Diagnosing my toshy a300

[n0mansland]

Hey everybody, i got my satellite a300 about 6 months ago off a mate. now the aXXX fault has started happening in the last 3 weeks stopping me from being able to do anything productive on it.

the fault for those that don't know restarts the computer randomly when running on the power pack, fine on battery and fine in safe mode. I'm running windows 7 ultimate.

so i'm looking for similarities between safe mode and running on the battery.

any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[pepe2907]

If it runs ok in safe mode, then check your drivers - for ex. you are running in low res in safe mode.
Also run a diagnostic program with temperature monitoring over some period of time /like AIDA/.
These IMHO are just the first things to do.

 

[n0mansland]

I have checked heat problems, reapplied thermal paste, uninstalled and re-installed drivers and operating systems. does the same thing in ubuntu. i am quite good with my computers but this has stumped me. i would really like to know the detailed differences between safe mode and normal mode

 

[pepe2907]

Unfortunately I don't think that anybody can make an absolutely detailed list of the differences between Safe mode and Normal mode, even the engineers at MS. But the same happening in Ubuntu too means it is hardly software related.

 

[n0mansland]

but the fact that it is not happening in safe mode means that there is a software related problem that i should be able to disable in normal mode. I am not asking for thousand page detail analysis, just some details similar to having the laptop running on battery

 

[n0mansland]

i found the solution to this problem, in the device manager you have to disable the CPU cores. which i assume stops them dynamically switching speed for power saving, haven't noticed and performance problem just a few graphics artifacts under load.
the laptop has been running for 13 hours now on power and not skipped a beat

thanks

 

[pepe2907]

By disabling CPU cores you make parts of your CPU unusable, e.g. disabling 2 of 4 cores means only 2 will work for you. It doesn't mean you stop them from dynamically switching speed. The fact that the problem previously appeared only when on external power probably means it's still overheating after all /if no, then your CPU is defective, probably already burnt out/. Instead of disabling cores, disable the turbo mode - it happens only on external power. And monitor the temperatures in real time at least for several hours under load. If the CPU is defective, then the defect is most likely located in only one of the cores, and if you can't change the CPU you at least can identify the actual core, causing the problem and switch off only it.

 

[n0mansland]

thanks for the input. The T550 dual core does not have turbo boost. the computer has had no over heating problems (been monitoring for last 3 weeks i thought that was the problem) the CPU does have step speed technology, that allows the computer to change the core frequency and voltage giving performance when the power is plugged in and better battery life when unplugged. I could be wrong but, i'm not sure you turn off a core in your operating system and if so, I wouldn't think it would be good for it. I would assume that disabling the cores in windows has stopped windows from having any influence over how the CPU switches voltage and frequency. As I said I could be wrong but this is what i have gathered from reading up about it.

After disabling the cores in the device manager the computer has not restarted randomly or had any heating issues and i have been monitoring the heating for about 6 hours.

Cheers mate