Help me avoid laptop death!

October 11, 2008 1:05 PM

My computer is flaking out on me (perhaps due to my NVIDIA driver?). I can't get it to a tech support place until Thanksgiving! Help!

I have a HP Pavilion dv2000 pc with a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 driver (bought June 2007). I use my computer everyday to do powerpoint presentations for my job, so I hook my laptop up to an LCD projector. However, as of late (especially after using the LCD projector), if my computer is shut down, put to sleep, or hibernates, it shuts down completely and will not turn back on. I'll press the power button, and the power light will come on but none of the keys work and the fan doesn't run no matter how long I wait. I have to keep turning the power button on and off 10 or 15 times before the screen randomly comes back on.

Further complicating things, when it does turn on, it will either say the NVIDIA driver recovered from an error or the screen will turn black and I can only get it to display by toggling between display modes (fn + f4). Also, and this may not be related, but the battery life indicator doesn't seem to be working, so I don't know when my computer is about to shut down due to reaching critical battery level.

So far my only solution has been to keep the power on with the charger in all the time. I'm don't know a whole lot about computers, but even I know this can't be good.

Any idea what might be causing this? Any ideas how to fix this (besides keeping my computer running all hours of the day)? Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated!

posted by karyotypical to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I'd check to see if the NVidia or HP websites have updated drivers for your machine. Also check for Windows updates.

I wouldn't worry about keeping it on. That's unlikely to cause any significant problems (except it could shorten the life of the battery.)

Presumably you have run a virus scan?
posted by anadem at 2:41 PM on October 11, 2008

I don't think this will help, but I could be wrong. It just seems like such a coincidence that I also have an HP Pavilion with an Nvidia GEForce 6150 and TODAY (for the first time), after a reboot, it told me my driver was not compatible, and decided to use the default VGA driver at a ridiculously low resolution. You don't mention what operating system you're using.

I downloaded the latest driver but before I went installing it I figured I'd go into the Control Panel and there's an Nvidia entry in the CP which I clicked on and reset the resolution, and things seem fine now. I don't know what will happen after my next reboot though.

Vista is, of course, the work of Satan's spawn.
posted by forthright at 8:01 PM on October 11, 2008

I indeed have Vista (and I use Symantec for my virus scanner)... I my computer is actually a HP Pavilion dv2310us Notebook PC if that makes a difference. I am pretty sure I have the latest version of the NVIDIA driver according to the hp website . I can't seem to figure out how to reset the resolution on the NVIDIA control panel, but I'll try again in the morning. If all else fails, I'll try to re-download the NVIDIA driver. Thanks for the answers so far! And my computer has managed to stay alive all day, so double score!
posted by karyotypical at 10:46 PM on October 11, 2008

This could be heat related, or it could be that you have a flaky motherboard. Installing new drivers may help, as may flashing the BIOS. Once you've done those things, you're probably looking at calling HP tech support. Also, Vista itself does not cause problems like this.
posted by cnc at 11:17 PM on October 11, 2008

Just fyi, we saw a similar problem at work, and the problem turned out to be Symantec interfering with certain video card drivers. The solution was to update symantec to a more recent version or to obtain a patch from symantec (which they provided to us). I dont know if thats the case in your case, but if you're desperate it might be worth it to uninstall symantec (and install one of the decent free temporary anti-virus programs (we used Avast free home edition while waiting for the symantec patch).

(Also, as cnc said, the main blame here really should go to nvidia or symantec; MS doesnt insist on monopoly control of hardware/software like apple does (if it did, you can imagine the outcry).
posted by jak68 at 2:36 AM on October 12, 2008

You may already be aware, but NVIDIA has reported a defect in a large group of GPUs. You may be affected.
posted by roue at 4:43 AM on October 12, 2008

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Roue: my computer is indeed on the affected list which I had no idea about, so although I am off warranty now, I'll try updating my BIOS (is flashing the same as updating?). And jak68, I am desperate, so I will definitely be uninstalling symantec if all else fails.
posted by karyotypical at 5:34 AM on October 12, 2008

>is flashing the same as updating?

flashing is the same as updating...
good luck!
posted by jak68 at 9:27 AM on October 12, 2008

You might be off warranty, but some manufacturers offer extensions for this sort of thing since it's an in-built defect. I'd definitely call HP and plead the case if I were you.
posted by roue at 8:20 PM on October 12, 2008