Laptop can't handle movement

[Netbook Shopper]

I use my laptop for school constantly, and because of that I need to be able to take it to class with me to access the wireless internet, which involves travel from my house, all over campus, and in the buildings. Everytime I travel with it in this way, when I turn it on it gives one of the old MS-Dos error screens, I don't remember what it says something like my last boot failed (which it didn't, I always shut it down properly when possible), but it asks for me to press f1 to "continue", I guess it means continue starting up windows as normal. I press f1 and it goes to another message in MS-Dos and gives me the choice "start windows normally" with some other choices I ignore most of the time, but sometimes it still gives another error message and I have to unplug/turn it off, then turn it back on as sitting still on the table, and then it is fine and starts up and works perfectly normal. I had the idea that the computer may be getting a little "squished" in my book bag with other items, but it would also happen if I carry it across my house and it is in a position not horizontal ---scratch that, as of today... it has now had trouble even being carried very carefully still horizontal 10ft across a room---

I was hoping maybe there would be some type of fix like padding things with some type of foam or something to keep any internal parts from shifting or whatever is happening when I travel with it.

I talked to my friend in class that knows a few things about computers and he told me it is just dying because it's old and could be due to any number of things, but mostly because it was old and that there was nothing I could do and just to put away enough money to buy a new one when it finally croaks for good.

Is it true that there is really nothing I can do? I can buy a new one if I have to, but I"d rather not if I could avoid it.

 

[Grantofhell]

possibly a failing harddrive. May have issues on the actuator arm reading while it's moving. I'm not saying to immediately replace it, I'm just speculating a bit.

How old is the lappy?

 

[Netbook Shopper]

Yeah, it's about 4 years old, so it's had a relatively good lifespan for what i've put it through in travel back and forth from Mississippi to Alabama constantly, and dorm room to classroom, to coffee shop, to whereever. Poor little guy. I think it's not worth the worry trying to fix this one, I should probably get a new one as I'd have to get a larger HD and more RAM to make this one even compare to the usefulness of a whole brand new laptop. I wish it would either be fixed, or die for good right now though.. I'm impatient.

 

[Grantofhell]

Perhaps a few members can speculate on the situation. It sounds like an HDD issue to me. But as I said, I'm not sure.

 

[Air]

id agree with hard drive failure. i suggest backing up your data, even if its not the hard drive its a good idea.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

t sounds like an HDD issue to me.

I think you nailed it. HDDs, like the name implies, are discs. In another words, they are made of moving parts. They tend to start failing after a good 4 or 5 years. Since you carry your laptop around a lot, it may have contributed to an early "death". A new HDD should fix this issue. Look at newegg.com for 5400RPM laptop HDDs (I won't recommend 7200RPMs because they may be bottlenecked by other parts).

 

[Netbook Shopper]

Wow, thanks for all the info. I don't keep many files on it as it is, though I have backed up the few I do have. I don't keep anything on it as I had a battery issue for the past year, and it just seemed like it was dying for no reason so we've rebuilt it or reformatted it whatever you want to call that about 6 times in the past 6 months trying to fix the issue, until a friend came over and researched it. Apparently the computer was trying to put all of its energy into charging a battery that was no longer chargeable. Took the battery out and worked perfectly, that was until the needing to bring it to class thing. Apparently this battery problem is more common than I thought, as my husband's old laptop also "miraculously just stopped working for no particular reason". Took his battery out, works fine... finally got to backup all his "important" stuff he'd been wanting to get off that thing for two years.

BTW, can rebuilding it too often add to the harddrive failure, or does it not matter one way or another?

 

[JogaBonito1502]

BTW, can rebuilding it too often add to the harddrive failure, or does it not matter one way or another?

I don't believe it should affect its lifetime. I've reformatted quite a few times and my HDD is still going strong (4 years now; I own a desktop).

 

[Netbook Shopper]

Though it sounds like you guys have nailed my problem pretty well, if you have any more advice, here are the specs I have of this ole' machine. It may shed more light on why it's dying with such ease.

It's an Acer Aspire 3000 (WLCI)... well, I just looked at the other sticker I have it says Aspire 3003wlci, but you get the picture. I got it around November or shortly before November, 2005 from Circuit City. It was meant to be my "good enough el cheapo that would last me through college", hopefully. Problem is... like most people... I did not finish my degree in the four years they claim you should. Mostly all I do is internet research and word processing, viewing a lot of PDF files for my class notes.

It saaays here that it has AMD Mobile Sempron (3000+, whatever that means), It is using Windows XP home edition, It says it has a 60GB HDD, 512MB DDR, and 802.11 b/g wireless LAN. I literally just read off the crap they had on the sticker that was on it when I got it. I peeled it off and stuck it on the bottom of it in case I needed that info for later.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

If you do end up getting a new HDD, try to get 1GB or 2GB set of RAM to add in there (I'll have to look up how much it will accept). It should speed up those PDF files loading time a little bit.