Laptop Common Problems and Solutions

Laptop Common Problems

Laptop randomly turns off

The most common reason for this is poor cooling. Inspect the areas near the internal cooling fan, see if there is a build up of dust fibres. Easy way to check this with the unit running, feel the flow of air from the cooling outlet - is the airflow very low? If yes, and the unit is at normal operation temperature, this may indicate the internal cooling system is partially clogged.

Laptop randomly turns off due to:
AC power adaptor sensing an overload of power drain
Overheating processor due to a build of internal dust (clogged fan)
AC power adaptor not able to sustain normal power needs (faulty power adaptor)
Battery overheating, due to internal battery fault, or charging levels
Intermittent short circuit or open connection (check condition of power leads)

Laptop is slow and continually shows Internet popup's

Your Laptop is very likely infected with spyware. Spyware is software that hides on your computer and attempts to collect information about your activity on the internet. Spyware is sometimes transferred to your computer when you download 'unknown' free software or when you link to free music Internet programs (Limewire, BearShare, etc). The best method to remove and further prevent spyware is to use Spybot or any Anti Spyware program.

Liquid Spills on Laptop

Laptops exposed to accidental liquid spills. This is a recoverable condition in most cases. It is most important to respond to the cleaning up process as soon as possible before corrosion or internal soakage occur.

Liquid intrusion can cause the following

Short circuit due to conductive nature of wet liquid (problem may clear as liquid dries)
Short circuit due to dried liquid residue
Corrosion occurs (particularly volatile with some acidic soft drinks - Coke)
Electronic components damaged by above short circuits

Solution:
When a spill occurs, turn off the laptop, invert the laptop and leave the unit upside down to drain it for at least 30 minutes. Then remove any attached leads, remove the power unit and battery, and allow the unit to air-dry overnight.
To remove any liquid residual, remove the keyboard assembly and perform additional cleaning. It may help to use cotton buds and distilled water to remove any contamination. Where corrosive side effects may be suspected (with coke), gently rub any suspect areas with a cotton bud dampened with CRC or WD-40. Dry the treated areas so that only a light film of the WD-40 anti-corrosive solution remains. While the keyboard is removed, use a bright light and magnifying lens to inspect areas where the liquid made contact.

Laptop is frozen, no response to keyboard or mouse, cannot Shutdown

Solution
Disconnect the laptop power cord
Remove the battery from the laptop
Wait a for 10 seconds
Replace the Laptop battery into the unit
Reconnect the Laptop Power cord
Turn the Laptop on

Laptop Hibernate and Standby problems
Power management options on laptops sometimes to cause problems. Hibernate and Standby modes are power saving modes of operations to battery powered laptops.

Hibernation is a procedure by which the working state of your work is stored to disk before the computer goes into hibernation or standby. When the Laptop is woken up, you are restored to the exact place you were before. Standby and Hibernation use a low power consumption mode, with enough power to preserve the content of such memory. This means that Laptop computer can wake up without a full restart and loss of work.

Laptop does not wake up from Standby or Hibernation
Solution:
Give it time - some older Laptops may take up to 30 seconds to wake up fully
Some Laptops have special keys or buttons for 'Wake Up' - read the manual
Press and hold the Laptops power button for five seconds or more. Some Laptops are configured to Suspend or Hibernate with a press of the power button. Holding the power button for 5 seconds or more will usually reset and reboot the Laptop
If all the above failed.. remove the laptop battery and the power cord, wait 30 seconds, replace the batteries and reconnect the power cord

Now that the Laptop is operational, you should research the underlying problem. Typically, such problems arise from a disagreement either between the power management features of the Laptops BIOS and Windows.

A conflict with the Laptops BIOS power management and Windows power management is the most common cause of such wake-up failure. Try different settings in the BIOS to see if that might solve the problem. Look to see if the Laptops BIOS is configured to suspend the computer, and how it compares with the value configured in Windows. In most cases let Windows control the power management.