I Woke Up a Cranky Laptop

[Evenodd]

Model Name: VPC-F11LFX/B
OS: Windows 7

Hi, I know nothing about computers.

About three weeks ago, I came home from dinner, went to my room, and woke up my laptop from its sleep state to play some games. Before I left home, I was on Facebook and stuff, and everything was working fine. Awakened however, the displayed just showed my cursor floating in a black screen; it kept like that for more than 5 minutes, which then I held down the power button to shut down my laptop. When I turned my laptop again, it sluggishly got to the log-in screen. After logging in and meeting my desktop, everything on my screen just froze. These events recurred over and over again until I just turned off my laptop and put it under my bed until now.

Today, I turned on my laptop which it took about 10-20 minutes to get to the log-in screen. But this time, after I pressed Enter to log in, it went straight to my desktop in less than a minute and neither did my screen freeze. I can currently use it as I normally would (checking Facebook, etc...) which is good I assume...

I don't know what's up with my laptop, and I really want it back to its normal functionality.

Please help me, thank you very much! :]

 

[chusteczka]

Sony VAIO F Series VPC-F11LFX/B - 16.4" - Core i7 720QM - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD
Sony Vaio VPC-F11LFX/B Support

It is possible the processor is overheating. Do you have pets or a lot of dust in your home; dog or cat? The cpu heatsink fins may be clogged with dirt or hair, impeding air flow necessary to cool the processor.

 

[Ketchup]

... It is possible the processor is overheating....

This is my thought as well. Keep it in a cool place on a flat surface. It if happens again, get a can of compressed air and blow it into the vents on the bottom/side of the laptop.

 

[Evenodd]

Sony VAIO F Series VPC-F11LFX/B - 16.4" - Core i7 720QM - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD
Sony Vaio VPC-F11LFX/B Support

It is possible the processor is overheating. Do you have pets or a lot of dust in your home; dog or cat? The cpu heatsink fins may be clogged with dirt or hair, impeding air flow necessary to cool the processor.

I don't have any pets, nor do I have much furniture in my room. I've just used some dust destroyer to get rid of dust in my laptop.

It got the the log-in screen much quicker now (~2 min).

This time in the log-in screen, after I wrote my password and pressed Enter, the screen was loading on "Welcome" for 5 minutes.

After it was done loading, my screen turned all classic windows blue (which is my Theme), only displaying my cursor on the screen, and it was like this for
around 8 minutes.

I'm now on my desktop and everything seems to be working fine.

In all, the time it took to get to the desktop is around the same time as it did before I cleaned dust out the vents. My laptop used to load much faster, taking about 2.5 minutes tops maybe.

 

[Ketchup]

Slow load times can have many causes, Malware, disk fragmentation, startup programs. Here are a couple articles that may help:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...mize-windows-better-performance=windows-vista

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Windows-Computer-Start-up-Faster

 

[chusteczka]

Can you install CPU-ID HWMonitor?
Please provide a screen shot of HWMonitor at idle at load. Looking for the temperatures. Load can be with Prime95 or OCCT running for 5-10 minutes.

Laptops often run hot, from 50C - 70C. I wonder if yours is or was running hotter.

Another reason for a slow load time is if the laptop was overheating, it might have corrupted data, which could have corrupted system files and/or the filesystem on the harddrive. It might help to perform a Checkdisk and the manufacturer's utility to scan the drive for errors.

 

[Evenodd]

Can you install CPU-ID HWMonitor?
Please provide a screen shot of HWMonitor at idle at load. Looking for the temperatures. Load can be with Prime95 or OCCT running for 5-10 minutes.

Laptops often run hot, from 50C - 70C. I wonder if yours is or was running hotter.

Another reason for a slow load time is if the laptop was overheating, it might have corrupted data, which could have corrupted system files and/or the filesystem on the harddrive. It might help to perform a Checkdisk and the manufacturer's utility to scan the drive for errors.

I don't know what "idle at load" meant, so I assumed it meant once I just successfully logged in. I didn't know how to use neither OCCT or Prime95, so I also just opened them and left them running for 7 minutes...

*HWMontior when I reached the desktop

*OCCT

*Prime95

*My fans sounded like they were working really hard after I opened both OCCT and Prime95. I felt like I should show you the new HWMontior stats for that as well, if it means anything.

 

[Evenodd]

Slow load times can have many causes, Malware, disk fragmentation, startup programs. Here are a couple articles that may help:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...mize-windows-better-performance=windows-vista

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Windows-Computer-Start-up-Faster

For some reason, I can't defragment this disk, no matter how much I click "Defragment disk".

 

[chusteczka]

I don't know what "idle at load" meant, ...

Sorry about the typo. I meant to write "... idle and load". You did well though, thank you. Your temperatures at 84C are high. Laptop temps can sometimes run into the low 70C range but 80C is too high. How much dust came out when you used the compressed air? A lot or just a little?

To avoid taking the laptop apart just to check and clean the heatsink fins, I would use a can of compressed air with a straw applicator, similar to the straw on a WD-40 can, and spray that into the hot air outlet. That should blow dust out the inlet. The inlet is on the bottom, outlet is on typically on the left side or back. The laptop should be shutdown on a side so the bottom of the laptop is not against the tabletop surface.

I wonder if your drive is having problems with defragment because it might be damaged/corrupted from heat. Although I am still not certain this is the specific culprit but if it were my laptop, I would be disassembling the top cover to remove the keyboard and circuitboard so I could pull the cpu heatsink for cleaning and then reapplication of thermal paste.

Then I would run checkdisk on the drive and then the drive manufacturer's test utility. (ie. WD DataLifeguard, Seagate Seatools)

 

[Ketchup]

The system reserved partition won't defragment, and doesn't need too. The others look good.

For an i7 in a laptop, those temps are pretty decent. I the fact that they don't go much higher, which suggests a decent cooling system, assuming you were doing something to heat it up.

At this point, I wouldn't worry much about it unless it happens again,

 

[chusteczka]

The system reserved partition won't defragment, and doesn't need too. The others look good.

For an i7 in a laptop, those temps are pretty decent. I the fact that they don't go much higher, which suggests a decent cooling system, assuming you were doing something to heat it up.

At this point, I wouldn't worry much about it unless it happens again,

Ketchup is correct. I need to pay more attention to the details. But I am not sure the problem is over. You will see.

 

[Evenodd]

I just restarted so the computer could perform a chkdsk on my C: (it's the only drive on my laptop) and my screen has been like this for some minutes:

Is there a problem? What should I do?

Also, what is the "drive manufacturer's test utility"?

P.S. @chusteczka: I didn't see much if any dust come out after I used some Dust Destroyer.
@Ketchup: I have my laptop sitting on my bed and nothing was blocking the side vent. My room is quite cool as well.

 

[Evenodd]

It's been like that for almost 2 hours, so I went and manually shut my laptop down.

I just turned it back on and immediately met the same screen again, which I'm expecting it will stay like for another long period... so I'm going to shut it down again and await further instruction.

 

[Ketchup]

I just restarted so the computer could perform a chkdsk on my C: (it's the only drive on my laptop) and my screen has been like this for some minutes:

Is there a problem? What should I do?

Also, what is the "drive manufacturer's test utility"?

P.S. @chusteczka: I didn't see much if any dust come out after I used some Dust Destroyer.
@Ketchup: I have my laptop sitting on my bed and nothing was blocking the side vent. My room is quite cool as well.

A bed is generally one of the worst places for a laptop. Turn it off and set it on the floor, or on a desk. If after an hour or so you start it and are still stuck, there may be a ploblem with the hard drive.

 

[Evenodd]

A bed is generally one of the worst places for a laptop. Turn it off and set it on the floor, or on a desk. If after an hour or so you start it and are still stuck, there may be a ploblem with the hard drive.

I just woke up and It still shows the same screen after I turned it on on a clean table. Is there any way to fix this though?

 

[Ketchup]

A bad hard drive is tough. First of all, we need to make sure that is indeed the problem.

Do you have access to a desktop computer that you would be able/allowed to test the laptop hard drive in?

 

[Evenodd]

A bad hard drive is tough. First of all, we need to make sure that is indeed the problem.

Do you have access to a desktop computer that you would be able/allowed to test the laptop hard drive in?

I have another desktop computer that no one uses at home, so... yes, I think?

 

[Ketchup]

OK, if the desktop has SATA, get a SATA cable you could plug in your hard drive (don't boot from it) and see if the desktop can read the data on that drive.

Now an easier way do to this (would cost a couple bucks) would be to just get an enclosure and hook it to the desktop via USB.

Samples:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dynex-2-5-serial-ata-hard-drive-enclosure-black/5190553.p?id=1218623897772&skuId=5190553&st=categoryid$abcat0507006&cp=1&lp=1

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817392043

Laptop hard drives are generally easy to find: flip the laptop over and you should see a rectangular cut-out. Probably has one or two screws that will need to be removed.

 

[Evenodd]

Okay, I'd rather buy an enclosure. The desktop doesn't have SATA nor do I have a SATA cable.

What does an enclosure do and how do you use it?

 

[Ketchup]

The enclosure will make your hard drive readable through a standard USB interface. It will have the SATA connections for the hard drive inside.

So all you will need to do is install the hard drive into the enclosure (basically a case) plug in the power to the wall (if the one you buy has one) then connect the usb to any working computer.

We are trying to see if there is readable data on the drive, or if it is toast.

Did you make any restore CDs/DVDs for your laptop?

 

[Evenodd]

No I don't have any restore CDs/DVDs for my laptop...

 

[Ketchup]

NP, you can get those from Sony later if needed. Have you gotten any further in getting the laptop to boot?

In your pic, I only see some colors on the top of the screen, is this the only thing you see when you turn it on?

If so, move the screen back and forth and see if anything changes.

 

[Evenodd]

When I turn my laptop on, I see the "Vaio" screen. Afterwards, there is a black screen with a white blinking underscore up in the top left corner of my screen which also blinks downward a short step and then disappears. Then, my screen stays black for some seconds and thereafter 8 noticeable, almost identical artifacts line up in a row on the top left corner of the screen. Just two seconds later, all around near the top of my screen, the line of artifacts statically appear [EDIT: Well... I did notice some pixels in the streaks of random artifacts change color once or twice then stay in place as they were.]. There is no more visual screen activity after that.

Moving my screen back and forth didn't change anything.

 

[Evenodd]

And I still don't have the enclosure yet. I'll hang on to that idea and wait for a good time to ask my parents to buy me it.

 

[Ketchup]

OK, you may want to ask them what they would like to do in general, but seeing the Vaio" screen is a good thing.

One more test would be, with the laptop powered off), to hold the ASSIST button while hitting the power button and see if it will go into the BIOS menu.

If you can get into the BIOS, a navigate through the menus, then the issue may only be with the hard drive here. If you can't get into the BIOS or can't see any more than you did before, then there are some additional issues here.