Laptop fix issues. Advice?

funkydmunky

funkydmunky

2[H]4U
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Aug 28, 2008
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Re doing a friends mums LT. Simple right ;)
They complained of issues but I took it as they had run the machine into the ground. Maybe not!
Swapped out the slow spinner for a SSD and doubled the RAM that was gifted by the sons old LT. Ran memory tests and all is well :)
Install Win10 and all is well. Go to do the updates to finish it off and notice the wi-fi is very erratic. Drops the wi-fi multiple times and the speeds are fine then non-existent. Then the mouse cursor has a distinct freeze every 2 seconds for 2 seconds. WTF? Why? I assume it is an update issue such as a bad driver and redo the machine. All is well and hand it off.
Right :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
So I get a call from my friend that his mum is having issues. I go over and she hadn't plugged in her wireless mouse and doesn't know how to use the track-pad :(. Not the point, but then I help her out because I'm there. In doing so I notice issues with web page loads so I move it closer to her wi-fi modem. Still erratic. No bars, some bars, lots of bars and back again. I call her internet tech support and we determine that the modem is fine (double checked with my phone) so it is a LT wi-fi issue. Then later the screen goes blank on and off a few times then settles on a half dim display? and the 2 second mouse pause is back. WTF!
If anyone has any input to this situation I would be glad to listen. I am working on it now but thought I best drop a post in case this sparks someones past experience.
Cheers!
 
I might add that during task manager, after the 2 second pausing mouse issue, the CPU usage bounced from 25% to 50% erratically. Very consitant looking like shark teeth on the graph. This is with no programs or any activity on the machine. CPU speed stayed consitant and was running at its full speed the whole time. To me this shows it isn't thermal throttling. But why the CPU is maxing speed and fluxing between a low to medium load when nothing is happening is beyond me.
 
Removed the wi-fi hardware and no difference. I think I will try to re-paste and re-seat the cooling tomorrow, even though the CPU wasn't throttling.
LT originally shipped with Win7 (AM1) and had issues, so the Win10 wouldn't be the problem right? I mean at times it does work completely fine.
 
Windows 10 isn't friendly to older hardware, the AM1 platform included. It's going to run a lot slower than any previous version of Windows will due to the processor vulnerability patches. I had a customer with an AM1 Athlon 5350 machine I built them originally with Windows 7. It got upgraded to 10 when the forced upgrades were a thing, and it went from a usable machine to painful overnight. Tasks that used to be quick and snappy started to take dozens of minutes and would frequently make the machine unresponsive. Most of the time, all four cores were over 50% utilized, even doing nothing on the desktop.

But the freezing and wifi issues sounds like a shitty Windows 10 driver problem. Microsoft has kept pushing the notion to leave everything to them and they can manage drivers for all of your stuff, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Windows 10's built in drivers are often ancient, dating back to the Vista days, and the drivers on Windows Update aren't any better. This causes problems on all hardware, but especially on older hardware which never got an official Windows 10 driver release. Weird issues like freezing or peripherals not working correctly are signs of it.

I would recommend trying to install all of the drivers for the laptop manually, rather than rely on Windows 10's terrible driver library. Microsoft's built in drivers. This may take a bit of digging on your part if the laptop manufacturer doesn't have the drivers anymore. I'd recommend installing the chipset drivers from AMD and the wifi drivers from whoever made the wifi card. You may unfortunately have to navigate those backwater driver sites if the laptop or wifi card manufacturer doesn't have them.
 
Google the laptop model and issue you are having. If it is a driver issue there are usually threads about it already.
 
Thanks for the advice. I might as well just do a Win7 install to see how it goes then dig drivers if needed.
 
So you cloned the drive? That right there is likely the problem. I've had weird issues, no matter what cloning software I've used (Easeus, Macrium). Some people get lucky but I'd rather just re install and get everything right from the ground up. No point in wasting time chasing ghosts when you don't have to.
 
The screen turning off and on sounds like a display driver update (or crash, but usually something pops up in the corner when there's a crash), the mouse pausing could be related to background IO or the CPU changing power states.

How many CPU cores/threads does the laptop have? If just two total, then 50% could be 100% of one core. If that's the one the user interface thread is on, that could explain the mouse pausing somewhat.

For the wifi, check that the internal antenna wires haven't been disconnected or damaged. There may be a separate door under the laptop, or they may be sharing the memory or hard drive bays.
 
dvsman said:
So you cloned the drive? That right there is likely the problem. I've had weird issues, no matter what cloning software I've used (Easeus, Macrium). Some people get lucky but I'd rather just re install and get everything right from the ground up. No point in wasting time chasing ghosts when you don't have to.
Click to expand...
No. Clean installs of both 7 and 10
 
This LT is driving me crazy. Loads win7 fine but won't load wi-fi of Ethernet drivers on install, and the HP drivers seem impossible to find. I found a USB wi-fi dongle and plugged that in but it is acting crazy flaky so I don't know if it is the dongle or the LT. Maybe I will try a linux distro?
Win7 at least isn't acting erradic like Win10 was.
 
Can't install Win10. It is like a timer. After a short bit the screen goes to half brightness and the mouse pausing begins. At least Win10 installed the ethernet drivers and I was also able to connect with the USB wi-fi. I think I will remove the wi-fi card from the system. It isn't functioning and it may be causing issues so out it goes.
Back to Win7 for a deeper dive i guess.
 
For posterity. I needed to fully remove the wi-fi card. Win10 then installed without issue and a USB wi-fi dongle now provides the net for this POS LT :ROFLMAO:
 
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