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Help! Failing Laptop?

  • 02-07-2003 9:33am
    #1
    dod
    Closed Accounts Posts: 801 ✭✭✭


    I have a workhorse Toshiba Laptop, about 2 years old, Win 2000/ Office 2000 etc. I use it for everything from development through testing, planning, mail… everything. I’ve never had any problems with it until yesterday. I’m just worried that some component on it is failing, any laptop gurus out there can tell me what diagnostics I should run to identify the problem?

    I’ll give you briefly the sequence of events before the problem yesterday:

    1. Installed MS Project 98 without any problems (other than Windows updates/ Virus updates, the only new install on the system in about 2 or 3 months)

    2. Downloading a .pdf from the ‘net when connection dropped & computer hung.

    3. After much disc churning (about 10 mins), laptop immediately powered off (not an orderly power-down, as if there was a complete power failure). The laptop was connected to the mains at the time, so there wouldn’t have been any battery issues

    4. Waited a few mins & powered up again. No messages about any problems. System ran fine for 2 hours. I ran through the MS Event Viewer & MS Computer Management to see if I could identify what had failed. Event Viewer came up repeatedly with this message:
    The Network Address Translator (NAT) was unable to request an operation of the kernel-mode translation module. This may indicate misconfiguration, insufficient resources, or an internal error. The data is the error code.
    Source:ipnathlp
    This message that came up repeatedly in the Event Viewer Log.

    5. Unable to find any other pointers to a problem, I ran MS Disk Cleanup to get rid of any dodgy temporary files, thinking that the failure had been a one-off. After the disk scan, when I clicked ‘OK’ to clear out the temporary files, the system powered down, again not an ordered power-down, it simply switched off.

    6. Now very concerned, I gingerly powered up, again couldn’t find any forensics, decided to leave the laptop alone for the night & try again this morning. When I invoked a shut-down, the system hung on ‘Saving your settings’ and didn’t power down at all (I left it for a good 10 minutes to shut itself down), eventually I had to disconnect the mains & remove the battery to get a power-off.

    Anyway that’s what happened. I am writing this on the desktop & I’m going to spend the morning trying to copy the material from the Laptop disk onto a free disk (assuming the Laptop doesn’t fail whilst I’m trying!).

    Any ideas for what I might use to run some diagnostics, or at least to avoid doing any further damage? Any ideas what might be wrong? I’m stumped on this one, I’d be really grateful for any suggestions.

    Thanks,

    DOD


Comments

  • #2
    ando
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,426 ✭✭✭ando


    try using the laptop with the battery out all the time. It may be the battery :confused:

    Are you using 2000 server??? because I went to the microsoft support site, this error you describe only effects 2000 server/advanced server:

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293497

    If you have ICS enabled, disable it although I really doubt that has anything to do with it. My gut feeling is your harddrive is on its last legs, or may have bad sectors on it. I advise you to make an Emergency Repair Disk, so that the next time it crashes, you wont get a blue screen on restart, if you do you can use the disk for a workaround


  • #3
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 92,241 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    maybe SW causing it to power down
    Into control panel and turn off all power management in the tosh and microsoft icons - just in case - if all else fails uninstall the tosh power mngt stuff.

    Maybe overheating ?
    use a fan to keep it cool ....

    Listen to the hard drive - might mean having to put your ear against the notebook - noises ending in K or the repeated sound of a ball bearing dropping are not good...
    clunK clinK clickclickclicK etc. -

    If the HDD is making ungood noises try a differend orientation
    eg: If you are using a docking station try to have the notebook perfectly flat - alternatively have it so the screen is flat and the hard drive is vertical...

    (shameless plug - boot off something that has network support and copy the files that way Knoppix is easiest unless you have made a boot disk with your drivers earlier)


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