IT Professionals

Failing Fans And Freezing CPUs

Posted by on Aug 30, 2007 | 4 Comments

Today, Stephan writes:

My name is Stephen. I am a Computer Science and Mathematics student at Virginia Tech. I’ve got a problem that a master of technology, such as yourself, might be able to help me out with. I can’t go to the people on campus for computer help because they know just as much or less than I and my hall-mates know about fixing computers.

Everything that I can think of that is relevant to my problem:

· I’ve got a Toshiba Portege m400 tablet laptop.

· I replaced the hard-drive to install a fresh version of Windows XP. The bigger capacity hard drive that my laptop shipped with is now in an external enclosure.

· A couple weeks afterwards my motherboard got fried and I had it replaced.

The Problem:

· Recently my computer has been completely freezing (and the fans throttle up to 100% speed) as soon as it undergoes any sort of movement. Using my laptop on my lap is nearly impossible unless I remain ridiculously still. This is preventing me from being productive with my laptop in environments where a table isn’t available. Even movement while my laptop tries to go into or wake from hibernate will freeze it.

Now I cannot speak for everyone out there, but the first thing that strikes me is something clogging a fan in the notebook itself. Short of that, whatever hosed your motherboard may also be a culprit here as well. First off, a trip to your BIOS will allow you to check your CPU settings and verify that your fans are calibrated. Otherwise, you could try recalibrating your fans from the BIOS: see motherboard instructions for this.

If all else fails and it feels warmer that it should, I would carefully take the notebook apart (with proper tools and understanding how it goes back together), then check for dust and debris. Also make sure everything is mounted right. Our community members might have some other thoughts of their own, so be sure to check the comments often.

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt!”

[tags]motherboard, notebook, computers, Windows[/tags]

  • Carl

    Assuming it has one, could the zero g sensor output in new hard drive be mis-interpreted by the new motherboard as an overheat problem?

  • Jonathan

    I would guess hard drive protection from the motherboard. Some MB’s have built in modules that sense laptop movement and stop the Harddrive to avoid a head crash if the laptop is accidentally dropped. It can usually be disabled in the BIOS, and sometimes may have various sensitivity settings.

  • Chris Mcfall

    Ok I believe I have a solution. I had the same problem, and tried everything, nothing worked until… on opening the machine and removing the Hard drive I found a screw missing from the internal cassette that holds the drive in place, then I noticed that opposite this is a gap in the caseing large enough for the screw, sometimes when shaking the PC you hear it rattle but more oft than not the screw rests some where and can’t be heard, where ever it is catching it is causing a short, this only occurs when the machine is tilted forward making the contact. Since removing the offending article I have had absolutly no problems! So check your machine for missing screws shaken loose… I hope this helps.

  • Chris Mcfall

    I take it back problem has re-occurred it appears to be a software problem as it runs fine in safe mode…