There's no way this is an overheating issue. He says most of the discs he tries works. If it was overheating, he'd have reboots more often than just the occasional DVD rip. This is almost definantly either scratched discs/bad burner, or a windows problem.

(in reply to jab29)

To be honest, it seemed to me that it was something to do with overheating as it has happened once before when I was running an emulator. I am currently trying a disc with no scratches on it again just to check to see what happens (double check it is only with scratched discs). How would I change the BIOS to throttle down rather than switch off? Any ideas? If it is set to switch off then that is the problem.

Ill keep you posted on the results from the non-scratched disc.

Thanks all!

(in reply to xciwmff)

Almost definatly a HEATING problem as I have tried running DVD Shrink on a non-scratched disc and it is doing the same thing now. Usually non-scratched discs work fine, but for some reason, now it is switching off. I would really appreciate any advice on how to get around this little predicerment. I don't want to start messing around wit BIOS set-up when I dont have a clue what to do!

(in reply to jab29)

I couldn't dig up much on your board aside from the fact that other eMachines laptops have it. This guy's post has a similar tone to yours...
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=167864

Regarding your question about checking the BIOS to throttle the CPU down (in the PM you sent me), if your BIOS is an Award BIOS then you can see if you have a POWER menu tab. If so, see if there is a "CPU Thermal Option"...my old ASUS A7V133 motherboard has options for {Throttle and Shutdown}...set it to Throttle.

Also if you've got a "Hardware Monitor" under the POWER tab, check to see what the temperatures are of your CPU and motherboard.

(in reply to jab29)

Thanks for that. had a read of what that other fella is saying. Not quite the same thing (I don't think).

The BIOS setup is whats known as 'Phoenix BIOS'. Not too sure what that is and if anyone is familiar with it, but any help on how to get it to "throttle down" would be much appreciated. I am adiment that this is the problem. I also read somewhere that overheating can be caused by dust entering the machiene and clogging up the fan. The lapop is only about 3/4 months old, so I cant see that being the problem; any views?

Thanks for everyones help.

(in reply to tqhoang)

quote:

ORIGINAL: xciwmff

There's no way this is an overheating issue. He says most of the discs he tries works. If it was overheating, he'd have reboots more often than just the occasional DVD rip. This is almost definantly either scratched discs/bad burner, or a windows problem.

You sound so sure of yourself.

Anyway, let me tell you a story about my friend who bought a Compaq laptop (Pentium III). He started having problems where the laptop would shutdown or reboot. It kept happening more and more and it finally trashed his WinXP. He was ready to throw the thing in the trash because it was out of warranty (so he thought), but I told him to let me take a look at it. It was weird because if I tried to reload WinXP from one of his two drives (DVD-ROM and a CD-RW) then it would reboot. I managed to get WinXP reinstalled and thought things were running ok until I used the other drive. Turns out that the drive worked fine, except that it was adjacent to the CPU and it's vibration had shaken the CPU's heatsink & fan too much.

Well, P3's had that auto-shutdown/lockup feature so they don't burn themselves up and essentially commit suicide. I did some more digging and apparently the mounting that Compaq had used was cheap and this happened to many users. We tried putting thermal paste to bridge any gaps and also tried to use epoxy to rebond the heatsink but it wouldn't cure. Since we kind of knew what the problem was now, he decided to get an estimate from CompUSA since they were the authorized Compaq repair center closest to him. Turns out that Compaq had extended his warranty by a year and they replaced the heatsink entirely.

(in reply to xciwmff)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jab29

Thanks for that. had a read of what that other fella is saying. Not quite the same thing (I don't think).

The BIOS setup is whats known as 'Phoenix BIOS'. Not too sure what that is and if anyone is familiar with it, but any help on how to get it to "throttle down" would be much appreciated. I am adiment that this is the problem. I also read somewhere that overheating can be caused by dust entering the machiene and clogging up the fan. The lapop is only about 3/4 months old, so I cant see that being the problem; any views?

Thanks for everyones help.

You can try CPUIdle's software cooling. I used to use it, but it that was when I had an Athlon 1GHz (Thunderbird).

(in reply to jab29)

quote:

ORIGINAL: tqhoang

quote:

ORIGINAL: xciwmff

There's no way this is an overheating issue. He says most of the discs he tries works. If it was overheating, he'd have reboots more often than just the occasional DVD rip. This is almost definantly either scratched discs/bad burner, or a windows problem.

You sound so sure of yourself.

Anyway, let me tell you a story about my friend who bought a Compaq laptop (Pentium III). He started having problems where the laptop would shutdown or reboot. It kept happening more and more and it finally trashed his WinXP. He was ready to throw the thing in the trash because it was out of warranty (so he thought), but I told him to let me take a look at it. It was weird because if I tried to reload WinXP from one of his two drives (DVD-ROM and a CD-RW) then it would reboot. I managed to get WinXP reinstalled and thought things were running ok until I used the other drive. Turns out that the drive worked fine, except that it was adjacent to the CPU and it's vibration had shaken the CPU's heatsink & fan too much.

Well, P3's had that auto-shutdown/lockup feature so they don't burn themselves up and essentially commit suicide. I did some more digging and apparently the mounting that Compaq had used was cheap and this happened to many users. We tried putting thermal paste to bridge any gaps and also tried to use epoxy to rebond the heatsink but it wouldn't cure. Since we kind of knew what the problem was now, he decided to get an estimate from CompUSA since they were the authorized Compaq repair center closest to him. Turns out that Compaq had extended his warranty by a year and they replaced the heatsink entirely.

You used epoxy on a CPU? Man, that takes guts, desperation, or stupidity. I'm also surprised that Compaq took back an opened, epoxied laptop.

@jab29, one last check to make sure this is an overheating issue. Do you also experience hangs and shutdowns while playing games?

(in reply to tqhoang)

quote:

ORIGINAL: xciwmff

quote:

ORIGINAL: tqhoang

quote:

ORIGINAL: xciwmff

There's no way this is an overheating issue. He says most of the discs he tries works. If it was overheating, he'd have reboots more often than just the occasional DVD rip. This is almost definantly either scratched discs/bad burner, or a windows problem.

You sound so sure of yourself.

Anyway, let me tell you a story about my friend who bought a Compaq laptop (Pentium III). He started having problems where the laptop would shutdown or reboot. It kept happening more and more and it finally trashed his WinXP. He was ready to throw the thing in the trash because it was out of warranty (so he thought), but I told him to let me take a look at it. It was weird because if I tried to reload WinXP from one of his two drives (DVD-ROM and a CD-RW) then it would reboot. I managed to get WinXP reinstalled and thought things were running ok until I used the other drive. Turns out that the drive worked fine, except that it was adjacent to the CPU and it's vibration had shaken the CPU's heatsink & fan too much.

Well, P3's had that auto-shutdown/lockup feature so they don't burn themselves up and essentially commit suicide. I did some more digging and apparently the mounting that Compaq had used was cheap and this happened to many users. We tried putting thermal paste to bridge any gaps and also tried to use epoxy to rebond the heatsink but it wouldn't cure. Since we kind of knew what the problem was now, he decided to get an estimate from CompUSA since they were the authorized Compaq repair center closest to him. Turns out that Compaq had extended his warranty by a year and they replaced the heatsink entirely.

You used epoxy on a CPU? Man, that takes guts, desperation, or stupidity. I'm also surprised that Compaq took back an opened, epoxied laptop.

@jab29, one last check to make sure this is an overheating issue. Do you also experience hangs and shutdowns while playing games?

Of course not...thermal paste (or Artic Silver) was for CPU contact. The heatsink literally broke off on the motherboard mounts. The epoxy was for trying to bond the aluminum pieces of the heatsink back together. I don't know about you, but I don't have anything to recast a heatsink in my house.

BTW, we've got balls...big brass ones!

(in reply to xciwmff)

DISASTER STRIKES!! The whole laptop has gone down now. I think somewhere along the line I have conracted a virus and when starting WinXP a "disc read error" occurs and says that I should press CTRL, ALT + DEL to restart. I do so and the same error message occurs.

I tried running a recovery on the system about 2/3 days ago to see if that would stop the cutting out, unfortunatly didnt. Unexplaiable behaviour from the M5322!!

In reponse to xciwmff, I dont tend to play games on the machiene, however when running a genesis emulator once, it did the same thing. Thankfully the machiene is stil under warrenty, but not too sure how long that will take!

Exceptionally annoying problem.

(in reply to tqhoang)

Your Windows install sounds like it has been trashed. Try running Memtest86+ and let it run for a few hours (if it can) to make a few full passes of all it's tests. This should remove your hard drive and CD/DVD drives from the list of problem makers. It'll be down to your CPU and memory...

(in reply to jab29)

For all that were trying to help with regards to my cutting out problem, thanks. It turns out that the cutting out was due to over-heating which was due to a clogged up fan. Despite the laptop only being a few months old, due to the fact that there isn't a clear ventelation gap, air is sucked in from the bottom of the laptop, and for all the time spent using it away from a desk, the machiene was sucking in dust thus clogging the fan. Just thought I would let you all know just incase anyone else starts to experience similar troubles with the emachines M5322.

Thanks again all.

(in reply to tqhoang)