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ravenbsp
04-10-2007, 08:18 AM
Hi All. I have a Tecra M4 with 1.5 gb ram. I love the computer and it has run flawlessly for over a year. Lately it has been hanging just prior to the Toshiba splash screen if the system is hot (ie doing a restart after installing an update). If I then wait 5 minutes it will then boot past the splash screen and start windows.

The problem has worsened over the last week and now even if I can get it to boot, it sometimes won't even load windows or if windows loads it hangs maybe 10-15 minutes. Doing anything CPU intensive will tend to cause it to freeze almost immediately.

Things that I have tried:

1. I swapped out the memory (1gb and 512mb sticks), trying each individually and in different slots.

2. I opened up the thing to check that the CPU was seated correctly and foound that the genius who put the thing together applied themal paste just to the left of the actual core.

3. I used Spinrite to check the hard drive, which was fine.

4. I booted into knoppix. This seemed more stable.

5. I tried booting using only the battery, nothing.

6. It hangs 100% of the time when trying to enter safemode.

7. Flashed the bios to latest version

8. Reformatted drive and re-installed windows

9. I sacrificed a chicken to it, nothing but McNuggets.

It sounds like a CPU problem to me. Replacements seem to run from $70.00 to $200.00. I'm willing to try a new cpu, but why the huge price difference?

Any insight would be deeply apreciated.

wthor
04-10-2007, 09:42 AM
Check if your air intake ( under the machine ) or air outlet ( on the left side ) are clogged with dust.

If you are within warrany, you should get it serviced.

It probably is not the CPU (yet) but airflow problems. If the problems continue for long, they may however affect the CPU.

ravenbsp
04-10-2007, 09:45 AM
When I took the thing apart I blew out all the cruft, there wasn't much anyway. It is out of waranty :(

wthor
04-10-2007, 11:34 AM
Since you noticed that there was only partially applied thermal paste, I assume that you removed the cooling grid. When you reassembled your machine, did you clean the cpu and cooler and reapply thermal paste ? Did you perhaps apply too much thermal paste ? (there should be only enough to make the CPU smudged, not so much that you'd want to climb it).