I dropped my Advent 5401 a couple of weeks ago - only from about a foot
above a carpeted floor. Ever since then, I have had increasingly bad
problems. The laptop started powering off unexpectedly. Sometimes it
would freeze up. Sometimes I'd get the blue screen. After powering
itself off, it would sometimes take many attemts to get it to boot up.
These symptoms got prgressively worse; now I can't get it to boot at
all.

My local computer repair shop said the hard drive is OK. He tride
removing and replacing the ram chips but it made no difference. He said
I might have damaged the motherboard.

Is there anthing else I might try, before resigning myself to an
expensive repair job?

Many thanks,

Al

 

I would remove and completely remount the CPU and fan/heatsink.


Al wrote:
> I dropped my Advent 5401 a couple of weeks ago - only from about a foot
> above a carpeted floor. Ever since then, I have had increasingly bad
> problems. The laptop started powering off unexpectedly. Sometimes it
> would freeze up. Sometimes I'd get the blue screen. After powering
> itself off, it would sometimes take many attemts to get it to boot up.
> These symptoms got prgressively worse; now I can't get it to boot at all.
>
> My local computer repair shop said the hard drive is OK. He tride
> removing and replacing the ram chips but it made no difference. He said
> I might have damaged the motherboard.
>
> Is there anthing else I might try, before resigning myself to an
> expensive repair job?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Al
>
>

 

"Al" <wasaol@aanotes.com> wrote in message
news:mn.a55a7da474cc3e76.112874@aanotes.com...

> I dropped my Advent 5401 a couple of weeks ago - only from about a foot
> above a carpeted floor. Ever since then, I have had increasingly bad
> problems. The laptop started powering off unexpectedly. Sometimes it
> would freeze up. Sometimes I'd get the blue screen. After powering
> itself off, it would sometimes take many attemts to get it to boot up.
> These symptoms got prgressively worse; now I can't get it to boot at all.
>
> My local computer repair shop said the hard drive is OK. He tride
> removing and replacing the ram chips but it made no difference. He said
> I might have damaged the motherboard.
>
> Is there anthing else I might try, before resigning myself to an
> expensive repair job?

Since the hard drive is OK, get a new laptop and transfer the HD
contents into it (via USB from a Samba drive case if needed.)
Once any motherboard has been flexed more than a couple
of millimetres almost any component is likely to fail (think of the
small size of those components and solder joints). Adding
together the high dollar cost and low peace of mind (low
expectations of reliability) it is seldom worth repairing a
laptop known to be faulty.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

 

Re: Dropped my Advent 5401. Now bootup / blue screen / freezingproblems

>Barry wrote:
>I would remove and completely remount the CPU and fan/heatsink.

Barry has a good point...over-heating!

bob

 

In news:hqmmut$8a$2@theodyn.ncf.ca,
Don Phillipson typed on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:24:21 -0500:
[...]
> Once any motherboard has been flexed more than a couple
> of millimetres almost any component is likely to fail (think of the
> small size of those components and solder joints)...

I think you would be surprised Don. For example, these Asus EeePC
netbooks you have to flex the motherboard to get it in and out of the
lower clam shell. And I don't know anybody who lost a motherboard yet
during this process. And there are hundreds if not thousand of EeePC
users on the forum over there.

I don't know anybody who lost a motherboard with a laptop either by
flexing them either. Granted it is pretty hard to do while they are in
assembled laptop. I guess some have claimed that some laptops are so
flimsy that the motherboard can flex. Are these the ones you are
referring too?

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 701G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2 (quit Windows updates back in May 2009)

 

"Bob Villa" <pheeh.zero@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:9be90483-3dc6-400f-90b2-f07584b92810@b6g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
> >Barry wrote:
> >I would remove and completely remount the CPU and fan/heatsink.
>
> Barry has a good point...over-heating!
>
> bob

I wondered about this. (Thanks, Barry.) I looked at the CPU. It, and the
heat sink looks as solid as a rock, and the heat sink is so securely screwed
down that no way could it have moved, IMO. So, next, I took the fan out and
found that the copper cooling fins were all clogged up with dust. So perhaps
my CPU did overheate and is now dead as a result. Is this likely to be the
problem? Can CPU's die from overheating, or do they awitch themselves off
before this can occur?When I switch on, the hard drive spins momentarily and
then stops.

Thanks again.

Al

 

Re: Dropped my Advent 5401. Now bootup / blue screen / freezingproblems

On Apr 24, 28 pm, "Al Ackroyd" <was...@aanotes.com> wrote:
> "Bob Villa" <pheeh.z...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:9be90483-3dc6-400f-90b2-f07584b92810@b6g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
>
> > >Barry wrote:
> > >I would remove and completely remount the CPU and fan/heatsink.
>
> > Barry has a good point...over-heating!
>
> > bob
>
> I wondered about this. (Thanks, Barry.) I looked at the CPU. It, and the
> heat sink looks as solid as a rock, and the heat sink is so securely screwed
> down that no way could it have moved, IMO. So, next, I took the fan out and
> found that the copper cooling fins were all clogged up with dust. So perhaps
> my CPU did overheate and is now dead as a result. Is this likely to be the
> problem? Can CPU's die from overheating, or do they awitch themselves off
> before this can occur?When I switch on, the hard drive spins momentarily and
> then stops.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Al

I've heard (not hands on knowledge) that the CPUs are very hardy and
rarely burn-up.
bob

 

In
news:de98834b-a7cc-4db2-bdb6-4f1427330489@o12g2000vba.googlegroups.com,
Bob Villa typed on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:00:47 -0700 (PDT):
> On Apr 24, 28 pm, "Al Ackroyd" <was...@aanotes.com> wrote:
>> "Bob Villa" <pheeh.z...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> news:9be90483-3dc6-400f-90b2-f07584b92810@b6g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>>> Barry wrote:
>>>> I would remove and completely remount the CPU and fan/heatsink.
>>
>>> Barry has a good point...over-heating!
>>
>>> bob
>>
>> I wondered about this. (Thanks, Barry.) I looked at the CPU. It, and
>> the heat sink looks as solid as a rock, and the heat sink is so
>> securely screwed down that no way could it have moved, IMO. So,
>> next, I took the fan out and found that the copper cooling fins were
>> all clogged up with dust. So perhaps my CPU did overheate and is now
>> dead as a result. Is this likely to be the problem? Can CPU's die
>> from overheating, or do they awitch themselves off before this can
>> occur?When I switch on, the hard drive spins momentarily and then
>> stops.
>>
>> Thanks again.
>>
>> Al
>
> I've heard (not hands on knowledge) that the CPUs are very hardy and
> rarely burn-up.
> bob

That is true Bob, unless they overheat. If they overheat they go really
fast. But dropping the laptop won't normally cause this. Unless the dust
moved around and blocked the air flow. Hopefully the computer will
detect too high of temperature and shut down. Although if you keep
pushing it, you can kill it.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3