The glorious summer and laptop misbehaving

— Posted inUncategorized — 2 min read

We are having a magnificent run of great weather. Clear blue sky every day for a week. Good but not too hot climate with temperature in mid to late 20s (Celsius) And this is set to continue. :happy: And my eggplants and peppers are finally bearing fruits! :yes:

Meanwhile my main laptop has been sulking for quite some time. It suffers a lockup without any warning. The cursor or pointer just freezes. No hard drive activity. No changes in noise level. Nothing whatsoever. I have to force shut down and restart again. :awww: I have tried a few work-arounds and it has been better for a couple of weeks. But the beast is still misbehaving. 🙁

Naturally this issue has impacted my online action level. It has also discouraged me from reviewing and editing photos for upload. Not sure when I can catch up on that front. :left:

Still, the sky is blue and air is clear & fresh. So I'll finish off this quick update post and sit on the porch with Arwen to watch the setting sun and enjoy YANBWOGD (yet another nobody beats Wellington on a good day) kind of glorious evening. 😎

TTFN for today 😀

:coffee:

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  1. OK … you got a two-step fixin' plan, here (Wanna do the two-step with me, MM?):Step one … run the damned OS in again, right over the one that's there (and ain't workin' too goodly).If that doesn't fix the problem, and it might not:Step two … back up every damned bit of data on there, even the stuff you don't want to save, and as you back it up onto something external. like DVDs or BluRays, you have your AV and malware routines go over 'em with a fine-toothed comb. Once everything is backed up, Reformat and run in the OS with all the service packs.That should do it. If it doesn't, you've got a mechanical problem. Take it in.

  2. 😆 Thanks, dW. I'm not quite there yet. I doubt if the issue is with OS. Thought it could be driver related and rolled back or reinstalled graphic & touchpad drivers. I also disabled pagefile.sys and try to shutdown and reboot after a few hours use to prevent RAM defragmenting. Seems better but still not fixed. I did a bit of search and found some of those reporting similar symptoms mentioned motherboard issue … :insane: The unit's still under warranties. I'll probably take it to the shop and have the hardware checked up.

  3. Well, you could ask a techie to check out the log files! :sherlock:Whatever the last log entry was before the freeze should provide some clues as to what may be having fits! :rolleyes:

  4. Thanks, Aadil. I looked through Event Viewer multiple times after freeze event, but there seem nothing is recorded. Time when the last event recorded before the freeze might be as early as 10 minutes before. 🙁

  5. We are having a magnificent run of great weather.

    Green with envy. High water and I haven't seen blue sky for about 2 months. Not good for my Winter depression (Yes here it is Winter – the ugly thing with snow etc.)

  6. Hi MM, perhaps your laptop only wants to enjoy the fine weather, too and after a while, all is well again. Something like that once is issued to me and my laptop, and I never found out why he was not running for a while. I hope all is well now and I wish you a good time at the other side of the world. 🙂

  7. Originally posted by 7Wellis:

    Hi MM, perhaps your laptop only wants to enjoy the fine weather, too and after a while, all is well again. Something like that once is issued to me and my laptop, and I never found out why he was not running for a while. I hope all is well now and I wish you a good time at the other side of the world

    Thank you, Angelika. You are right. I should give the laptop some break, take more walks and pictures. 😀

  8. Originally posted by QuHno:

    Green with envy. High water and I haven't seen blue sky for about 2 months. Not good for my Winter depression (Yes here it is Winter – the ugly thing with snow etc.)

    :awww: My parents in Japan are also saying they are having a very cold winter. Keep warm and hang in there. Heat or cold peaks when it passes the mid point between equinox and solstice, which is about now. Soon you'll start seeing signs of spring. I'm already seeing signs of the bountiful Autumn, such as tomatoes changing colour. Just had the first red tomato yesterday. 😀 😀 😀

  9. Originally posted by QuHno:

    Not good for my Winter depression

    Is this a regular thing? Happens every winter? If so, it may be SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and if it is, it's treatable with daily exposure to bright light from a lightbox made for the purpose. You'll have to consult an expert in regard to wavelengths, etc., but you can make your own if you're so inclined.Also, get out a lot … even in the darkest times of year, it's a LOT brighter outside than it is indoors, no matter how brightly-lit your house is. I first discovered that I had a mild case of it when I noticed how much better I felt after a day of coaching on the firing line at my club at our Hunters' Sight-In Clinic every late November, when my spirits were beginning to droop.

  10. Yes, it is a mild case of SAD and I have a lightbox and I am outside as often as I can – I even have a network connection on my terrace so that I can work outside, no joke – but in the darkest months the sun vanishes at about 3pm behind the hills and that stresses me a lot …

  11. It lasted as exactly as forecast. After the ten days of glorious summer days, the rain comes back today. I bet everyone with a garden or farm in this region is welcoming this tonic to the perched ground. I am also quite happy not having to water my vege patch today. 🙂

  14. Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

    You can rate it, if you like

    I should first create a signature for myself 😀

  16. I had one listing my mobile phones and browsers, when I was still actively helping on Opera Mini forum, but then I realized I'm no longer active there 😀

  17. After another round of uninstalling, reinstalling and repairing of drivers and OEM system management applications, check disk, pagefile clean up, etc, I haven't had the bad freeze for over 24 hours. Can I be optimistic now, or is it premature?UPDATENo. I spoke too soon. Another one … :bomb:

  18. Originally posted by serola:

    I had one listing my mobile phones and browsers, when I was still actively helping on Opera Mini forum, but then I realized I'm no longer active there

    You can always quote one of your favourite photographers 😉

  19. Originally posted by mimi_s_mum:

    You can always quote one of your favourite photographers

    Good 💡 Done :up:

  21. The freezing issue is very similar to the one described on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2265716/en-usSo I requested the hotfix. But, upon running it, I was told that is NOT the issue I am having. :(I have done another round of disabling pagefile.sys + hiberfile.sys, running chkdsk, defragmenting and enabling the page file & hibernation back on. The chkdsk had a few issues and I had to run it more than once. I also ran startup repair after running chkdsk. See how it goes.

  22. chkdsk more than once? :eyes: Sounds like a HW problem to me. What does the SMART info of the HDD say? Don't use the native Windows tools for reading out the infos, Windows in itself fails to show all of the infos or just shows errors if the problems are so big that an immediate failure is imminent, meaning: Too late. Try to get the SMART tool of the HDD manufacturer. If they don't offer one, try one of the other tools that can use the SMART API.Warnings:Not all can read the info correctly from all HDDs.Most of them must be started with "run as Administrator" (even if started from an administrator account) or else the tools can not access to the SMART driver correctly to read out all of the internal HDD health data.Don't rely on one tool alone if you can't find a tool on the manufacturer's site.Seagate HDDs, Seatools: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/Western Digital, Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostic: http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=612&sid=3&lang=en (don't worry about the HDD image, the tool is for all WD HDDs and while it is the best for WD HDDs, it can read the infos from most other HDDs too)Quite good universal SMART tools:Crystal Disk Info (good overview but only for normal internal HDDs, portable available): http://crystalmark.info/?lang=enHDD Health (sometimes quite cryptic): http://panterasoft.com/hdd-health/ Smartmontools (Command line tool, extremely cryptic): http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wikiPS: Download and read the manuals of the tools too. With some tools it is NOT easy to interpret the data …

  23. Sounds bad, doesn't it? :awww: The chkdsk run this morning got stuck at 7% for about 5 minutes, with the HDD activity light off, and then the laptop turned itself off. It was quite hot so I waited for the unit to cool down and ran another one, which it managed to complete. But the laptop could not continue to boot after chkdsk and again turned itself off. When I booted it again, the startup repair appeared so I let it run. The startup repair said the C drive is corrupt and it would reboot & run chkdsk again. But after the reboot, the screen just said the volume was clean, and then went on to boot normally. :eyes: I shut it down and ran the startup repair again to be 100% sure. No problem this time. So I went on to run the defrag & enabled pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys. I felt rather exhausted after that. :faint:Originally posted by QuHno:

    What does the SMART info of the HDD say?

    I have never heard of SMART until today. Looked up Wikipedia, etc. Seems like I need to install a utility to read this SMART. Or can I use one of SysInternals Suite disk apps? If I have to install a specialised SMART utility, Which one would you suggest? CrystalDiskInfo? PSI saw you added some useful info. Thanks a lot. I'll read up and look up the manufacturer's site. 🙂

  25. was worth a try</sigh>The seek error rate looks a little bit flaky, 43931477 is quite a number, the rest is, while not all perfect, but OK for the age …

  26. Thanks, QuHno. The laptop has been behaving since yesterday's chkdsk, etc. I'm considering making a backup at this stage while the unit is still stable.

  28. Finally managed to backup. The standard Win7 backup of user data and C drive image. The unit is still unstable. I ran sfc /scannow twice in Safe Mode and found one error that cannot be repaired but it is only related to Chinese IME (,which I don't use). Then I tried to run chkdsk on Drive D, while still in Safe Mode and the system locked up middle of file consistency check (stage 4 of 5)! :cry:I started to seriously think I may have to take it over to the shop (still under warranty). :(PSTo dW. No, there's no snake. I bet my entire year's wage on it. :p

  29. I still wonder about the seek error rate. There are no reallocated sectors (meaning: all the reserve sectors for error correction by e.g. chkdsk are still unused) so the spinning disk inside seems to be OK – but: If that is OK, there should be no seek errors.The only other reasons I know for seek errors are too slow spin up or a misalignment of the heads. The spin up time is not perfect but good enough and even a slow spin up time after hibernation etc. would only stand for seek errors at start, not, as you experience it, when it is already running.Aditionally the hardware ECC recovery hat to correct the data 117118911 (dec) times! That means: 117118911 times the HDD had to use the checksums that are saved with each Byte to correct errors while reading data. Not good!Something is rotten with the HDD. (misquothed (with th :D) Shakespeare) No experiments if it is still under warranty, let them check it.PS: Start_Stop_Count: 2431 at Power_on_hours: 3995h? Are you using it 1.5h wise? (For comparison, my newest has Start_Stop_Count: 838 at Power_on_hours: 8508h)While many spin downs save a small amount of energy, they might shorten the life of the discs and producing a new disc costs more energy than you can save by that ever (= bad for the environment). Starting is extreme stress because unless it is full powered on, all states are undefined.How old is the laptop and how many h per day do you use it?

  31. Yes. But before I bought it, the laptop was at the shop front fro six months, running every day from before they opened till after they closed.

  32. Originally posted by QuHno:

    Something is rotten with the HDD. (misquothed (with th ) Shakespeare) No experiments if it is still under warranty, let them check it.

    Thanks, QuHno. I'll do that & keep you posted. :)Originally posted by QuHno:

    2431 power-ons at 3995h? Are you using it 1.5h wise? While that saves energy, it might shorten the life of the discs. Starting is extreme stress because unless it is full powered on, all states are undefined.How old is the laptop and how many h per day do you use it?

    I use hibernation a lot. Was it not a good thing? :doh:I bought the laptop last March, but it was a shop-front demo unit. I was told they had it since September of previous year (2011). So it would make the hardware 14-15 months old. Until it developed the failure, I had been using it about 8 hours a day on average.

  33. Your usage profile would give the HDD 2700h to 3000h max – the HDD is running for about 4000h…. hm …4000 hours / 8 hours per day = 500 days working 8 hours per day.You bought it about 11 month ago and used it on average 8 hours per day:11 month * each roughly 30.5 days per month * 8 hours per day = 2684 hours in total.Honi soit …

  36. Originally posted by derWandersmann:

    Take it back.Trade it in on a computer.

    It's under 24 months warranty. I should be able to get it properly fixed.

  38. Originally posted by derWandersmann:

    You bought a doorstop.

    Seems you are always right. No, I haven't got around to taking the unit back to the shop yet. But I have bought yet another laptop. 😀 It was a semi-impulse buying decision. But I don't regret it. It's a beauty. 😀 😀 😀

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