this to a mate's laptop and it actually was a lot worse - opened it up and found a massive lump of dirt blocking a heatsink.

[plug1]

Yeh but I would allso stop the fan from spinning if you use a Hoover to suck the crud out .
or as you say you could screw it up worse .

[Over Carl]

Sorry should have mentioned I would hold the hoover nozzle about an inch or so away from the actual vent.

[muttleymacclad]

I use a top quality 1/2 inch paint brush along with the vacuum cleaner. I have one customer who are a large waste recycling co. I have to clean their pc's like this every 6 months. The dirt and dust is everywhere in the offices.

They used to have to replace pc's every year because of overheating. Think the previous IT firm were taking the piss.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ferarrifeet]

hi, if you can boot into safe mode and comp works then possibly it could be a driver that is causing problem.