My Notebook hangs unexpectidly

Hi,

I have Sony Vaio VGN-FZ-340E

I have installed Windows XP on it, although the Sony Vendors do not encourage it. And I am using it from last 2 years now.

Now a days, my notebook hangs unexpectidly while doing anything, like watching a movie, checking email, etc. I have to force the computer to shutdown (by pressing the shut down button on the notebook) and then restart it again to get things in working state again.

What is going on? Why is the notebook getting stuck again and again? I have installed a fresh copy of windows XP again and again, but the problem is not solved.

Please let me know if it is a hardware or software related issue, so that i can fix it as soon as possible.

Regards

 

...phew.... the reinstall of XP indicates either:

a) a bad "updated" something

or:

b) hardware failure...

Is the hang accompanied by anything like artefacts on the screen for example?
What graphics card have you got?

 

I think the reinstall didn't do anything, because I reinstalled it due to system hanging again and again.

My graphic card is NVIDIA GFORCE 84000M GT.

The system just hangs up and does nothing. A beep starts when this happens. And everything stays where it currently is.

I tried several things like scanning the hard disk for bad sectors, defragmenting it, installed new OS.

 

Well, the 8 series... if a faulty line with a design flaw... but if that were the cause it should show artefacts...

A beep ... that's a message from somewhere... not sure where from... maybe BIOS...??

 

The by far most common cause for laptops freezing up during use is overheating. If I had a penny for every time I have pulled dustbunnies out of the fan assembly of laptops and miraculously brought them back to life, I would soon be able to buy a cup of coffee.
Check the temperatures, make sure that the fan is able to blow air, and that the air intakes aren't blocked either.

 

I don't think there is any heat problem. As I can feel the heat it throws out.

But i'll still check the heat through BIOS, when it freezes again.

By the way, how can we clean the fan? There might be some dust particles causing it to act like this. Should I get it opened?

 

Bad reasoning....

You also don't "throw out heat... heat is energy... you just move it around... and if the vent is hotter than in the past then the inside is much hotter too.