laptop problem...hard drive related?

[jagec]

I recently got a laptop from my aunt. It's a Compaq Presario 1700, and as much as I hate Compaq, if it does the job I'm not complaining. It's running WinXP, but it has a lot of crap so I went to reformat/reinstall Windows.

Except, it will boot from the Windows CD, but as soon as the blue Setup window appears, it will suddenly lose power and I have to restart. So I tried booting from a floppy, and went to fdisk the drive (it's got two partitions for some lame reason). I could view the partitions, but as soon as I tried to delete a partition it again lost power for no reason. By this point I'd installed Aida32 to see what hardware it had and get the Windows CD key for reinstallation, so I decided to run the hard drive tests. About 20% into the drive, the read speed drops to 0.23 MB/s, and stays there. However, the computer does not lose power as it did previously. I do the quick linear read, random read, and so on, and sure enough I see a bunch of huge dips which would seem to indicate something is wrong with the drive. But it's not losing power!

Finally, I download the drive fitness test boot floppy, and try that. It boots from the floppy, but loses power as soon as it tries to do anything with the hard drive.

This is wierd. Windows is pretty stable, but every so often it will lose power for no reason. I figured it did that every time it tried to read a bad section of the drive, but the read tests don't make it fail at all. Why does it lose power like this?

 

[jagec]

bump because it's still happening.

 

[jyates]

Any chance you have some bad ram and that's making it turn off?

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: jyates
Any chance you have some bad ram and that's making it turn off?

hmm, I tried it with both sticks, and then with each stick individually, and in all cases Memtest doesn't error out, but the computer loses power at around 3%.

I still don't understand WHY it is able to run Windows, even some of the lame benchmarks in Aida32, yet it can't run memtest, can't run Windows Setup, and can't even run fdisk.

 

[jagec]

OK, here's another interesting facet.

I installed Sandra, so I could run various benchmarks and see when it failed.
It passed the CPU arithmetic benchmark,
lost power on the CPU multimedia benchmark,
Passed the memory bandwidth benchmark,
Passed the hard drive benchmark,
and lost power halfway through the cache/subsystem benchmark.
After I ran the two tests that failed again, they passed.

I would think the problem was heat-related, but it happens very soon after startup under CERTAIN conditions, so that can't be it.

Maybe it's the angry souls of former Compaq users determined to make the machine's life as miserable as it made theirs?

 

[jagec]

don't make me post a new thread :|

 

[otispunkmeyer]

well i think the next best course of action would be to see if u can borrow a laptop harddrive....if it still does it with a different drive then you know its not the HD

 

[Regs]

Run it without the battery connected. If it works, looks like it needs a bios flash.

 

[Jiggz]

I'll say it's cpu heat related problems. Heat from the HDD will not shut down the system instead it will just continue on at a slower pace. Try running it with a fan directed on the underneath or cpu fan and see if the same shut down happens. If the problem goes away you may have to open the system and see if the cpu fan is even running, or the heat sink is still in place.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Regs
Run it without the battery connected. If it works, looks like it needs a bios flash.

doesn't have a battery...I'm in the process of trying to buy one, but they're pricey.

Originally posted by: Jiggz
I'll say it's cpu heat related problems. Heat from the HDD will not shut down the system instead it will just continue on at a slower pace. Try running it with a fan directed on the underneath or cpu fan and see if the same shut down happens. If the problem goes away you may have to open the system and see if the cpu fan is even running, or the heat sink is still in place.

that is a possibility, though it doesn't explain why it IMMEDIATELY shuts down if I try to run fdisk. I'll try running it with a big fan blowing on the heatsink.

 

[jagec]

OK, I tried flashing the BIOS to the latest version, then I tried running benchmarks with a large fan blowing directly on the heat sink. It still loses power.

 

[jagec]

I vow to keep bumping this until fixed.

 

[impemonk]

eek gads!

 

[cy7878]

I think it is a CPU problem. It doesn't have to overheat, it can just have a bad CPU. It happens pretty often actually.


It can also be virus related -- bad HD or BIOS. Good luck.

 

[jagec]

bad CPU...bleh...I wonder if this is worth fixing. I wish I had a source of "test" electronics, like I would if this was a desktop. I don't want to buy new components for it only to find out that wasn't the problem.

I'll have to think about this one.

 

[Jiggz]

See if you can try another power supply adapter. It's probably the culprit! Or it could be a loose power jack. I thought when you said shut down you meant just windows shutting down but power still available to the system. So you meant shut down like no power at all?

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
See if you can try another power supply adapter. It's probably the culprit! Or it could be a loose power jack. I thought when you said shut down you meant just windows shutting down but power still available to the system. So you meant shut down like no power at all?

that's the wierd thing. The screen dies and the hard drive instantly parks as if it was a total power failure, but the LED indicating the laptop is plugged in stays on (the Power LED dies). And it doesn't seem to matter whether I move the laptop around a lot, or whether I leave it in one place...so it doesn't act like a loose power jack. Who knows...maybe I should get a battery for it and see if that helps.

 

[jagec]

bump?

 

[kellykyle]

All right At last Some one has the same Bug with the Laptop yes all the same thing is going on with me
But I did replace the Hard drive I did Repace the Cpu fan and the Cpu fan is still not running So
the Fan is not working on the Board If there is a way to test the fan then we have some thing to work with
am online most of the day you can email me or post what we know the system is a new install did a lowlevel format
or Ie eraserDisk its the best out there it's only 50$ works on all harddrives Let Find out what the hell is doing this
with the Compaq Presario model 1711cl i

 

[kellykyle]

ok I got it to stop shuting down now what I did was burn the drives
to a cd and booted in safe mode the video drives and the montor drives
for the lap top the craching is stop but the heat is going up the fan
is still not running So There mite be a drive still missing or the bios needs
to be up dated am doing a scandisk now so in a bit it should be done
and I made a boot disk for windows 98 and burn it to a cd

 

[kellykyle]

N

 

[kellykyle]

oK i got it fix

1 you need to change you settings

Go to control Panel and go to Power Options and make sure
that Power schemes is turn to ""Always On"" and the fan turns on
You must do a reboot too
and they trouble with the system locking up go to safe mode and
install the video drivers and the montors drivers and it works and do the
changes to the power options there too
am done good night happen days

 

[impemonk]

i'll help you out.

MC-BUMP!

 

[aznbomber]

are you sure that the power supply is supplying enough power to the computer? I know a lot of computers will randomly shut down if the power adaptor does not provide the necessary amounts of amps when the battery is not plugged in. You can get away with running the computer with a lower amperage ac adaptor with the battery in the computer because the battery will act as a reserve. So that is one thing to try, either test the ac adaptor or get the battery and see what happens.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: aznbomber
are you sure that the power supply is supplying enough power to the computer? I know a lot of computers will randomly shut down if the power adaptor does not provide the necessary amounts of amps when the battery is not plugged in. You can get away with running the computer with a lower amperage ac adaptor with the battery in the computer because the battery will act as a reserve. So that is one thing to try, either test the ac adaptor or get the battery and see what happens.

Yeah, I think I'm buying a new battery and more memory, so that will eliminate two variables. I might get a bigger hard drive, which would eliminate another. I would get a new laptop, but they're SOOO expensive...

I just really hope it isn't the CPU. It's such a strange issue...