lately(bout the last month off and on) i will come home from school or wake up to a blue screen(which is not good because my laptop is my alarm clock)

also, sometimes i will shut down and it just doesnt really do anything, like you hear the hd make that loud noise like its gonna shut down, then it just doesnt close the programs and go to shut down

sometimes i'll even click shut down like 5 times and maybe it will get it to do it but sometimes i still have to use the 7 second switch, and when i reboot its fine(until it messes up again)

i regularly run a variety of spyware programs(spybot, adaware and a couple others) and the antivirus the school gives away

whats the deal?

1/24/2006 1:31:42 PM

it's overheating.

1/24/2006 1:32:56 PM

ok about that

i have a cooling pad for my laptop, and it runs through usb

well the last couple times i used it i kept getting some "power surge on usb port" shit

i didnt wanna like short out my motherboard or something so i stopped using it

i also have a program that hooks up to my laptops sensors and gives me a hd temp, its at 47 celcius

1/24/2006 1:38:34 PM

47 degrees doesnt sound dangerous


Check your bios for a CPU temp.

1/24/2006 1:48:00 PM

The temperature sensor reading could be wrong.

That is classic overheating symptoms, especially for the model Dell you have.

We had a few laptops form a similar era at work and once they started behaving like this they would continue to get worse until we replaced the motherboards. (The frequent overheating and temperature spikes had caused damage to various ICs on the boards.)

1/24/2006 1:54:09 PM

ok just got a bios program downloaded

honestly i'm a little worried cause its a 1.7 ghz, and it says max speed 1700mhz, CURRENT SPEED 1200mhz

ok i cant find the temp yet, but that doesnt look good

1/24/2006 1:56:14 PM

finding a good free bios program is hard

i tried to push f2 before the computer started but it didnt work

1/24/2006 3:08:51 PM

ok i've tried a couple different things, none of the programs i've tried worked, i went into bios(pushed f2) and it came up as phoenixBIOS, needless to say, it didnt have a cpu temp anywhere in the bios

1/24/2006 4:37:27 PM

From the dells (laptop or desktop) i've seen, none of them had any temp readings in the bios. If it's under warranty, call up tech support and see what they can do for you. If not, I think you're sol. Try cleaning the dust out if it has any.

1/25/2006 8:05:11 AM

ok did it to me about 2 hours ago, i took out my wireless card, and no sooner than it was out, blue screened

i think thats a clue

1/25/2006 8:29:03 PM

not necessarily

1/25/2006 8:32:38 PM

honestly i didnt think so either

but it did make me wonder if the heat from the wireless card was adding extra heat to the processor(cause i think they are both near each other)

so maybe its overheating cause i have my wireless card in

the old wireless card i had actually use to not work if it got too hot

1/25/2006 9:02:54 PM

You looked into hibernation as opposed to shutting down? Not sure whether it will get around these problems, but its worth a shot.

1/26/2006 5:34:49 AM