My poor laptop appears to be dying in a loud and creeping manner. Since turning it on thirty-five minutes ago, I don’t think the CPU usage has dropped below 50% despite having only Thunderbird and Firefox open. That, along with the fact that the computer seems convinced that only fifteen minutes have passed since it was turned on makes me suspect that my processor is dying. Needless to say, I do not have gobs of money laying around for a shiny, new replacement, and this is quite unfortunate. Hold on, little Dell!
Stephanie commented that the laptop seems to have trouble breathing. I suggested that maybe it thinks that it’s on top of Mt. Everest instead of, you know, in Ithaca.
Before anyone asks, I updated virus definitions last night and ran a complete virus scan–even though I do that weekly anyhow. No viruses. No spyware. No excuses of that nature. I spent a substantial chunk of my Christmas break performing maintenance on the computer, too. I cleared up the hard drive and defragged it around New Year’s. As it is, I fear that it won’t last me to March, let alone to this summer like I’d planned. Oh sadness…
3 responses to “The Creeping Death”
If you’re not virusy, your CMOS battery may be failing, which could cause the time problem. I’m not entirely sure why it would cause the CPU issues, since all it does is maintain memory that requires power when the computer’s off/unplugged, but maybe it’s losing settings relating to clock/bus speed. Or maybe processor power settings, but I don’t know if that’s in a laptop’s CMOS.
I’ve never tried to replace one in a laptop — you might want or need to take it to a shop since they’re harder to open/work with — but here are some relevant links:
http://www.liverepair.com/encyclopedia/articles/cmosreplace.asp
http://www.pctechbytes.com/computer/article-21.html
http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/32w10/32w10.asp
Actually, that previous comment is a good example of why I shouldn’t talk before I’ve had coffee.
Of course, I still haven’t had coffee, so who knows.
If the computer’s losing time while it’s on, it’s less likely to be the CMOS battery. Does it get the correct time back when you restart? That might indicate that the CMOS battery is okay.
However, I honestly don’t know how a computer keeps time, and if a clock or clock multiplier (which is what I meant when I said “bus speed” last time — see, coffee) setting is off in the BIOS, that still might explain the CPU issues. Again could be the CMOS battery, or maybe you changed something by accident? You said “loud and creeping” — is it making a fan noise? An overheated CPU might throttle itself to try and back the temperature down.
Could also be a power-supply thing — does it work okay when plugged in and then start acting weird when it’s on battery?
You might also bring up the process list (in the Ctrl-Alt-Del process manager) and see if any one process is using an outrageous amount of CPU time.
In short, any number of components of greater and lesser severity could be causing your problems, but I wouldn’t necessarily assume the computer’s about to die. 😉
Reading over the last of Mark’s comments, I just thought of something that I’m surprised I didn’t hit me earlier:
On one of the, uh, three/four times my Dell Inspiron suffered Little Deaths before it croaked for good, it exhibited a weird symptom where, after it had been on for about five minutes, the fan would suddenly bzzzzzzZZZZZZWHIRRRRRRRR up to full speed and the CPU would shoot up to 100% usage by no particular process. At that point it would become near-impossible to get the laptop to do anything.
Turns out the problem was actually the CPU fan. It was broken and letting the processor overheat. I had it replaced and then it worked fine. (For another year, ish. Boo Dell.)