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AAMOF the system ran CHKDSK automatically after several of the crashes, but I haven’t run it recently.

CHKDSK ran very quickly without the usual long file-verification pass. It found a few lengths that were wrong, but the bigger concern was that it said something about being unable to write out the file table. (It flashed by pretty quickly.) I rebooted and ran it again, and that time it ran the whole pass and there were no errors.

SFC /scannow didn’t find any errors.

I’ll let you know if it helped….

Ran memtest86 for 8 hours and no errors. So if it’s not heat and it’s not the RAM, what’s causing it??

Crap. It was cruising along in low 60’s. I started flipping through facebook, watching a few videos, and… oh crap, it’s hanging again. When the CPU monitor hung it was only in the high 60’s. I rebooted and restarted the CPU monitor, and it was in the 60’s. Case felt only slightly warm.

So it’s running cool now and it’s STILL hanging. :(:

Time to run memtest86 on this new RAM…

I really, really hate cases that require arcane knowledge, 4 passwords, and a genetic test to open up. I removed every screw I could find and I couldn’t even pry any corner of the case open.

So I just shot the air in through the cooling intake/exit ports. A fair amount of dust blew out and I could hear the fan spinning.

That may have done the trick. It was running under 50°C when I started it up. I started several apps that were driving it over 90C before, and it was coasting along at 60C. I started running some CPU-burners (bash shells in a loop) and temps got up around 90C at 30% CPU or so. But I kept adding burners and the temps topped out in the low 90’s even with 90% CPU load. (For some reason core #4 ran about 12-15°C cooler than the other 3. Go figger.)

I didn’t leave it running at that rate very long but the case didn’t seem to heat up much. Apparently the cooling fins just got dusty. Why it suddenly started being a problem after I installed the SSD is a mystery to me.

Hopefully the hanging problem is solved. If not, I’ll be back… Thanks the suggestions, and THANKS for pointing out the should-have-been-obvious, jwitalka!

Fair enough. 🙂 My wall thermometer reads in F and the CPU monitor reads C.

I am somewhat less certain this is a heat issue. The laptop just crashed again (for the second time today, grrr). The CPU monitor froze up at some point before I noticed the problem, and it was reading in the low 70’s C when it froze. The app shouldn’t have frozen if it was only 72C or so. I rebooted and immediately restarted the CPU monitor, and it was only reading in the high 70’s. The case felt pretty warm but not as hot as it’s been.

So now I’m not sure what to think. Time to open it up and try to reach the fan so I can blow it out.

70 is the absolute top temperature you want to see, 90 is shut down territory.

So I guess it’s not surprising that my system gradually locks up when it gets up around 90.

Coochin, no doubt a cooler like that would help, just like the icepacks do. But I travel frequently with this laptop, and I’d prefer to solve the root problem rather than using an external band-aid like that. Plus it doesn’t explain why I’ve only had a temp problem since I replaced the HD. I suspect either the SSD/HD is running hot and causing the whole system to overheat (but the SMART says it’s only running at 47°C right now), or maybe I knocked some dust into the fan when I installed the SSD/HD.

This morning it’s about 80°F in the room, and the CPUs were running at 60°C when I came in. But as soon as I started doing ANYthing (like opening Chrome to post this) it jumped over 70°. I don’t know why it keeps rising up to 90° as the day goes on, because the room never gets much higher than about 83°.

Schedule hasn’t allowed a blowout yet. I’ll try to get to that tonight.

EDIT: BTW there is one other counfounding element here. At about the same time I installed the SSD/HD, I also upgraded RAM from 8GB to 16GB. So I suppose it’s possible the RAM is running hot too, but that seems unlikely. Before, I regularly ran 15-20 apps or more, and I frequently ran out of RAM. So now I’ve got plenty of RAM, but I can’t run more than a few apps before it starts overheating. I just loaded a large app I **always** run, and the temps instantly jumped up around 90°. The system was only running at about 18% CPU usage, with the big app fully loading one of my 8 cores, but that was enough to drive it into the overheating range. Never had a problem with that before, even with many more apps running.

I downloaded SpeedFan but it only sees “GPU Fan” sensors — and those both say 0.

If the fan wasn’t running at all, I would assume the CPU would fry in seconds. That’s what would happen with a tower system. But there’s definitely a fan running. I can hear it, and it speeds up any time the CPUs get hot.

Unfortunately the fan is pretty inaccessible. I’m not sure if I can get to it to shoot air at it, but I’ll try.

It does seem very odd, though, that this was never a problem until I put in the SSD/HD. Maybe I dislodged some dust and clogged the CPU fan, but it seems more likely that the SSD/HD is just running really hot and adding to the case temps. The SMART data says it’s just running at 65°, but I have it on an icepack right now.

And money. 🙂 In this case I suspect it would require a new graphics chip, more likely a new motherboard. And a new inverter for the screen backlight. And then it would still be questionable, because SOMEthing went kaflooey in a big way to knock out so much functionality at once.

You can get a tested replacement mobo for about $60. But hell, if I wanted it that bad, I could get a complete working replacement laptop for $120 or so.

It would make more sense to buy a newer small laptop and get an IDE dock to transfer any remaining data off the old laptop.

One thing to try…
1. Power off the system.
2. Hold down the key to enter the BIOS Menu or Boot Manager.
3. Power on the system and continue to hold down the key.

That actually worked better than I expected. I didn’t remember the magic key so I tried DEL, F12, F11, F10 … and hey! With F10 held down it didn’t do the 5-second-reboot thing. The screen (as illuminated by flashlight) is flashing scrozzled line gibberish on the screen, flashing about once per second. I’m guessing it’s in the BIOS but I can’t do anything with it.

So as long as it was alive, I tried plugging in a monitor. No joy. It doesn’t turn on the monitor so I can’t see anything. (But most likely the on-board graphics chip is fried so it wouldn’t be able to drive a monitor anyway.)

Have you tried booting into a USB drive? Though with no ability to see either into the BIOS Menu or Boot Manager (F12 on boot?) I guess not. [/quote]
I wondered if maybe a USB drive would be easier for it to boot into, but as you said, unless I already had it set up to boot from USB (and I’m sure I didn’t), I can’t get into the BIOS to set it up. And even if I could, I can’t see what it’s doing.

I think you had this right half the thread ago…time to recycle.

I’m afraid so. Guys, I *REALLY* appreciate your perseverance and helpfulness, but unless somebody has a brainstorm based on the F10 insight above, I think the patient is in a coma and is unlikely to wake up. Time to pull the plug.

Sodu15, won’t I run into the same problem I mentioned with the Vista repair CD? You have to boot into the Kaspersky rescue disk, and the laptop won’t boot from anything. If you have suggestions how I can address that, that would be awesome — but unless I figure out a way to fix the boot problem, none of these repair options will work.

Sorry guys, I got distracted and forgot to check this thread.

With 8GB of RAM installed, your motherboard may already be maxed out.[/quote]
No, HP sez it can go up to 16GB.

And 110GB of stuff! Seriously? The only thing that should be on an SSD are temp files that change a lot and get read a lot and some apps (including the OS). [/quote]
I’ve cut it down to 91GB, leaving 18 GB (16%) free. I’ve got all my work files &etc on C: so they’re included in the scheduled backups.

You also need some space for defrag (yes, SSDs still use defrag).

Great article on defragging SSDs:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheRealAndCompleteStoryDoesWindowsDefragmentYourSSD.aspx

No worries, cmptrgy. And yes, I cleaned the RAM contacts with De-Oxit and let it dry.

Thanks for the offer of the Vista repair CD (I can’t respond to your email) but I don’t see how that could work. I would have to boot from the repair CD, and this laptop can’t seem to boot from anything.

Nope. I tried that, and I tried removing power / main battery / CMOS battery for 10 minutes. No change.

Post 4 by Sudo15: “This article describes how to create a Vista Repair disk but you would need another Vista machine with the same architecture to create it on.
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/how-to-r…ista-dvd-disc/”
— Have you tried it?[/quote]
No, I don’t have another Vista system. And unless I am mistaken, you would need the ability to boot into the repair disk. A rescue disk like that is good if your Windows install is borked, but not if you can’t boot at ALL.

I went to the link you provided for your computer and tried to find what drivers are available but there aren’t any: Is this an original Vista computer?

Yes, it is. Not sure why you had trouble — I specified Vista and it listed the drivers.
http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-dv6700-entertainment-notebook-pc-series/3632100/model/3646945

— Can you install an add-on graphics card if you wish to do so?

Not as far as I know. There are no expansion slots. Was your friend’s computer a laptop??

Go to the manufacturers website and burn the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M driver to a blank CD on another computer
— Maybe you could burn it to bootable CD or flash drive but someone else would have provide that information if its possible
Start your computer and insert the CD into your computer before it shuts down
Start the computer back up and see what happens

I’m sure it would be the same as when I tried to boot into a Memtest86 CD. The laptop never sees it, never boots to it.

Yes, I know about the HP/Nvidia issues… Between my ex and I we had several HP laptops (we both worked at HP) and at least one of them had this problem. I “fixed” my ex’s laptop by wrapping it in a towel and letting it run until it overheated and shut itself off!! Apparently that gets things hot enough inside that it reflows the solder on the Nvidia, at least if you’re lucky. Her laptop worked for several more years.

I don’t think that’s the problem here. It certainly wouldn’t be causing the boot problems, or the dead inverter. But possibly the graphics issue is caused by the solder issue, and what the heck, it can’t hurt to try wrapping it in a towel. 😀