Laptop repeatedly dying

Predator6 · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:30

Hi guys, I have had my laptop for around 1 year and I have used it for games/films/photo editing/uni work and last week it completely died on me while I was using it.

Now when I switch it on, it either locks up completely and does nothing, loses power or locks up then loses power.

It seems to be tempermental in booting to windows its around 50/50 whether or not it will actually make it there, and if it does then around 1 minute of scanning for problems it goes off.

I was thinking maybe a virus (I have anti-virus and firewalls etc - Kaspersky - and it didn't find anything) or my hard drive failing as I carry it to university quite a lot.

Any advice welcome.

Thanks

Ashley

p.s no blue screen, auto restart is off, it just locks up and powers down.

edscdk · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:32

reinstall windows / format the drive?

Predator6 · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:35

I don't have windows disks. Plus I need all my uni work off of it

oO Stevie Oo · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:42

you could always connect the 2.5" hard drive to a desktop pc, the sata connections are the same, then you can pull your uni stuff off and try a format

edscdk · 23 Nov 2010 at 11:49

Predator6 said:
I don't have windows disks. Plus I need all my uni work off of it

borrow one from someone? as long as its the same windows version as you COA is for you can use your serial number

Predator6 · 24 Nov 2010 at 01:33

Ok guys, I used a different hard drive (cloned my pc onto a 2.5" hdd) and the exact same thing is happening, powers up then shuts down randomly.

I also tried booting my laptop hard drive using my pc and it worked fine..

Any ideas?

Buchanan0204 · 5 Dec 2010 at 03:19

Predator6 said:
Ok guys, I used a different hard drive (cloned my pc onto a 2.5" hdd) and the exact same thing is happening, powers up then shuts down randomly.

I also tried booting my laptop hard drive using my pc and it worked fine..

Any ideas?

Try booting into a Linux Live CD. They are free to download, just burn the .iso using poweriso or whatever image burning software you like.

If you can use linux for a while without the lock ups etc you were explaining, then you know the problem is software related and you will have to reinstall your operating system. You can search for a torrent for your operating system, this is not illegal as long as it is the version which you COA sticker corresponds too. It's only illegal when you start loading cracks etc.

If Linux starts to lock up etc, then I would try running memtest86, can be downloaded free and run from a usb drive. If your ram fails memtest, then that's your culprit. If it passes, then come back and let me know how you got on and we can take it from there.

Cheers