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Christopher Pine
12-07-2007, 12:26 AM
Ok you computer geeks... I need your shooting from the hip diagnosis. :)
Laptop computer we have had for a couple years is locking up. We reboot and somtime it makes it to reboot and somtime it locks up durting the windows opening sequence.
Somtimes the wireless card comes on (the little lite) and other times it does not.
Turn the wireless card of before reboot does not seem to change anything.
We reformatted and it is still doing it. SOme faults have come up "Bus 02 Device 03 Function 00
PCI Device somthing or other.
Is it a good estimation the wireless card is going bad?
Is this somthing that is integrated on the motherboard and would require the whole board replacement.
This is a toshiba that cost like $699 when new.
I am leaning towards a new laptop what do you all think? It has been used pretty constant for those two years. We have probably asked a lot of it all things considered.

Jim Becker
12-07-2007, 9:21 AM
Have you tried a complete wipe and re-load?

Randy Klein
12-07-2007, 9:42 AM
Check Toshiba's website for a recall. Mine had a problem with the CPU's fan, causing the thermal protect to kick in. There was also some short of electrical short recall that if you touched the monitor "wrong" you could cause a reboot.

Al Willits
12-07-2007, 9:49 AM
Do the easy stuff first, run a few anti virus/spy ware and whatever programs first, when mine starts to get real slow its usually a bug I've picked up, there's lots of freeware on the web.

Spybot
http://www.spybot-sd-info.com/

Trend micro
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Are a couple for starters, I'm at work so I don't have the other couple I use, but forum members probably have a few to add.

May not cure it, but its a good thing to try before reformatting.

Al

Phil Thien
12-07-2007, 9:54 AM
On many machines the wireless card is a mini-PCI card that CAN be removed. If yours can be removed, do so and try booting again. If the machine works better, order a new card.

On machines where the wireless can't be removed, boot into safe mode and disable the wireless in device manager. Now boot in normal mode. If the notebook works okay w/o wireless, you can add a PCMCIA wireless card.

Of course, all this assumes you did a clean reinstall of the O/S. That is always the first step.

Also, it never hurts to reseat your RAM and to blast-out any cooling vents with compressed air (jam a paperclip or cable tie in any fans to prevent damange from hyper spinning.

Steve knight
12-07-2007, 10:31 AM
actually go to the bios and disable the wireless card. that will let you know. if you can't replace it you can use a usb or pc wireless card.

Christopher Pine
12-07-2007, 11:32 AM
We have done a reformatt allready and it is still doing it.. We will try the disable of the wireless etc and see what happens...

Chris Padilla
12-07-2007, 5:37 PM
I think you got your $699 out of it, Chris! Time for a new one! ;)

Ho Ho Ho

Randy Cohen
12-07-2007, 8:14 PM
it might be the battery...can you run it plugged in with the battery removed? if not try removeing the battery and putting it back in.

John Shuk
12-07-2007, 9:00 PM
How funny is it that people say "well it was only $699 and it lasted a few years"?
Yet many of us balk and choke at the price of a Festool domino or a Lie nielsen handplane or a Tormek sharpener.
It is funny how we look at things as consumers.

Chris Padilla
12-07-2007, 9:07 PM
How funny is it that people say "well it was only $699 and it lasted a few years"?
Yet many of us balk and choke at the price of a Festool domino or a Lie nielsen handplane or a Tormek sharpener.
It is funny how we look at things as consumers.

We all have different priorities when it comes to our pocketbooks! :D

Clint Jones
12-07-2007, 11:24 PM
If you cant fix it and decide to replace it I will buy the broken one from you. -Clint

Christopher Pine
12-08-2007, 11:15 AM
How funny is it that people say "well it was only $699 and it lasted a few years"?
Yet many of us balk and choke at the price of a Festool domino or a Lie nielsen handplane or a Tormek sharpener.
It is funny how we look at things as consumers.

Was not looking for an evaluation of my consumerism or how I look at things. It has been used heavily and not treated as well as it would have if their were not kids involved. I understand your point but honestly I was looking for solutions not a judgement on how I buy things!

Christopher Pine
12-08-2007, 11:17 AM
it might be the battery...can you run it plugged in with the battery removed? if not try removeing the battery and putting it back in.

WHy would it be a battery? We just replace the batter a month or so ago and upgraded to the larger (9 cell) battery. What would thebattery do that would lock up the computer?
Interesting I would not have thougt of the battery.

Christopher Pine
12-08-2007, 11:20 AM
We did as one of you suggested and disabled the lan cards and it seems to be running fine...
So I guess I will look at replacing the wireless card either with new or the other type whatever would apply! Thanks a lot to those who offered solutuions! I knerwe I would get help here! Such a diverse group with different backgrounds!

Randy Cohen
12-08-2007, 11:41 AM
WHy would it be a battery? We just replace the batter a month or so ago and upgraded to the larger (9 cell) battery. What would thebattery do that would lock up the computer?
Interesting I would not have thougt of the battery.

i'm glad you found the real problem. the battery suggestion was because thats what happened to my son's puter.

Brian Weick
12-08-2007, 11:47 AM
Ok you computer geeks... I need your shooting from the hip diagnosis. :)
Laptop computer we have had for a couple years is locking up. We reboot and somtime it makes it to reboot and somtime it locks up durting the windows opening sequence.
Somtimes the wireless card comes on (the little lite) and other times it does not.
Turn the wireless card of before reboot does not seem to change anything.
We reformatted and it is still doing it. SOme faults have come up "Bus 02 Device 03 Function 00
PCI Device somthing or other.
Is it a good estimation the wireless card is going bad?
Is this somthing that is integrated on the motherboard and would require the whole board replacement.
This is a toshiba that cost like $699 when new.
I am leaning towards a new laptop what do you all think? It has been used pretty constant for those two years. We have probably asked a lot of it all things considered.


Chris,
Wireless card going , I would have to say No based on the information you provided- either it is good or bad- nothing in the middle- electronic hardware will either work or it doesn't, ussually-with the exception of the hard drive ,this is totally different all 1's and 0's - you may have some corrupt drivers on the HD, or bad/corrupted sectors on the hard drive- you could have gotten one of those Trojan viruses that can cause havoc on your PC to the point the hard drive will not function correctly or won't boot up at all. I Just put a post up here about that with my buddy's computer- keeps looping into the F8 setup no matter what we do- I can't even access the drive from an A prompt. After he got the security software and we installed it ~ He had 149 infections and a few Trojans- I warned him about sticking his neck out on the WWW without a protection package installed , I feel bad for him,- now he's off getting a new hard drive and I have to reinstall everything for him. Have you run DSKCHECK - or scan disk from the accessories- it sounds as if you may have some corrupt files on your hard drive- run that - it will tell you if you have errors on the drive and may give you a message that you hard drive has suffered a serious error and you may want to back up all your files- it could be the hard drive on it's way out- they can be replaced for around $60.00 if you know how to do it. If your kids use it a lot- if they use e-mail frequently and open items that they receive that may be "shaky" at best- as soon as it is open- that starts the spread of the virus and you may not see it's impact write away, you may notice some strange behavior in the way it is functioning ~ until you try to correct the problem- that's when it may trigger a code in the virus to really cause severe damage and sometimes- it is not repairable.
Hope this helps Chris- it is frustrating these PC issues-and these hackers- well you know where they can go-:D
http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-xp-support/77058-toshiba-laptop-locks-up-reboots-after-windows-loads.html
here's a link - some similar situations-
Brian

John Shuk
12-08-2007, 4:20 PM
Was not looking for an evaluation of my consumerism or how I look at things. It has been used heavily and not treated as well as it would have if their were not kids involved. I understand your point but honestly I was looking for solutions not a judgement on how I buy things!

Chris I wasn't making a judgement at all. I remember giving away a puter I paid well in excess of $2k because I felt after a couple of years I felt it wasn't worth the effort to work on. A couple of weeks later my wife uh reminded me of that when I didn't want to spend money to replace a 12 year old mattress.
I just think it's funny how we accept things differently. It wasn't leveled at you or anyone else.:o

Christopher Pine
12-09-2007, 1:02 AM
Chris I wasn't making a judgement at all. I remember giving away a puter I paid well in excess of $2k because I felt after a couple of years I felt it wasn't worth the effort to work on. A couple of weeks later my wife uh reminded me of that when I didn't want to spend money to replace a 12 year old mattress.
I just think it's funny how we accept things differently. It wasn't leveled at you or anyone else.:o

I apologize I was a little grumpy... I believe you were just making comment. Sorry

Chris