Laptop keeps hanging

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marcos Martinez-Sancho
  • Start date Start date
M

Marcos Martinez-Sancho

I own a Compaq laptop which is 3 year old now. I installed Win XP Pro
from scratch as the computer came with XP home in a language other than
English. I have also installed the required drivers for graphic card,
touchpad, mouse, etc.

It turns out the laptop works fine most of the time, but from time to
time, it hangs up. Let's say, after 2-3 hours of continous use, bang, it
freezes. I have to powercycle the laptop to continue working.

I suspect some driver or some MS stuff included in SP1 might be
interfering.

Question:

is there any tool to trace/sniff the root cause of the problem?

I have tried Windows event viewer which does not show anything out of
normal.

Any idea?

Thanks.

Marcos
 
BTW, I forgot to mention that hibernation/stand by mode does not work.

Might it be related somehow to the hanging problem?

Marcos
 
BTW, I forgot to mention that hibernation/stand by mode does not work.

Might it be related somehow to the hanging problem?

Marcos
Click to expand...


Doubtful.

I'd expect either poor contacts (electrical problem when it
heats up and expands parts), general overheating whether it
be from dust-clogged vents or fans failing, or CPU
interface gone bad. Could be failing capacitors too, we
seldom hear of parts besides motherboards failing but it was
expected the bad caps would turn up in other gear too.

I'd probably disassemble it and inspect it.
 
What model is your laptop? The are certain models with CPU coolin
issues. XP Pro will put and extra strain on the CPU that would caus
it to run hotter than XP Home
 
Marcos Martinez-Sancho said:
I own a Compaq laptop which is 3 year old now. I installed Win XP Pro
from scratch as the computer came with XP home in a language other than
English. I have also installed the required drivers for graphic card,
touchpad, mouse, etc.

It turns out the laptop works fine most of the time, but from time to
time, it hangs up. Let's say, after 2-3 hours of continous use, bang, it
freezes. I have to powercycle the laptop to continue working.

I suspect some driver or some MS stuff included in SP1 might be
interfering.

Question:

is there any tool to trace/sniff the root cause of the problem?

I have tried Windows event viewer which does not show anything out of
normal.

Any idea?

Thanks.

Marcos
Click to expand...

Is the mouse USB by any chance? I had similar problems with my notebook with
a USB drive where the (unsigned) drivers were not really XP compatible.

Does the freeze happen in 'safe mode'? (if not drivers are high on the
suspect list).

Does the freeze happen sooner if a high processor activity program is
running (e.g. a game etc). If so overheating is more likely.
 
Dave said:
Is the mouse USB by any chance? I had similar problems with my
notebook with a USB drive where the (unsigned) drivers were not really
XP compatible.
Click to expand...

Yes. My mouse is USB. It's a mouse from a non-recognizable brand (eg, MS,
Logitech).

I will check that.
Does the freeze happen in 'safe mode'? (if not drivers are high on the
suspect list).
No.

Does the freeze happen sooner if a high processor activity program is
running (e.g. a game etc). If so overheating is more likely.
Click to expand...

No. Actually, I've observed that if I leave the laptop idle for 30-45
minutes, it will hang up for sure.

Marcos
 
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