E6400 - sudden freeze - likely heat issue

hi guys,

I am running into a problem I could not solve with my E6400, I need your help.

What happened:
It was running fine, then last Sunday, my younger cousin banged on the keyboard with his fist. I was running ubuntu and it suddenly froze after a few minutes. I turned it off, booted it up and it sudden froze at the login prompt with no warning. Sensing this is a heat issue, I opened up the back and boot. The cpu fan did not turn at all during the boot process until it froze again, while I was booting vista this time.


So I went on ebay and got a new cpu fan, hoping this will solve the issue. Today, I got the new fan and put it in. It does not turn either. And the back of computer got really while I stayed in bios setup.


what can I do at this point now? School is starting soon and I have to buy books and others stuff and I don't have cash to buy another laptop. This is stressing me out. help!

scott

 

Well freezing is most commonly caused by:

1) Failing hardware (bad stick of RAM, bad hard drive, bad mobo, etc)

2) Viral infection (causes CPU to go to 100%, locks up)

3) Overheating (mobo throttles CPU to reduce heat)

4) A combination of all 3 of the above

Are you sure the fan works? Did you try blowing out your old one? Are you still in warranty? Alot of E6400 are still in warranty...support.dell.com and punch in your service tag and go to warranty.

 

If somebody banged on the keyboard, it's possible that you have hairline cracks in the motherboard, which could cause all sorts of problems. Have you checked to see if they can fix it under warranty?

If not, I would have a chat with your cousin's parents, as it will be $100+ to replace the motherboard.

 

the fan works, until the kid banged on the keyboard. And I have 2 fans.
it is definitely a heat issue from fan no spinning at all.

There are so variations of motherboard sold on ebay.

my is wp507, but there is K543N and other versions. H568N
which one should I get? Are they compatible?

scott