Inspiron 1545 unresponsive after sitting idle for 30-40 minutes

My inspiron 1545 will be unresponsive after about 30 minutes if I just let it sit idle and go do something. I come back to it and I have to wait a minute or 2 until the computer is running normal again. Why would the computer do this? Also I noticed that my computer doesnt run as good as it used to which makes sense as its 3 years old and I use it most of the day but I do regular maintenance virus scans defragments temp file cleaning ect. The HDD is quite full though 29gigs free of 250.

 

If it's the original drive, when you reboot and get the Dell splash screen, hit F12 to access the boot menu and access the diagnostic partition and run a hardware test. Usually locking up will be the result of a failing drive, but sometimes it can be a corrupt OS.

 

Thanks for the response! I will run a diagnostic asap. My laptop is about 3 years old and is heavily used. Still running the same installation of windows since day 1 of having the laptop.

 

Hi,

As Tsunade_Hime mentioned it could be an issue with the Hard Drive or the Operating system and a diagnostic test will help you determine the same. If the hard drive is faulty, booting to the Diagnostic partition may not work. In that case please follow the below mentioned steps to launch the diagnostics.

• Turn the computer off.
• Remove all peripheral devices connected.
• Press and Hold the “Fn” key and Turn on the system.
• You will be able to see a message on the screen as “Diagnostic Boot selected”
• Pre-boot System Assessment starts automatically, please follow the instructions.
• In case of any hardware failure the test will display an error code.
• Please use the below mentioned link to find the details about error codes and their meaning.

Pre-Boot System Assessment (PSA) Diagnostics and Error Codes For Dell Computers | Dell

I hope you find this information useful. Please do write back in case you need any further assistance.

Thanks & Regards,
Swapnajan M C
#iworkfordell

 

Again thankyou for your help both of you! Ill let ya know if I have any other problems. Anything else I could do though? I set the hard drive to sleep after 180 minutes instead of the default 20 if that will do any difference.

 

I recently sold my 1545 which I bought back in sep '09. It had a 250GB HD and vista OS so we probably had quite similar machines. It may not appeal to you but I completely cleared the hard drive and reinstalled the OS and saw a noticable improvement in the responce/load times. If you have an external hard drive I'd definitely recommend backing up your important files and then doing a reinstall.

 

I'm planning on reinstalling windows real soon. For now I disabled the hard drive sleep timer which I know may not be good but its a temp fix until I get time to reinstall everything.

 

UPDATE: I took a can of compressed air to the air vent and blew a ton of dust out until no more would come out of the vent but I never took off the heatsink though.I did open the laptop up and blow some dust off the motherboard and it actually seems to be performing better now! Guess dust buildup over the years contributed to slow downs? Ill see how the laptop performs over the next few days and let ya know. The core temps have been around 45-55 degrees Celsius.