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Toshiba Laptop suddenly freezes


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#1
chickmazta

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Hi guys! Need your help again. I recently borrowed a laptop from a friend, its a Toshiba Satellite L200. It had Windows 7 installed with 1GB of DDR2 memory. After powering on the machine and let windows load, sometimes it just freezes displaying garbled images, like broken lines from horizontal to vertical. I can see colors from the background like a shadow of the desktop. And when I rebooted the machine it runs fine.

As I have observed this happens when I use the laptop the following day after it was shutdown for a couple of hours. "I mean the first use of the laptop during the day" for example,when I open the laptop at 8am it freezes with the same garbled image, after reboot the laptop runs fine until 5pm in the afternon. The next day when I open the laptop it freezes again. I'm really puzzled about this. I think this happens when the laptop is cool, but thats just my thinking.

I've also observed that when I'm connected to the internet the freezing often occurs, specially when I'm using Facebook. I've tested the memory 3 times using memtest and its ok, I also tested the hard drive and found no bad sectors or any errors on it. I also connected the laptop on external CRT Monitor the same thing happens, both the external monitor and the laptop monitor displays garbled image at the same time. Does this mean that the laptop monitor is not the culprit? I'm guessing that the built in video is the one causing this, and my bad, its soldered into the motherboard. Please help me on this as I do not want to be blamed for the laptop's problem. Tnx in advance
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#2
Digerati

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Well, you sure have a trusting friend. Note this could be malware activity, but it sounds like the graphics is failing in the laptop. It could be related to heat - where when cool, matter contracts and some electrical contact becomes faulty, perhaps with a "micro-fracture", then when warmed, matter expands and a solid contact is made. But that is only temporary for soon, that micro-fracture will open up, and stay open.

My advice, tell your friend and give it back and hope he does not blame you. That said, I was always taught to return something borrowed in better shape than when I got it.
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#3
chickmazta

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Thanks for the reply. I already told her about the situation and guess what? She didn't blamed me for that, as she too experiences the same problem. Thank God its not my fault! ^_^ She told me that she's been experiencing this for the past 5 months now. She forgot to tell me about it. She also mentioned that the laptop was newly formatted. Her boyfriend installed a fresh copy of windows 7 ultimate just a trial copy, to test if the problem would go away. But seems the problem still there. And this also ruled out the possibility of malware or virus. The laptop's previous OS is Vista Home Basic that comes with the laptop during the purchase. They already back it up in case they want to revert it to Vista.

I've searched this issue over the net and it seems that a lot of people are experiencing the same situation. They are saying something about the APIC in the bios that must be disabled but I don't seem to find it. They also mentioned about the power management in windows 7 that when disabled the problem goes away but the drawback is there's no sound. I also went to an electrician to check for the adapters voltage reading. I think it should be 19 volts but the reading says 18.6 only. Does that give any effect on it?I hope you could shed some light about this problem. Tnx again!
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#4
Digerati

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18.6 when it should be 19 is insignificant. Intermittent problems are not caused by settings in the BIOS so you should not mess with that. This is an indication of hardware failing. Laptops are too proprietary and this should probably go in to a shop.

Edited by Digerati, 13 May 2010 - 08:59 AM.

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#5
chickmazta

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Thanks for the advice sir. I would keep that in mind. Here's another development regarding the problem. I now installed windows xp professional on the machine. I had troubles doing this because toshiba website has no default drivers for windows XP ONLY Vista and I guess for windows 7 now. And also I had to load the sata drivers for the hard drive during the start of the setup.

After the setup has finished a bad news I guess, It happened again, the freezing and the garbled image. I was so frustrated so I rebooted the machine and went into safemode with networking. The machine seems fine here no problems or whatsoever. Until now I'm doing the manual downloads for the drivers. Until I finished this all, I'm not getting into normal mode. I'll keep you posted, Tnx again
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#6
Digerati

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And also I had to load the sata drivers for the hard drive during the start of the setup.

That's because SATA came out way after XP. Also note that XP came out way before badguys created the security situation we are in today.
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#7
happyrock

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just my 2 cents worth...

I now installed windows xp professional on the machine.

hope you got the OK prior to doing that from your friend...
because it is doing the same thing ...my money is on a hardware issue as the cause
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#8
chickmazta

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Hi guys! I've got good developments from the machine. The laptop seems to be stable now since I finished downloading the neccessary drivers for the XP OS. But I did something in the msconfig, I disabled the "igfxtray and igfxpers" in the startup. And also in Control Panel, in the power schemes I choose "Home/Office Desk" option. I know that both startup items points to the graphics accelerator for the built in video. I've tested the laptop using different games (low graphics games) and luckily no problems occured.

My friend said ok before I formatted her laptop, so I need not to worry about that. And besides I gave her my XP PRO ^_^. Tnx again guys! I'll keep you posted for what the next days result would be. ciao^^
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