Faulty RP 60 plus

Hi,

I hope I have come to the right section I apologise if I haven't... but I'll ask the question in case I have. :thumbsup:

I have Samsung RP 60 plus, about four years old maybe less which I've had from new. Great machine in fact I would say it's the best one if not THE best i have ever owned and I have had a few.. But, it has developed this is really annoying, frustrating, fault. It just seizes solid , hangs, i.e. The mouse pointer sticks solid and will not move whatever you do.. You have no choice but to switch off and restart. This is getting more and more frequent. You can have hours of use where it's fine but yesterday it must've done it a dozen times.. it is frankly becoming unusable. When it does less you get the feeling that it has shut down inside in that it's deathly quiet..there are no other signs of any
problems. It does not appear to get too hot or anything like that..

Personally, I think it may be the hard drive failing. I have had complete hard drive failures will otherl laptops, but that just usually happens and that was the end of it...

I may be wrong and of course this is why I am asking – does anybody have any idea what is wrong with it – and therefore how it could be fixed because other than that ,it's a great laptop and I would hate to have to
just ditch it.... ?

Thank you..

 

For the HDD you can check the SMART data. The easiest way to do this is to get the trial version of Active SMART. This monitors the HDD SMART data and warns of any health problems.

I would add overheating to the list (although that usually causes a BSOD). Cooling systems clog up with time as shown by this photo borrowed from this thread.



You can check the temperatures using HWiNFO (switch on Sensors - there's an option to write data to a log file). Temperatures of over 90C are getting into the risky zone.

You might also want to remove and replace the RAM to clean up the RAM contacts.

John

 

Hello John, thank you very much for your reply.

The information especially with those programs is invaluable.

I did take the machine apart last night and checked the innards for clogging ,it was surprisingly clean.

The only other thing I did notice which is a bit different to what I said earlier is that when it seizes up I can hear a fun running if I put my ear to it (It has always been a very quiet running machine)

I'm not sure about the overheating aspect to be honest because as it has done several times when I reboot it often seizes up / hangs even in the boot up process. It is SO frustrating. Apart from this iPad which I find difficult to use it is my only machine and I need it for work.

Do you have any other ideas as to what it could be wrong with it John ? if it's not overheating am I right in thinking it is a hard drive fault or probably something else?

It is a shame too because only about a month ago I bought fitted a brand-new keyboard to it – up until then that was its only fault, keya breaking off....

Rgds, Mike.

 

1. Did you check the HDD SMART data as I suggested?

2. A notebook of this age might have various connectors that are working loose and can benefit from dismantling and reassembly, which cleans the contacts. Start with removing / replacing the HDD, if not already done.

3. One suggestion that might help pin down the HDD is to make a Ubuntu Lunux Live CD, remove the HDD and run Linux for a few hours and see if anything hangs. Use a flash drive for storage. If you still get hangups then you can't blame the HDD.

John