Laptop hardware question

[Magn3tar]

is the cpu fan supposed to be on at all times or does it cut on and cut off?

[Alc]

Most spin up and down as required, so if things are getting hot the fan will spin up for a minute or two and then slow down again.

[Canadian*Sniper]

without a fan your mobo is toast. It's HOT in that box. Needs a fan(s) running at all times when the computer is on.

[Phenom]

For laptops, hearing an internal fan turning on and off is normal, the internal fan turns on to cool stuff down and then shuts itself off automatically. Aslong as you don't hear grinding sounds or the laptop doesn't generate an extreme amount of heat you should be OK

[foq]

Watch temps... get a program like speedfan and see what you get..

[Canadian*Sniper]

oh whooops I didn't see the keyword "laptop" in here

[Magn3tar]

Well I'm typing this from my laptop, so I finally have it up and running.

Began with my computer having fatal errors and I did a BIOS test and it said my hard drive..

Replaced my hard drive-$70

Then I found that my Windows copy was bad so I had to buy a reboot disk from HP..

Reboot Disk-$20

Got windows installed, then it continued doing the same crap as before I replaced my hard drive.

Spent all night taking my laptop apart and cleaned the fan and heatsink of all dust. Thus far my laptop hasn't restarted or anything. Oh on a stupid side note I had a screw in too tight and it grounded into my MOBO took me a short while to fix that.

Now that I got everything back together I power this sucker on and hear BEEP BEEP. Great, bad memory.. Narrowed it down to one of my sticks of memory. I am now only running 512 MB of RAM on this piece of shit.

And now to top it all off, my wireless internet conncects like shit, I mean i'm talking 2 mbps and such, low to no signal at all times even though my router is slap next to me, never a problem for the last year or so until now. The only thing I can think of is that I found two wires with metal ends attached to them running from my blue wireless laptop button. Could that be an antennae? Is there a place on my computer that those metal ends should be touching to amplify my signal?

So basically I guess I won't buy the second stick of RAM until I figure out this wireless problem. Thanks for listening to my story and any advise is greatly appreciated..

[Phenom]

Is your laptop's wireless hardware external or internal? If its internal you might have jerk'd one of the antenna wires around or both of them.. thats just from the experiences with my old laptop.. of course that laptop got ran over by a hummer eventually

[E]s-Doom]

it depends on your fan model and for what cpu amd will stay on most of the time but an intel will shut on and off dude to heat sensors OR it could be because your computer is trying to save energy =)

[kaeser]

many laptop antennas )eg. LG) are wires that go from the wireless card and around the monitor for best reception... so it's possible. you might have also fried something when you grounded your mobo with that screw...

as for the fan, yes, they go on and off with heat.
keep the rear of the laptop elevated with a book to keep it cooler. it will save battery because your fan won't need to go off as much, and it's better ergonomics for your hands...

[foq]

I want to buy all laptop hardware and put it in a desktop and put big desktop coolers on everything :p

[Grim]

Why?

[Alc]

You can get a laptop CPU adapter for my (old, out-of-date) mobo apparently. Allows you to use a Pentium M instead of a P4. Can't imagine there were too many takers, although apparently it overclocked quite nicely and needed next to no cooling.

[foq]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819111170
A socket 478 Pentium M!! But I think paying $200 for a 1.73GHz is a little crazy when you can get http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157107
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116262
for about $150 (estimate)

[foq]

Mag, there are very tech savvy people over at http://techpowerup.com/forums, in fact I am registered there myself, these people can better help you.