Replacement laptop.

[Danolo]

My wife's laptop is starting to die.   I think it is over heating. 

The mouse doesn't work as well, with the cursor stopping, and finally the whole system freezes or shuts down.

I vacuumed out the vents and inside the battery compartment.   I propped it up on some books to allow more air flow underneath.  It sits on a flat desk surface.

I ordered a laptop stand and cooler, but I have my doubts that this will be any kind of permanent solution.

I do not have the Desire to open up the laptop further. I do see one panel on the bottom held by only two screws, so I am tempted.

Cleaning the vents and propping it up seems to merely delay the same symptoms.

The computer is 10+ years old.

I'd like to keep it going, because it meets her needs so well.  Plus I don't really want to hurt my credit card any more, but a solution must be found.

I'm going to do some research on youtube.

[LASportsNut]

Ten years old?

Time to take it out to the wood shed and shoot it.

[Greg_B]

New HD would help (buy a solid state HD)

New fan is an idea and not hard to replace

More RAM if you can

It would be brand new

https://www.crucial.com/upgrades

Edited October 17, 2021 by Greg_B

[Danolo]

1 hour ago, LASportsNut said:

Ten years old?

Time to take it out to the wood shed and shoot it.

I'm pretty sure you meant the laptop, not my wife.

[Garzan]

There is usually good information here on opening up laptops and cleaning inside. https://www.ifixit.com/

As mentioned, if it has a spinning hard drive you can eliminate some heat by replacing the HDD with an SSD. For a ten year old or more laptop you wouldn't need much of an SSD so far as speed goes. Anything would be blazingly fast in comparison. I suspect though that most of the help with heat will be from taking the cover off and cleaning any dust and dirt from inside. 

Best of luck!

If that fails, here's another idea. I have no clue at all how reputable this company is, but it is Canadian so they ought to be on the up and up. 🙂

https://ca.refurb.io/collections/microsoft-authorized-refurbished-laptops-sale?sort_by=price-ascending

 

[wadman]

I bought these from the DIY store to prop up my laptop, to allow for more air flow. They are household items, not really meant for a laptop, but they were 20 baht and work well. Check your local dollarama store or Walmart. 

I wouldn't invest any significant amount of money into a 10 year old laptop, if I were you. Mine is 6 years old, and every 6 months it's one component or another breaking down. 

[likeaking]

I have a 10 year old 18.5" laptop, first gen. I7, 4 gigs ram. It was getting intolerably slow when waking up so had a cheap SSD installed and cleaning done. Now, once signed in, it's as fast as my Chromebook 

Edited October 17, 2021 by likeaking

[roger buttmore]

3 hours ago, Danolo said:

I'd like to keep it going, because it meets her needs so well.  Plus I don't really want to hurt my credit card any more, but a solution must be found.

Enter Tukcom from South Pattaya Road (McDonald's entrance). Ride the single escalator up one level. Walk straight ahead through the phone stores to the bank of escalators. Up one more level.

Immediately on your right is a laptop shop (I forget the name - ASUS dealer, but that doesn't matter). In there they do a full laptop service for B500 which includes full clean, re-pasting CPU, and any system /driver /BIOS updates required. Cost B500, but they will likely open the bidding at B800. Offer B500.

They will also fit upgrades for free. May as well have the full clean while there. I did when I had my ASUS battery replaced. Good service.

Edited October 17, 2021 by roger buttmore

[Danolo]

Thanks Roger, I'm not in Thailand now, but I've saved the info.

[Danolo]

So , a bit more info about this laptop.

Its not 10 years old, but rather 6 years.  January 2015

MSI Intel Core I7 Notebook.

I've been looking at a few YTube videos and it looks like opening it up and blowing out the dust is not a big job. I may just try that.

There was also notes about renewing the thermal paste. Have any of you done that? Worthwhile? Easy/difficult?

And as Steven says, Meanwhile:...

I am looking at a replacement.

 

 

[Danolo]

Here's one that caught my eye. I'd be happy to have your feedback.

ASUS VivoBook F512DA-EB51 Thin & Light Laptop, 15.6” FHD, AMD R5-3500U, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Backlit KB, Windows 10

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07QQB7552/?coliid=I8VVRG60S0O0N&colid=32BAEV1G53AJU&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

[Greg_B]

13 minutes ago, Danolo said:

So , a bit more info about this laptop.

Its not 10 years old, but rather 6 years.  January 2015

MSI Intel Core I7 Notebook.

I've been looking at a few YTube videos and it looks like opening it up and blowing out the dust is not a big job. I may just try that.

There was also notes about renewing the thermal paste. Have any of you done that? Worthwhile? Easy/difficult?

And as Steven says, Meanwhile:...

I am looking at a replacement.

 

 

This link will run a scan of your laptop and give me a list of replacement parts and a cost

https://www.crucial.com/upgrades

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Greg_B

[Danolo]

2 hours ago, roger buttmore said:

They will also fit upgrades for free. May as well have the full clean while there. I did when I had my ASUS battery replaced. Good service.

I was thinking, Roger, and it occurs to me that it might just be easy and cheap to have it cleaned, etc by a local tech.  The trouble is finding one.  The company where I bought it is closed.

Thanks

[Kandinski]

19 minutes ago, Danolo said:

I was thinking, Roger, and it occurs to me that it might just be easy and cheap to have it cleaned, etc by a local tech.  The trouble is finding one.  The company where I bought it is closed.

Thanks

Its not difficult to open a laptop, you'll likely find how on Youtube, but you'll need an aerosol duster eg this one http://crc-canada.ca/industrial/products/precision-cleaner/duster-aerosol-dust-removal-system-227-grams.html

[wadman]

1 hour ago, Danolo said:

Here's one that caught my eye. I'd be happy to have your feedback.

ASUS VivoBook F512DA-EB51 Thin & Light Laptop, 15.6” FHD, AMD R5-3500U, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Backlit KB, Windows 10

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07QQB7552/?coliid=I8VVRG60S0O0N&colid=32BAEV1G53AJU&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

The CPU is an AMD Ryzen 3000 series, which isn't very good.  The 4000 and 5000 series are the goodones, that's when the massive upgrades happened.

[gatorade88]

1 hour ago, Danolo said:

So , a bit more info about this laptop.

Its not 10 years old, but rather 6 years.  January 2015

MSI Intel Core I7 Notebook.

I've been looking at a few YTube videos and it looks like opening it up and blowing out the dust is not a big job. I may just try that.

There was also notes about renewing the thermal paste. Have any of you done that? Worthwhile? Easy/difficult?

And as Steven says, Meanwhile:...

I am looking at a replacement.

Does it get rather hot when running? Are the fans going max? Doesn't hurt to open it up to check for excess dust caught inside. Should be easy enough to do...not sure about reapplying thermal paste...you would have to take off the heatsinks/heatpipe. I doubt the manufacturer applied such poor paste that it would failed.

Most likely it is a hardware thing and it is just stuffed from prolonged use/heat - it would be easier to get a new laptop. Another option to try to rule out any software issues would be to reset windows.

Edited October 17, 2021 by gatorade88

[Danolo]

Ok, here's what has happened.

She has had it running all day, propped up on a couple of books, and there has been no apparent overheating.  I guess the meager amount of vacuuming I did was beneficial, in addition to the air space.

Then I looked at Google for computer techs near me and saw a site that listed the top three techs in Toronto.  I spoke to one of them and he quoted me $95 CDN to open it, blow/suck out all the dust, re-apply thermal paste, and test it.  That to me is a bargain if it gives me a few more years of service from this machine.

Further, today I received from Amazon the cooling stand. Its now supporting the machine, giving her good access to the keyboard.  I'm hopeful this will be a semi permanent solution.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08BKFSHHN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think we can mark this issue solved. I'll report any further news after I visit the techie guy.

Meanwhile... thanks to you all for your usual and ongoing support. Much appreciated.

 

 

[Greg_B]

5 hours ago, Danolo said:

Here's one that caught my eye. I'd be happy to have your feedback.

ASUS VivoBook F512DA-EB51 Thin & Light Laptop, 15.6” FHD, AMD R5-3500U, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, Backlit KB, Windows 10

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07QQB7552/?coliid=I8VVRG60S0O0N&colid=32BAEV1G53AJU&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

Doing an upgrade with a new fan, some extra RAM and an SSD would be cheaper

[Sloracer]

I'd get a new one. If you upgrade it will still be a 10yo laptop with a dodgy mouse and potential overheating. Mechanical part like keyboard will go next. So you may waste the money upgrading and still have to buy a new one.

[Soi7]

9 hours ago, Danolo said:

I'm pretty sure you meant the laptop, not my wife.

And when you said ten years old i assumed you were talking about the laptop not the wife 

[Danolo]

19 minutes ago, Soi7 said:

And when you said ten years old i assumed you were talking about the laptop not the wife 

You're worse than he is!

[Danolo]

5 hours ago, wadman said:

The CPU is an AMD Ryzen 3000 series, which isn't very good.

Thanks for your feedback, @wadman  what is the issue with it? 

[Garzan]

1 hour ago, Danolo said:

Thanks for your feedback, @wadman  what is the issue with it? 

For what I assume your wife is using her laptop for--browsing the web and email would be my guess, nothing. If your wife would instead be wanting to play Call of Duty or Rise of the Tomb Raider she would notice a definite slowdown with the older CPU. 

[Danolo]

10 hours ago, Garzan said:

For what I assume your wife is using her laptop for--browsing the web and email would be my guess, nothing. If your wife would instead be wanting to play Call of Duty or Rise of the Tomb Raider she would notice a definite slowdown with the older CPU. 

She is not a hack'n'slash gamer, but she does use Second Life a lot and I think that is fairly heavy on resources.  But considering what she's using now, I would assume that even an upgrade to the AMD would be an improvement.

We'll see, a step at a time. I'm going to explore local techies and see what is close by.

If you get a chance will you have another look at the one I point to above, and let me know if there is anything AGAINST it meeting her needs.

One thing I did notice is it has only 2 USB ports, so we may have to use a hub.

Thanks guys

 

 

[roger buttmore]

25 minutes ago, Danolo said:

... but she does use Second Life a lot and I think that is fairly heavy on resources.

Second Life relies on so many things beyond that of your laptop or PC. Even with cutting edge gear (which I don't have) it can feel like wading through treacle. User preferences and settings with reasonable expectations can make a world of difference. Hope she uses Firestorm viewer and not the standard.

As you alluded previously the focus should be on what the user has in mind. Having all the bells and whistles to just browse the internet along with average settings for casual gaming would be an unnecessary expense, but it's good to have at least some breathing space in terms of the specification.

Whether an upgrade or new I would highly recommend an SSD. Coming from an HDD the user experience will be night and day. A one-way street which you will never wish to go back, particularly for the system OS.