Laptop issues

[Frank McElroy]

1 hour ago, jacwjames said:

One thing I'm not sure on is how the battery may  have been affecting performance.  I knew I had a problem and it got so bad that most of the time I could not unplug the laptop without it dying.    Diagnostics said it was bad for a while but since I didn't use the laptop unplugged it wasn't a priority to replace. 

So I'm not sure if the battery needing to be charged all the time may have caused the higher power draw/demand or not.  Prior to changing the battery the cooling fan would start running soon after I booted up the computer and would continue to run until I shut it down.   I kept checking the task manager but there no processes using lots of power.   I did see some process using CPU but nothing out of line (other then the various Dell stuff running, i.e. Dell data collector & others  which I hate).

When I changed the battery this pretty much stopped.  But possibly some of the other things I did helped resolve the issue.

It sounds like you fixed the problem with a combination of a battery replacement and cleaning the board.  That's great news and thanks for the update.

Since this computer is about 10 years old, if the problems come back, one other item to consider is that the heat transfer thermal paste between the top of the CPU and the thermal heat transfer pipe over to the fan may have dried out and your CPU might be overheating.  This happened to me but the computer was older (about 15 years old).  I was having a number of unexplained issues like you were having until I discovered that the CPU was overheating.  I removed the heat sink, cleaned off the old thermal paste, replaced with new thermal paste (a drop or two is all that is needed) and the computer has been running like new ever since.

[jacwjames]

8 hours ago, Frank McElroy said:

It sounds like you fixed the problem with a combination of a battery replacement and cleaning the board.  That's great news and thanks for the update.

Since this computer is about 10 years old, if the problems come back, one other item to consider is that the heat transfer thermal paste between the top of the CPU and the thermal heat transfer pipe over to the fan may have dried out and your CPU might be overheating.  This happened to me but the computer was older (about 15 years old).  I was having a number of unexplained issues like you were having until I discovered that the CPU was overheating.  I removed the heat sink, cleaned off the old thermal paste, replaced with new thermal paste (a drop or two is all that is needed) and the computer has been running like new ever since.

Thanks Frank

Just another thing to try and remember and my pea brain is having a hard time as it is as time goes by. 

[MyronTruex]

Think of how often you hear of rvers having bad batteries and their inverter/chargers die at nearly the same time. It is a suicide circle. 

Heat is deadly to electronics and the constant attempt at filling a bad battery causes additional heat. This heat can get transferred to the microprocessor which can cause all kinds of antics. Cleaning out dust helps the situation of course but replacing a sick battey  is important. At least remove the bad battery if it will run on the power supply.

You may not have noticed the heat build up in your laptop. A laptop fan/tray can help a lot. My last laptop was incredible and used some sort of liquid cooling. When the internal battery bulged it was time for a new laptop so the battery was not changed until recently. The screen was getting too small for my eyes but I really regret not getting the same model in a larger screen. My current laptop runs so hot that I have to have some sort of device between the bottom of the computer and my lap. Yes, I actually use mine as a laptop and not on a desk. 

You might have noticed your computer working for some time if you turned it off and let it cool for a few hours before things get heat soaked. 

Another thing that will cause a lot of heat build-up is the CPU working hard, especially when you have programs running in the background. Just think of the gazillion electrons running around causing friction.

Research how to turn off "startup programs". The one you mentioned about Dell running diagnostic or something of that nature is an example. 

If you are running a pretty picture or slideshow as a background, switch to a solid color. You will be amazed at how much that can slow down an old computer.

Find out how much memory is being dedicated to the "Restore" function. This is a place where you can save a restore point, or have it automatically do them. If you add a program or make any major changes, always make a restore point. If something goes awry just revert to the last working restore point.

Having too much memory dedicated to those restore points can slow things down a bit too. You need only about 4% for that setting. 

Do not open more programs than necessary at the same time. Find out how to use "Task Manager" to see what is running.

Like any RV, a computer requires maintenance. Not necessarily physical.

You need to know how much hard drive space you have available and keep it defragged.

If you have very little ram, you can find out if that can be increased by going to a good site such as Crucial.com. Ram is a great way to increase performance as is a change out to a solid state hard drive if you do not have one already.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by myrontruex

[Tom Cherry]

21 minutes ago, myrontruex said:

Think of how often you hear of rvers having bad batteries and their inverter/chargers die at nearly the same time. It is a suicide circle. 

Heat is deadly to electronics and the constant attempt at filling a bad battery causes additional heat. This heat can get transferred to the microprocessor which can cause all kinds of antics. Cleaning out dust helps the situation of course but replacing a sick battey  is important. At least remove the bad battery if it will run on the power supply.

You may not have noticed the heat build up in your laptop. A laptop fan/tray can help a lot. My last laptop was incredible and used some sort of liquid cooling. When the internal battery bulged it was time for a new laptop so the battery was not changed until recently. The screen was getting too small for my eyes but I really regret not getting the same model in a larger screen. My current laptop runs so hot that I have to have some sort of device between the bottom of the computer and my lap. Yes, I actually use mine as a laptop and not on a desk. 

You might have noticed your computer working for some time if you turned it off and let it cool for a few hours before things get heat soaked. 

Another thing that will cause a lot of heat build-up is the CPU working hard, especially when you have programs running in the background. Just think of the gazillion electrons running around causing friction.

Research how to turn off "startup programs". The one you mentioned about Dell running diagnostic or something of that nature is an example. 

If you are running a pretty picture or slideshow as a background, switch to a solid color. You will be amazed at how much that can slow down an old computer.

Find out how much memory is being dedicated to the "Restore" function. This is a place where you can save a restore point, or have it automatically do them. If you add a program or make any major changes, always make a restore point. If something goes awry just revert to the last working restore point.

Having too much memory dedicated to those restore points can slow things down a bit too. You need only about 4% for that setting. 

Do not open more programs than necessary at the same time. Find out how to use "Task Manager" to see what is running.

Like any RV, a computer requires maintenance. Not necessarily physical.

You need to know how much hard drive space you have available and keep it defragged.

If you have very little ram, you can find out if that can be increased by going to a good site such as Crucial.com. Ram is a great way to increase performance as is a change out to a solid state hard drive if you do not have one already.

 

Excellent.  Along the same lines, there is a method to also improve the service life of a battery.  I got about 18 months out of the Lenovo OEM.  Did some research and found that there was a custom setup.  It appears each manufacturer has or may have their own version and it overrides the Window Power options…or it did.  One can NEVER say NEVER Windows updates do strange things to existing hardware or, in my case, Intel came up with a “New and IMPROVED” Architectural scheme for my chip and updated it.  So much for backward compatibility.  Bottom line.  Start here.  My second batter has over 3 years and is in great shape.  If you can’t find any recommendations on your machine after googling “MYBRAND Laptop Custom Battery Charging Profile….or something like that, then read the Lenovo setup and use those parameters.

https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-extend-battery-lifespan-battery-charge-threshold/

 

[jacwjames]

All good advice, thanks.

So my battery may have been the biggest culprit.   I also use my laptop sitting on my lap but didn't notice a big heat increase.   Everything seems to be running OK now, the cooling fan only comes on occasionally. 

One thing that I noticed earlier this year while looking at how many Apps are loaded on my computer is huge and I don't use most of them so went through and uninstalled some.  Looked again recently and some are back along with new ones.  They get loaded every time I have an update.  At one point I turned the auto updates off which helped, may do that again and do it maybe monthly.   The last time I had a problem I saw that there had been a bunch of useless stuff installed.  I guess Microsoft must make $$$ for every time the get it loaded on a machine. 

I do use the task manager  quite a bit to see what's going on.   I'm hesitant to randomly uninstall some of the some of the Dell stuff because of how it interacts. 

Again, thanks for all the information, for now my issues seem to be resolved.

Jim

 

[jacwjames]

So I didn't have any problems for 3 days and then all of a sudden I started hearing my fan run more and more.

Went into task manager to see what was going on and I was bumping 100% CPU usage with the biggest culprits being apps associated with the Dell Support program.  This is the program I had been using to help diagnose the problems but the last time I tried to use it there was an error message.

Frustrated I decided to just Uninstall all of the programs associated with the Dell Support function.  There were a number of them and one was +350MB of memory. 

Since I did this the laptop hasn't missed a step. 

JFYI

[Tom Cherry]

30 minutes ago, jacwjames said:

So I didn't have any problems for 3 days and then all of a sudden I started hearing my fan run more and more.

Went into task manager to see what was going on and I was bumping 100% CPU usage with the biggest culprits being apps associated with the Dell Support program.  This is the program I had been using to help diagnose the problems but the last time I tried to use it there was an error message.

Frustrated I decided to just Uninstall all of the programs associated with the Dell Support function.  There were a number of them and one was +350MB of memory. 

Since I did this the laptop hasn't missed a step. 

JFYI

I killed my Lenovo “support” and it only runs when I tell it to.  Cleaning out the “startup” file is recommended.  I only have MSFT Defender and Norton launched on startup.  I know, from a lot of reading and research, what each of the others, that I disabled, are.  You can Goggle each and find out.  Your laptop should be booting quicker….

[jacwjames]

I had gone in and disabled most of the startup menu, amazing how many there were.  Hopefully I'm getting to the end of this adventure.