From Hackbook to Crackbook?

[ufulu]

Hi everybody!

 

 

I've been using different JaS OS X distributions now for over 9 month in dual boot with Win XP, without any problems. 2 month ago my laptop stated acting weird:

 

- Shut down or reboot in both systems hung up the entire computer or if I got lucky and a reboot was achieved it only got to the first BIOS "Samsung Welcome splash screen". The machine didn't react to any keyboard input so I wasn't able to access the BIOS.

 

To "get" the whole thing running again I have to wait between 10-40 minutes. first I power off every thing, then hook it back on to the AC and then wait...

 

Any interference of this process, i.e "to see if it already works" is condemned to fail. The screen either stays black or is frozen on the BIOS Welcome screen, HD light on, no keyboard access possible.

 

When every thing is up and running again it works like a charm for about 8- 15 hours when all of a sudden it powers off immediately, especially though during Copy processes to external USB hard drives or intense Photoshoping. The fan has to work a lot and the notebook gets quite warm but it is bearable and a common issue as I have read here.

 

Alas the 2 guarantee ran out three month ago, just when the problem started arising.

 

It's a blessing and a curse: If my notebook dies I am defiantly going to get a Macbook Pro. The thing is I didn't expect to get one so fast as I wanted to wait till leopard gets released. As I am going to South America for a few month and need every penny I can spare I would appreciate any thoughts and Ideas on where to look to fix this problem.

 

My guesses so far:

 

BIOS? --checked settings, Reset settings -- no luck.

RAM? -- checked with new ones --still no luck.

Heat sensor? -- No idea where to look for and how to check?

Clean Fan? -- failed on not being able to open these f** tight & tiny screws.

[mspr]

Hi,

As far as I know OSX like Windows cannot damage your hardware

Maybe you can find higher temperature in OSX than in Win and if your cooling system doesn't work fine (dust, fan speed, lack of thermoregulation...) you risk to damage your PC

 

When every thing is up and running again it works like a charm for about 8- 15 hours when all of a sudden, especially though during Copy processes to external USB hard drives or intense Photoshoping, it powers off immediately.

It could be a temperature or an alimentation problem...

Does your system shutdown both on battery both on AC adapter ?

 

Shut down or reboot in both systems hung up the entire computer or if I got lucky and a reboot was achieved it only got to the first BIOS "Samsung Welcome splash screen". The machine didn't react to any keyboard input so I wasn't able to access the BIOS

I had a similar problem with my old PC... The BIOS was corrupted...

 

I suggest you to try to reset the BIOS again and then install WinXP (try with the recovery CD if you have one) to verify if you can solve your problems

[ufulu]

Cheers mate for looking into this!

 

So your guess would also be a shutdown due to too high or incorrectly interpreted temperature. Well as I am running my notebook only on AC It never had a chance to shut down on battery. I guess I will have to try a new XP install although I have been trying to avoid this: It's just a pain and it takes way too long to configure everything compared to OS X... Actually today as it f**** up again I went to my local mac dealer but he didn't have any new macbook pros in stock. So I guess I will give it another try with this bugger... :censored2:

 

 

One thing that speaks against a temperature issue is the fact that, even if it was out over night and I reboot afer a few minutes after initial boot, the same problem occurs!

[OSX86tester]

you said when you use your USB2 and PhotoChop!. well USB2 uses alot of the BUS thus causing a CPU utilisation to spike!, and photochop / cpu intensive when rendering, and memory intensive as well. most likely its the cpu getting hot, dusty fans = shut down to prevent thermal overload .

 

Used to happen to me when i was water cooling.

[frizbot]

It sounds like it's overheating, or there's a RAM problem. Run Memtest86+ overnight. Backup and reformat to ensure it isn't a software issue of any kind. Contact the laptop dealer to check the internals. You could try running a vacuum on the fan's exhaust/intake area, but that's not a big help (and it could cause ESD damage with a low quality vacuum).

[ufulu]

hey thanks for your thoughts!

 

I used the MEMTESt86+ from the Universal Boot CD but it kept crashing on my Old 2GB after about 6 completed test with no errors. With the new 512 MB RAM the problem was still there, although this time MEMTest86 didn't crash.

 

But I think MEMTest only crashed due to too much heat and not due to corrut RAM, although I guess until now I can't cancel that out completely.

 

I am still trying to open up the fan compartment to have a look inside and clean it up but still the f*** screws wont dodge a bit.

 

The "shut down due to heat overload" hypothesis sounds only plausible for the abrupt shut downs after a longer up time under high CPU load.

 

If it is due to heat: Why does even a cold system Crash after a reboot if it it only ran for 2 Minutes under no CPU load at all? The Fan is nice and quiet and I can feel absolutely no temperature increase.

 

[BJMoose]

Not sure about laptops, but this kind of behavior on a desktop would lead me to think: faulty ram or faulty power supply. Have you tried a different power supply/ac adapter with this laptop? A faulty power supply can cause a plethora of what might normally seem to be unrelated problems.