Laptop help

BDL

I'm trying to download some video from my camcorder on to my old laptop as it uses XP and my camcorder software is not vista compatable.

Problem is that the laptop keeps overheating and cutting out - Any ways I can stop it doing this apart from putting it in the freezer?

Rothko

Standard answer from me on all these Windows based threads.

Buy a Mac

razil

sounds like a broken fan, on laptops as they are over clocked this can be quite serious meltdown wise

Henry Irving

Tried to boot up my old thinkpad and it just said "fan error" and closed down again.

Fix it or bin it?

razil

bin

JohnBoyUK

All about the airflow...common problem on older laptops...

If you can, take off the backcover and clear out the air vents and the even better, clear out the fans... (DO NOT USE A HOOVER - the static will fry the chips - use one of them compressed air squirty can things)

If that doesnt help...prop the lappy up between two books then use a desktop fan to direct air underneath...short term measure but it may give you enough time to upload the video, save it to an external drive then you can edit on your vista machine.

BDL

Cheers John - I've cleared out the fan so I guess it's had it really! I might have a go at taking the internal bits out of the plastic casing and modding it into an old tower I have. Should give it better airflow.

BDL

[cite]Posted By: Rothko[/cite]Standard answer from me on all these Windows based threads.

Buy a Mac

Love too, but need a PC as the kids use it and the school only runs PC's!

TEL

Would highly recommend you get an ICY Box.....allows you to export files from your hard drive when it goes pop....which it sounds like its about to..... they are only £14.99

A cheap price to pay to save your files in my opinion.

BDL

[cite]Posted By: Telnotinoz[/cite]Would highly recommend you get an ICY Box.....allows you to export files from your hard drive when it goes pop....which it sounds like its about to..... they are only £14.99

A cheap price to pay to save your files in my opinion.

Aleady backed them up from the old laptop - so won't be a major problem when it does go bang!

Medders

[cite]Posted By: Rothko[/cite]Standard answer from me on all these Windows based threads.

Buy a Mac

Amen to that reverend

ISawLeaburnScore

[cite]Posted By: Telnotinoz[/cite]Would highly recommend you get an ICY Box.....allows you to export files from your hard drive when it goes pop....which it sounds like its about to..... they are only £14.99

A cheap price to pay to save your files in my opinion.

This is exactly the kind of thing i need to recover my music and photos. My hard drive won't past the windows start up screen on my old laptop... I need something to get a reasonable amount of GB, (maybe 50odd) off my old laptop hard drive and on to my new one without ever actually going into Windows or even past the set up screen on start-up.

you sound a lot more clued up than I am on the subject... any recommended retailers, advice etc. or just an ebay job? Thanks in advance... could be a lifesaver

aliwibble

ISLS - is it just a windows problem or is the hardware on your old laptop knackered? You could try using a bootable linux CD to see if you can get into the system without using windows, and if you can then you should be able to copy your files off to CD, DVD or memory card as normal. If the hard disk is ok and it's just the motherboard that's stuffed then you can take the hard drive out and stick it in a drive enclosure of some description. A lot of them need you to know whether it's got IDE or SATA connections, but one of these can apparently cope with both.

ISawLeaburnScore

hard drive is fooked, PC world wanted a ton just to have a look at it and have a go at getting the files off, unsurprisingly i told them to shove it

Leroy Ambrose

[cite]Posted By: ISawLeaburnScore[/cite]hard drive is fooked, PC world wanted a ton just to have a look at it and have a go at getting the files off, unsurprisingly i told them to shove it

Ah - but is it 'proper fooked' or just that Windows won't boot? Have you tried putting the drive into an external enclosure? If PC World have told you that the drive is faulty and you haven't verified this yourself it could just be Billy Bullshit talking. A lot of the time, if the Operating System is installed on the same disk as data its just something wrong with Windows - and its quicker and easier to just chuck the thing onto a zecondary IDE or another SATA port than it is to try and troubleshoot. Of course, PC World won't tell you this...

I HATE going to those places - had to go in there about three months ago for a laptop for my nephew - put up with the seventeen your old tit with glue in his hair talking bollocks at me for five minutes before losing the will to live and telling him the first thing I would be doing when I got the laptop home would be wiping the fecker and installing Windows properly - so the extra bloatware he was trying to sell me was a non-starter.

Robbo on the wing

[cite]Posted By: BDL[/cite]I'm trying to download some video from my camcorder on to my old laptop as it uses XP and my camcorder software is not vista compatable.

Problem is that the laptop keeps overheating and cutting out - Any ways I can stop it doing this apart from putting it in the freezer?

Bucket of icy water?

BDL

[cite]Posted By: Robbo on the wing[/cite]

[cite]Posted By: BDL[/cite]I'm trying to download some video from my camcorder on to my old laptop as it uses XP and my camcorder software is not vista compatable.

Problem is that the laptop keeps overheating and cutting out - Any ways I can stop it doing this apart from putting it in the freezer?

Bucket of icy water?