Laptop having trouble

[Quakemz]

So my friends 3~ year old Toshiba Satellite laptop is having some issues. It uses a Phenom CPU. I can't even get into windows. I can get into the BIOS usually but sometimes it freezes. I'm trying to fix it but I'm not really sure what the problem is. He re-installed windows 7 a while back and it was working alright until the other day. My first thought is that the CPUs thermal paste might need replacing, since AMD CPUs tend to run much hotter than intel's and the Laptop is 3-4 years old. Does anybody have any ideas on what could be happening? I'm not a PC idiot, but software has never been my expertise. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Viking2121]

Make sure the video chip set is cool, If it has a thermal pad, Leave it on there and get a new 1. Taking that pad off will make it worse from experience. also try booting with the battery out of the laptop, I have seen this happen. Also since he installed windows I would imagine nothing important in on it right now. I'd reinstall windows and see if she stays on, If not then there is a hardware problem somewhere, be it RAM, Chipset, Fan not doing its job.

But if you are able to sit in the desktop, I would have to say its a problem with 1 of the updates. You might have to do the updates 1 by 1 to see what is making it not able to boot. usally its updates for hardware like audio, or Ethernet, Security updates I rarely see problems occur with them.

I was working on a Older HP desktop with a Nvidia chipset and AMD Athlon II x4 and it would BSOD after windows 7 orbs come together after updating the Nvidia ATA Device Controller with windows update.

 

[Quakemz]

Make sure the video chip set is cool, If it has a thermal pad, Leave it on there and get a new 1. Taking that pad off will make it worse from experience. also try booting with the battery out of the laptop, I have seen this happen. Also since he installed windows I would imagine nothing important in on it right now. I'd reinstall windows and see if she stays on, If not then there is a hardware problem somewhere, be it RAM, Chipset, Fan not doing its job.

But if you are able to sit in the desktop, I would have to say its a problem with 1 of the updates. You might have to do the updates 1 by 1 to see what is making it not able to boot. usally its updates for hardware like audio, or Ethernet, Security updates I rarely see problems occur with them.

I was working on a Older HP desktop with a Nvidia chipset and AMD Athlon II x4 and it would BSOD after windows 7 orbs come together after updating the Nvidia ATA Device Controller with windows update.

It worked for a full day after installing all the updates. I did some temp testing and it was rather high even for a laptop. The CPU often got above 90c when only watching HD content. I was able to install windows before this so I thought it was a success. This morning I go to turn it on and windows had completely uninstalled itself. Upon starting, it put me into windows repair and told me there was no OS detected. This is where I am right now.

 

[Viking2121]

90C is about right tho for a laptop, It might just be because the fan is on low. Does it even speed up?

Also did you try another HDD maybe?

 

[Quakemz]

90C is about right tho for a laptop, It might just be because the fan is on low. Does it even speed up?

Also did you try another HDD maybe?

The fan puts in overtime at that temp. My laptop doesn't get nearly that hot watching youtube. But it is a 4 year old AMD chip in the Toshiba. I have no tried another drive yet because I don't have one laying around. It's kind of at the point where the laptop is old and weak anyways so I think I'm going to build him a PC. I was just a little baffled on what was happening.