Thread: Laptop not working

  1. #1
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    Laptop not working

    Ok, I have a serious problem with my 4 month old Acer laptop.

    First problem was that when i was playing a game i twice heard it clicking from under my touchpad. When this occured the whole computer went to a crawl, and after a while was rendered useless, and all at the same time the little light that indicates that the computer is working, was lit.

    Second problem, when this happened the second time, windows would not even boot (I did a manual shutdown), saying that <windows root>/System32/hal.dll was missing. Now from what I have read, this might be caused if the boot.ini file is pointing to the wrong partition, but i chose to do a complete recovery and overwrite all files on my C partition.

    After some recovery-attempts going to hell i finally got windows to load on the computer, so I figured it was all nice and dandy, starting to install drivers for my logitech mouse, firefox, thunderbird and get right. After that I try to download a game (it is an mmo which is supposed to be downloaded), but after a while roughly the same thing happends again: The computer slows to a crawl, the light is on constantly, and i end up not being able to do anything. In the end i just shut off the computer for the night.

    Now when I try to start the computer I get the same message about the hal.dll thingy again. So what I wondered is if you guys come to the same conclusion as I do....something is physically wrong with my HD. Or do you think something else might be the cause. Because I am going to call Acer tomorrow and I just wanted to know what you think might be the cause of this.

    Oh and just so you know: The HD has 2 partitions, but I only touched files from the C partition (the D partition wasnt touched when I did the recovery) the second time the ........ hit the fan.
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  2. #2
    Registered /usr
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    If files are going missing/corrupted then it deffo sounds like a HDD issue. Not sure how it could be recurrent though, usually you'd reinstall, XP setup would mark whatever sectors are bad and remove them from use.

  3. #3
    Supermassive black hole cboard_member's Avatar
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    Could it be a hardware problem? That clicking sounds suspect...
    EDIT: I mean if XP hasn't picked it up for some reason.
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  4. #4
    pwns nooblars
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    How windows typically installs on machines from a factory is that it copies everything from hda2 (second partition) to hda1, so that all the drivers and stuff are already configured and all the software your computer comes with is already installed. hda2 is just image of hda1 when hda1 was done getting installed (on the master computer where the image is made in the first place the just reused for all the computer they produce)

    EDIT: forgot to put what I think is wrong, I bet hda1 has a bad spot that the image just keeps using due to how windows puts the image from hda2 to hda1.

  5. #5
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shakti
    First problem was that when i was playing a game i twice heard it clicking from under my touchpad. When this occured the whole computer went to a crawl, and after a while was rendered useless, and all at the same time the little light that indicates that the computer is working, was lit.
    Hmmm... well my acer doesn't have a "little light that indicates that the computer is working" button. Do you mean the light on the power button or the HDD indicator? Perhaps your refering to the Wireless Card indicator, because if that was lit then the clicking is likely the wireless card which commonly click or buzz or some similar sound. Why this would slow your game to a crawl, I don't know. I wouldn't bet this is your problem because I'd imagine you know more than enough to be riddled by that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shakti
    the second time the ........ hit the fan.
    It's best to keep things away from your computer fan. This includes, food, drink, and all fecal matter.
    Last edited by SlyMaelstrom; 08-06-2006 at 08:41 PM.
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    Yah sorry, meant the HDD indicator.

    Just had a talk with Acer support here in sweden, and they quickly determined it to be a HD failure or something along those lines, and that they would take it in to fix it, free of charges.

    I must say that the support is one of the best I have met, even though it seemed like it was a new guy who wasnt really close he was very friendly and helpful and it was no problem for them to take it in and fix it.
    STL Util a small headers-only library with various utility functions. Mainly for fun but feedback is welcome.

  7. #7
    int x = *((int *) NULL); Cactus_Hugger's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shakti
    windows would not even boot (I did a manual shutdown), saying that <windows root>/System32/hal.dll was missing.
    Open the pod bay doors HAL!
    I cannot do that Dave...

    I always loved the name of that dll. Sad days when harddrives fail - didn't know Acer made laptops though. (My dad has a nice LCD monitor from them.) I hope you backed up before you sent it off: I never trust companies to send back the data. (I've had two storage failures - neither company recovered the data, which was, in both cases, absolutely fine. (Managed to back up both, thankfully.)) Good luck.
    long time; /* know C? */
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