laptop extremely sluggish

I have a Lenovo 3000 N100 laptop. Intel Dual core processor at 1.66GHz. 1.5GB RAM (updated from 512 about a year ago), running Windows XP Home edition.

Recently my laptop started switching off at random. I must admit, at first I did'nt pay as much attention as i should have. But when it happened a coupla weeks back, I simply restarted it. Then i found the laptop speed had reduced dramatically. It'd take about 5-10 minutes to switch on, and then every application would take an age to open and run. Any audio video application would run with a hugh lag. Even youtube videos, after allowing buffer, would lag heavily.

After searching around on the net, I got to cleaning my laptop. The vents were pretty badly clogged, and i guess i needed to restore some of the thermal grease. I installed speedfan to maintain a check on temperature readings. Before cleaning, the average temperature would be around 75 degrees. After cleaning up everything (I still have to restore the grease) the temperature came down to averaging about 50 degrees on battery power only. The problem with slow pc still did'nt go. I did some more research, and came across a topic which said sometimes, the laptop charger may coz the slowdown. I don't know how this can happen, but i tried to confirm this by removing the charger and running on battery only. The result was, the cpu temerature with charger would vary close to 70 - 75 degrees. When the charger is removed, then on battery the average temeperature would be around 50 degrees.

I figured maybe that solves my problem. But then before buying a new charger, I decided to one last test. I charged the battery to full and then left it to cool down for a coupla hours. Then i started the laptop on battery only, and ran it for a while. There were still no changes, and the laptop ran as slow as it was before. The temperature maintained at about 50 degrees.

So now i have no idea wat to do, how to fix this. Is it possible the CPU may have permanently underclocked or sumthin during this problem?? Or is it some other deeply embedded issue!!!! ????

I'd really appreciate if someone can help me out here!!!!


(PS. I ran a lot of virus and malware scans earlier, when my laptop first started switching off. Everything seemed clean)


So a little while ago i'd put the system into standby. After about half hour, as according to the settings, the system automatically came out of standby and went started goin into hibernation……about 10 seconds with goin into hibernation, the laptop just turned off. I immediately felt around the base of the laptop as well as around the keyboard, and it was cold. Forget hot or warm, it was stone cold. I can't figure it out……clearly its not an overheating issue….so wat could it be????

Hi, and welcome to WhatTheTech. Ok.. First of all, let me clear something up. Absolutely, under no circumstance, will the power adapter directly cause a laptop to run slow. However, let me explain why your CPU probably runs cooler when the power adapter is unplugged. Your system, but not all systems, may have a power management feature that allows the CPU to be throttled down to a slower speed when running on battery power. This helps to conserve battery power. If that is the case, and it probably is on a Lenovo, then when the laptop is unplugged the CPU is running at a slower speed and generating less heat. So, if the power adapter just simply was not powering the laptop properly (which you already eliminated when you said you charged the battery, etc) then it could possibly result in a slower computer until the battery died all together. Now, the performance of your laptop sounds very similar to a problem where the hard drive has locked itself into PIO mode. This is common in laptops. In order to verify this, go into control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager. Expand the IDE controllers section and double-click the Primary IDE controller. Click the Advanced Settings tab and see if your Device 0, current transfer mode says PIO. This is most likely the case. This happens from one of a couple different reasons. Primarily, Windows locks the drive into PIO mode due to disk errors. However, the disk errors could be caused by a few different things. The most likely thing is going to be bad sectors on the hard drive or a failing hard drive. I have seen this happen with a perfectly good drive though and am not sure why it does happen at times. So, to verify the hard drive is OK, click start -> run -> type 'cmd' and press ENTER. At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r and press ENTER. Answer Yes when prompted about scheduling a scan during the next restart. Restart your laptop. Be patient while chkdsk scans your file system and hard drive for problems. Pay attention during stages 4 and 5 for messages about "Windows replacing bad clusters…" this means bad sectors are found and could be a sign of a failing hard drive. If your drive is in PIO mode, after you scan it for bad sectors, you can go back into device manager and delete the Primary IDE controller device and then reboot windows a couple of times. The controller will re-install and the hard drive will revert to DMA mode like it should be and a massive improvement in performance will come. If the hard drive falls back into PIO mode again it is time to replace the hard drive, something is wrong with it. Now, lastly, the laptop powering off spontaneously does sound like a heat problem. But, because the laptop was cool during the one time it shut off it starts to make me wonder. First of all, you need to eliminate if it is a power issue. Does the laptop shut off on only battery power? Or does the laptop shut off on only AC power? Or does it shut off on both? Another common problem but not one I think would make the laptop shut off spontaneously is that the memory could have gotten a bad connection. Usually removing the access panel and removing the RAM and then plugging it back in will fix that. Other than that it sounds like you have a significant hardware issue with the laptop that is most likely going to be a bad motherboard. But, until you find out about your hard drive, maybe the hard drive is somehow causing all the problems and needs to be replaced. I still think it is unlikely that a bad hard drive would cause spontaneous shut offs like that. But, you need to eliminate all possibilities before deciding that it is the motherboard. Unfortunately, if it isn't heat, and it isn't a power issue, it sounds like a motherboard. Hope this helps. EDIT: You mentioned thermal grease a couple of times. In order to get to, and change the thermal grease, most laptops have to be completely disassembled. Is this something that you have done or are planning on doing? I don't see this being a necessary thing to do. Just make sure the fans and heatsinks are clean.

Hi, and welcome to WhatTheTech.

Ok.. First of all, let me clear something up. Absolutely, under no circumstance, will the power adapter directly cause a laptop to run slow. However, let me explain why your CPU probably runs cooler when the power adapter is unplugged. Your system, but not all systems, may have a power management feature that allows the CPU to be throttled down to a slower speed when running on battery power. This helps to conserve battery power. If that is the case, and it probably is on a Lenovo, then when the laptop is unplugged the CPU is running at a slower speed and generating less heat. So, if the power adapter just simply was not powering the laptop properly (which you already eliminated when you said you charged the battery, etc) then it could possibly result in a slower computer until the battery died all together.

Now, the performance of your laptop sounds very similar to a problem where the hard drive has locked itself into PIO mode. This is common in laptops. In order to verify this, go into control panel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager. Expand the IDE controllers section and double-click the Primary IDE controller. Click the Advanced Settings tab and see if your Device 0, current transfer mode says PIO. This is most likely the case.

This happens from one of a couple different reasons. Primarily, Windows locks the drive into PIO mode due to disk errors. However, the disk errors could be caused by a few different things. The most likely thing is going to be bad sectors on the hard drive or a failing hard drive. I have seen this happen with a perfectly good drive though and am not sure why it does happen at times. So, to verify the hard drive is OK, click start -> run -> type 'cmd' and press ENTER. At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r and press ENTER. Answer Yes when prompted about scheduling a scan during the next restart. Restart your laptop. Be patient while chkdsk scans your file system and hard drive for problems. Pay attention during stages 4 and 5 for messages about "Windows replacing bad clusters…" this means bad sectors are found and could be a sign of a failing hard drive.

If your drive is in PIO mode, after you scan it for bad sectors, you can go back into device manager and delete the Primary IDE controller device and then reboot windows a couple of times. The controller will re-install and the hard drive will revert to DMA mode like it should be and a massive improvement in performance will come. If the hard drive falls back into PIO mode again it is time to replace the hard drive, something is wrong with it.

Now, lastly, the laptop powering off spontaneously does sound like a heat problem. But, because the laptop was cool during the one time it shut off it starts to make me wonder. First of all, you need to eliminate if it is a power issue. Does the laptop shut off on only battery power? Or does the laptop shut off on only AC power? Or does it shut off on both?

Another common problem but not one I think would make the laptop shut off spontaneously is that the memory could have gotten a bad connection. Usually removing the access panel and removing the RAM and then plugging it back in will fix that.

Other than that it sounds like you have a significant hardware issue with the laptop that is most likely going to be a bad motherboard. But, until you find out about your hard drive, maybe the hard drive is somehow causing all the problems and needs to be replaced. I still think it is unlikely that a bad hard drive would cause spontaneous shut offs like that. But, you need to eliminate all possibilities before deciding that it is the motherboard. Unfortunately, if it isn't heat, and it isn't a power issue, it sounds like a motherboard.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: You mentioned thermal grease a couple of times. In order to get to, and change the thermal grease, most laptops have to be completely disassembled. Is this something that you have done or are planning on doing? I don't see this being a necessary thing to do. Just make sure the fans and heatsinks are clean.

Hey. Brilliant suggestion!…It was indeed the PIO mode issue. I then did a chkdsk, and it took almost 12 hours!! But in any case, turns out there were indeed a lot of bad clusters. I was putting off buying a new hard disk for a while , but I guess that has to go thru now. Also, immediately after the scan was complete, I got this message -

SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0: TOSHIBA……

WARNING: Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk. A failure may be immenent

So I guess I really should have bought the hdd earlier.

About the shutdown issue, hopefully changing the hard disk will sort out everything. And the thermal grease thing was only for the heat sink. I unscrewed the heat sink from over the CPU, and the area between them was really really dry. That can't be good right?? I figured I'll add some grease back there.

Well, there you go. Its extremely important to get what data you can off the laptop and backed up.

Here is information on the thermal compound: http://forums.whatthetech.com/Thermal_Inte…al_t103650.html

Once you remove the heatsink it is absolutely necessary that you replace the thermal compound. You should do that sooner than later now.

When you install the new hard drive it is necessary to reload the operating system fresh. You have too much damage to the old system from bad clusters to trust that the system will run stable when the new hard drive is put in. Sorry, but you need to start over fresh with a clean installation on a good hard drive.

Well, there you go. Its extremely important to get what data you can off the laptop and backed up.

Here is information on the thermal compound: http://forums.whatthetech.com/Thermal_Inte…al_t103650.html

Once you remove the heatsink it is absolutely necessary that you replace the thermal compound. You should do that sooner than later now.

When you install the new hard drive it is necessary to reload the operating system fresh. You have too much damage to the old system from bad clusters to trust that the system will run stable when the new hard drive is put in. Sorry, but you need to start over fresh with a clean installation on a good hard drive.

Hey!

So I've finally decided to replace my hard disk. I know its been a while, but I got caught up in a lot of stuff.

In any case, I've bought a new hdd and went about installing it. The problem is, my lenovo comes with a hidden partition containing recovery data. I want that partition to remain on the new one, in case i need it later. Tried creating recovery discs, but apparently i had modified my partitions sometime earlier, so the recovery discs cannot be created.

I know the hdd is pretty badly damaged, but i figured I might be able to clone it (leaving bad clusters blank….right???) and then run a factory restore. Dos'nt wrk. Tried norton ghost, acronis, hdclone and easeus. They all either freeze to infinite (easeus says estimated time weeks) or say operation failed after a few hours (acronis ti).

Since windows was preinstalled, I don't have another disc either. Is there any other way I can install windows and keep the hidden partition???

Anyone has any ideas at all??????

Contact Lenovo for Factory installation CD/DVD. Should be available at a reasonable cost.

Contact Lenovo for Factory installation CD/DVD.
Should be available at a reasonable cost.

yeah they have it available. i was hoping there's some other way…….tnks anyway

There's just a chance you might be able to image the recovery partition only, try pulling the drive, put it in another machine and see if any of your imaging tools will work on it, but don't try and image the boot drive due to the errors on it. Your plan B, may be to do a fresh install of Windows onto a new hard drive, install all your basic applications, install your drivers, settings for Internet/email, addy book etc and then take an image which can then act as your "quasi restore partition", But if I were you I'd keep 2 copies of it (with one,or more if your gloomy) kept safe on removable media(USB drive for example)…… and don't forget to make a reliable boot disc that has, for example, USB support, so you will always be able to access your Image files even if windows wont run Regards paws

There's just a chance you might be able to image the recovery partition only, try pulling the drive, put it in another machine and see if any of your imaging tools will work on it, but don't try and image the boot drive due to the errors on it.

Your plan B, may be to do a fresh install of Windows onto a new hard drive, install all your basic applications, install your drivers, settings for Internet/email, addy book etc and then take an image which can then act as your "quasi restore partition", But if I were you I'd keep 2 copies of it (with one,or more if your gloomy) kept safe on removable media(USB drive for example)…… and don't forget to make a reliable boot disc that has, for example, USB support, so you will always be able to access your Image files even if windows wont run
Regards
paws

I did try that. The recovery partition clones all right, but with no operating system, obviously it dos'nt wrk. Later I tried to clone the boot partition from another laptop, and recovery partition from my Lenovo!!…I know it sounds highly inprobable, but i tried it anyway. As expected, it did'nt wrk. The recovery partition seems perfectly all right, not damaged at all. Its the boot thats casing problems. I can't do a fresh install coz i don't have the windows disc. My laptop came with preloaded Windows, with recovery partition.

ok now i the problems turned serious. My drive started making the clicking noises. its still wrking….surprisingly…..but i really need to do something quick…….

its probably dying…….get any last minute data copied off quickly..you may only have one more chance…………… so do everything you have to at the same time as your machine may only boot up one more time! Get a new hard drive, install a fresh copy of Windows ( as previously mentioned……. you can either get the discs from the manufacturer or retailer, or find a chum who's got the correct disc, and borrow it for the install…..( use your own serial number …..it should be on the bottom of the machine on the COA sticker) Once its all running fine then image it keep at least one copy of the image file safe on removable media and make a boot disc…so you will be fireproof for the future……. Regards paws