damage from leaving laptop on

I recently learned that I was supposed to turn off my laptop. I've had it for two years, and shut off probably 20 times in that period, not regularly. Its starting to drag, and today, I had to unplug for the first time, 3 times today, beacuse it kept crashing. Facebook loads *** backwards.

A friend thinks that I've fried memory and some other stuff.

some fishy things:
- I open a link in a new tab (IE) and it gives me a google search of the link and takes me to a shady page with links on it, but a new browser works.
- IE suddenly had a larger text size earlier today.

Intel Centrino Duo
111GB, 83GB free
1.6Ghz
504MB RAM
Toshiba Satellite
windows XP

no viruses.
defrag and scandisk are a couple months recent.

So, my question is, does leaving it on fry the computer?
and if so, can I update it with memory and stuff?

 

i have a 5 year ild dell laptop been running 24/7 since new , now a server , my hp 8510-p has been on 24/7 for 1 1/2 yeas now no trouble

 

Your problem at this point does not sound hardware, sounds software and OS. You my have some malicious software that redirect sounds like it. Consider a fresh install of OS and applications likely is the easiest way to solve your problems and improve system performance. The alternative is spending hours tracking all kinds off things and in the end I doubt as good of results will be achieved.

 

Err... what do you mean by "shady page"? If your browser is redirecting on its own that's a sign of malware infrections.

 

While I don't care to leave laptops running 24/7 (IMO most aren't built to handle it, particularly in terms of heat) I'd agree with the previous comments. You might need to clean your install up or just reload everything from scratch. Also might not hurt to check the cooling system for dust.

 

I agree with you too.

-J.B.

 

I totally agree.

There is only one thing that should be done when a laptop is kept ON is to leave the LID open so the laptop doesn't over heat.

 

Don't you think a reformat will leave some malware on the system? I've heard of viruses latching onto the clock and **** like that.

and by shady sites i mean this:

http://pureask.com/search/?q=tech support&a=1-1979&i=819523518

 

? no, after a reformat you should be fine.

 

I don't think you have a virus. All bad code is not a virus. I doubt you are facing anything so sophisticated. And if reinstall does not resolve it can be addressed at that point with many other issues having been addressed and resolved. But as I said if you want to crawl around your computer for days manually tracking down things I don't want to stop you. I just find it less than fun myself.

Also I thought I read that in addition to that browser hijack you mentioned a general slowdown. I am not a major proponent of regular reinstall as many are. My OS has been running 1.5 years without issue. That said if I experienced slow down I would not hesitate to do. I would not even attempt to fix. My computing habits leave me free of junk in the first place which lessens my needs for such drastic actions. I ran without anti-virus software for over 8 years no virus's. I have been using anti-virus for just over a year. It has stopped nothing.

Your habits are what get you these problems, I don't get them. How many you have is anyones guess. Thus reinstall is the easiest. Stopping your redirect in and of itself is not hard but why not fix it correct the first time?

 

my habits... i open lots of youtube videos at once and watch them as the others load. i mean 6 or 7 at a time, while itunes playing and stuff. is that hard on the system? sometimes i have 10, 12 tabs open if i'm trying to find something online.

I'm not gonna lie, i've watched a fair of **** too.

Does the problem lie in these two things? I want to know what not to do next time.

 

I can't say with what you have told me.

The first order of business should be to get you back up and running at full speed not the details of what happened.

This redirect is minor as I said. I am careful what I click on I visit trusted sites. You don't have a virus so in the grand scheme of things you are doing OK.

3 years is a long time I am only at a 1 1/2 years without reinstall.