Diagnose my wife's laptop, please.

Long story short: about a week ago my laptop took a spill from a living room end-table and is currently getting some warranty-covered repairs. I haven't been posting much since that happened. The only computer we have right now is my wife's laptop, and this thing is bizarre.

It constantly loses its wireless internet connection and the computer needs to be rebooted to regain the connection (and this happens every half hour or so).

It's always jumping from page to page, even when you don't push the back or forward arrows on IE. You'll just be typing or reading something and then *click click click* and you're three pages back from where you once were.

It has an up-to-date virus scanner and always tests as clean, so I have no frelling idea what the problem is. :shrug:

 

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When you lose the internet connection, and try to reconnect...what error message is it giving you?

As for the back and forward problem....maybe something spilled in the keyboard ? Either that you have a poltergeist...and will need a priest.

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When you shake it, does it rattle? It sounds like something is physically loose inside the box. If you have a Best Buy or some other computer shop in the neighorhood, it might be good to have them check into it.

 

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How old is the laptop?

Go to "run" (a program) and type in "dxdiag" and press entire (it's a computer diagnostic program used by repair people to give them a basic picture of the computer's software and hardware), typically you save it and send it to the people but we cant do that, there should be about 5 ish tabs, copy and paste the info on the first page and post it in your reply, and copy and paste the tab that says "video" or "visual" and do the same. If you have a tab labelled network, or internet, or connections copy and paste that one too.

It won't post any private information and if there's anything on there you feel really unsure about posting you can omit it.

Don't forget how old the computer is and if you can when the last time you took it in to be repaired. Depending on those things it can either be software or hardware.

 

Try a system restore and take it back at least 4 months or to when the problem was NOT happening.

 

To answer the questions:

When I try to reconnect to the internet, I really don't get any sort of error message. I hit the diagnosis link, and it doesn't show any errors that I can see.

Nothing rattles when I shake it.

The laptop is four years old or so. Once I get my laptop back, I will probably start looking into the MacBook that I've wanted for so long.

 

Both signs of driver problems IMO.
What model laptop is it (brand - model number)?
What OS (windows?)

Assuming you don't have sticky keys somewhere or aren't accidentally laying your palm on the touchpad during typing, then the page flipping problem can be attributed to erratic focus changes (example - arbitrarily tabs over to various controls on the browser...back button is first on the list).

 

How far back can you do a system restore? My wife and I tend to share my laptop and hers is basically used as a back-up. I may need to actually restore it to the original settings with the system restore disk, which would kinda suck.

 

FYI...dxdiag is for direct x. I think your are referring to "msconfig".

 

You don't want to do a system restore.

The problems you describe are also a bit common.

The first one is because the wireless is trying to establish the signal with the strongest. If your net drops, it will bump to the next default signal and will keep trying to bump to the next while skipping your net. This is why rrebooting seems to stop it.
Reconfiguring your wireless and removing all extra default wireless should fix that.

The bouncing pages- Yeah I get that on THIS Laptop and it's very annoying.
It's usually a driver issue with the touchpad mouse or an OS error in which the operating system switches tasks and this causes your current page to get moved to the background. When you're typing at that moment, your keystrokes are read as computer commands instead of typin in print. It happens when you're not typing, too. Except nothing changes as no commands are being given. So the page reverts back to the front.

Fixing that is more than just tricky and it's why most people do not bother. Either a driver or a .dll file is corrupted and FINDING which one it is can be a real pain in the butt.

MUCH easier and more assuring to just back up all data. Back up programs you either bought or have no copies of.

Then do a complete wipe and reload on the OS.
Reinstall your programs and data and have at it.

 

yah but it gives me the info I would like to know.

Besides the fact that from the sounds of it I would take it to a professional. Because the fact is that from the sounds of it any of the problems I can think up are things you do not want to fix by yourself. Especially because a professional can fix the computer with minimum side effects.

 

I partially agree with Neverfly. The problem is that every time I hear this, or fix them myself, it's always way more than one problem.

DO NOT reformat. (yet)

My first test would be a normal Cat5 lan connection. If if does all the same things, then it's most definitely not your wifi connection.

Try a system restore. Go back to a date when it actually worked right, and restore your drive image to that date.

Overheating causes a number of nauseating problems too. Could have dirty heat sinks.

If you get bouncing commands through the keyboard, but not the mouse pad. And it has nothing to do with IRQ's or drivers, then your keyboard is in need of service or replacement. Plug in a traditional mouse and keyboard and see if it still does the same thing.

 

Hey if you really wanna have some fun, spray a TINY bit of water in someones keyboard. Some keys will seem to press themselves, some won't work at all, some will cause windows to open...

Great fun.

Also, on the side, you may check your keyboard for moisture (Thanks blue

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Just take the back off and let everything flap for away and dry out. then plug in and try it

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ETA: Wait- he said laptop. That's trickier for a gooey keyboard...

 

What version of Windows is it and what version of protocol are you running on the router you have. Is it N perhaps if so change it to G you may find that this helps the lose of connection. I had a similar issue with my wife laptop which first had Vista then Windows 7 it got really bad after the 7 install but ever since I changed my router to G it has worked fine ever since have not had a single network drop. All so if you are not dealing with the router issue get rid of the Warless card controller software I have seen on Dells and HP's the software they load for nic access is crap for a lack of a better term. Remove that and let windows handle the nic's you will find it to be a bit more stable.

 

Not sure this relates to your problem. It is from a log I keep (Windows XP System). I was able to stop disk checking for several disks. Partition C on my first disk was okay. I am not sure that the following will fix the problem for Drive C.

4 December 2006
Some updates have occurred, including one relating to Java.

Chkdsk still runs on startup. Very annoying. Canceling the process by using any key saves time, but does not make the problem go away.

This is alleged to be caused due to dirty bit being set.
C:\Windows\System32\fsutil.exe can query & set the dirty bit, but does not provide for turning it off. (Fsutil dirty query D: )

chkntfs /D & chkdsk C: /F are both alleged to turn off the Dirty Bit. Chkdsk worked for all but Partition C. Not sure about chkntfs.

10 December 2006
Chkdsk D: /F turned off the Dirty Bit. Verified via Fsutil dirty query D:
Chkdsk did not run last time system was started.


BTW: I make byte by byte images of all critical partitons on my system & use them for recovery if something goes wrong. The log tells me what will be missing when I restore using an image.

Drive images have saved me a few times when visting grandchildren have managed to get me infected with malware. A really messed up system cannot be relied upon to restore properly from a backup.

 

Sorry !!! my previous post was intended for another thread. It has nothing to do with the problem described in this thread.

 

Don't laugh, but I have been known to totally strip down a key board and less the PCB/pS2 cable, toss the whole thing in the tub. All the silicone conductors and buttons.. like new. Clean the PBC with alcohol or lightly windex it. Let it all dry for hours, then slap it back together. (done it to cell phones and pagers also)

Laptop KBs are all riveted/pressed/resined together. I've done several KB jobs on laptops. Whole new is about $80 for a Dell. Not bad considering how much life you put back in it.

Basically saying... nearly half of my own PC problems end up being dirt (like anything else).

 

Hey, duct tape fixes just about anything.