Help me identify a hardware problem with my laptop.

November 14, 2006 9:40 AM

Help me identify a hardware problem with my laptop.

I've been having more and more problems with my HP dv4000 laptop lately. Here is a brief background. Some weeks back, my laptop stopped charging when plugged in. It is still under warranty, and so the tech support sent me a new AC adapter. That didn't do anything. I then shipped the laptop to them, and got it back a week later with a note saying something to the effect that they've replaced the "reasoning board" or something similar (presumably, they meant the motherboard). The laptop was charging fine again, and everything seemed okay.

I was able to play DVDs, use the Internet, MSOffice, etc. with no problems whatsoever. However, I ran into problems when I tried to start up games. (My laptop has a 128mb ATI Radeon x700 card.) About two minutes into the game - any 3D, computer resource-intensive game - the computer shuts down by itself in the following sequence. First, all animation etc. on the screen freezes, but I can still move the mouse. The mouse also stops responding about 15 seconds later, and another 10 seconds after that, the laptop shuts down. When I press the power button immediately afterwards, the hard drive spins up and the screen comes on, but it shuts down again a second later. (This happens either once or twice.) However, when I press the power button again right after, the boot-up sequence proceeds fine.

The last weird component to this is that all this happens only when the computer is plugged into the AC adapter. When it's running on battery power, I can play games until the battery drains with no shutdowns or other weird glitches. I do seem to recall hearing some months ago that HP laptops have some power jack problems, but I can't seem to find anything confirming this.

So - what could this be? I realize I can take this to HP tech support again, since the laptop is still under warranty. However, when I called them to address this, their first solution was for me to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. I have good reason to believe that this is a hardware and not a software problem, inasmuch as it never occurs while the laptop is on battery power, but I don't know exactly where the issue lies. If someone were able to identify the hardware problem, I could simply direct the tech support to fix that particular part, and not have to go through the pain of backing up about 60 gigs of data, reformatting the hard drive, and reinstalling Windows only to discover the issue still there.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

posted by Pontius Pilate to computers & internet (4 comments total)

It sounds like overheating. Perhaps the added heat from charging the battery is making the difference between merely "hot" and overheating. Search around for a processor/motherboard temperature monitoring program, and compare the two situations. The processor heatsink may not have been properly installed, or came loose in shipping.
posted by wzcx at 10:09 AM on November 14, 2006

A few questions:

Have you tried HP's System Health Scan? (Double check the URL to make certain it's correct for your model.)

Sounds to me like a firmware problem. (BIOS needs updating, possibly?) HP should have checked this before they returned your laptop to you, but you never know.

Have you tried calling tech support again? My experience with tech support is when they don't really know what's wrong, they opt to format. (Personally, I think formatting your harddrive is great, as it lets you start from scratch, but most people hate to do it for obvious reasons.) And it doesn't sound like that's THE solution. I would ask for a supervisor or find a way to escalate the issue with tech support, especially since it sounds like they created the issue.

Also, when on battery power, do your video display settings change? If you haven't yet, take a look at this HP info. It's pretty basic, but might help.
posted by davidinmanhattan at 10:21 AM on November 14, 2006

Good call on the overheating possibility, I'll look into that.

Tried the HP System Health Scan yesterday, it's all clean. The tech guy told me that they had updated the BIOS when they did the repairs. He also said that the system went through a regular check-up process before it was shipped back. I'll give tech support another shot, but I am not holding my breath.

The video display settings do not change on battery power. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling DirectX and the video drivers, but that didn't do anything.
posted by Pontius Pilate at 10:38 AM on November 14, 2006

I found using Omega Drivers did wonders to fix my gaming problem when I was using my laptop for gaming (it also had an ati raedon graphics card).

The problem with not being able to show tech support what's happening is illustrated in examples example like this. My old laptop's HD bootup sector corrupted. Best Buy refused to acknowledge my problem because reinstalling Windows worked for 2 or 3 boots before I could not longer fully boot so it was naturally my fault. It was only by showing them the exact diagnostic error I was receiving did I have any success.

Also, there are mods out there to control and monitor your fan speed. Though I don't have any personal experience with them, I know friends who've saved their computer by using one. You might want to try monitoring your fan- it is possible that your laptop's deciding to conserve power by keeping the fan off/low.
In some version of Bios, you can see your internal heat. Might want to check that to see how hot it is.
posted by jmd82 at 11:47 AM on November 14, 2006