Old Laptop - Keeps Freezing - Help!

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reemoe2

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I have a HP 2000 Notebook laptop that's about six years old. It has an Intel Core i3 processor. I believe it came with Windows 8, but it's been upgraded to Windows 10 a couple years ago. For a while now, it randomly freezes up; I cannot do anything, even ctrl-alt-delete. I have to hold down the power button for 5 seconds to start over.

I've done a little Google searching for this problem, and I think it may have to do with the change to Windows 10.

One of the things mentioned as a potential fix is to "Disable C-States in BIOS." The problem is when I get to the BIOS Setup Utility, my computer doesn't seem to list the CPU Power Management settings that I've read about. There is supposed to be a "C1E Function" and "Intel C-State tech" that should be changed to 'Disabled.'

Any computer geeks out there that know what I might be overlooking?

Thanks in advance!
Ryan
 
Personally, I would smash that with a BFH and buy something new that fits your price range. A six year old laptop is essentially the same as a Yugo, and you can buy a new, much faster laptop for not much money and have hardware and software that will play nice with each other, and a warranty for a year or so. The hardware advancement in just the last 18 months alone is staggering, both processor and graphics wise, let alone NVME SSDs. Even if you do fix your current problem, a new laptop at the same price as your old one originally was will be many, many times faster.

Your best bet if you're intent on saving it is to review the Windows error logs and start looking up the 0x000000 codes that will get you some info on the failure; this will be much simpler if you see the same error code each time. One thing to note, especially since you are dealing with old hardware: have you ensured all of your chipset, graphics, NIC, etc etc etc drivers are updated and are actual WIN 10 WHQL certified? OEM manufacturers typically do not enable you to change the "deep" settings even when in BIOS, because they design the mobos and BIOS to be as pain-free for them during the warranty period, not pain-free for you long after they expect you to be a repeat customer. The settings you are looking for may not even be user-accessible, in which case you're SOL, sorry.

Yes, things are "supposed" to play nice since they are all in Microsoft's playground, but hardware manufacturers give up on software support and updates LOOOONG before MS throws in the towel from trying to get your money for their latest and greatest OS.
 
Hard Drive may be bad.

You may want to run a test.

BIOS may have a HD test in it.
I assume you know how to get into the BIOS screen.
 
Last edited:
I'd try replacing the HD with a SSD and a fresh install of W10. A 6 year old laptop with i3 processor is still very usable for surfing the internet.
 
Originally Posted by JMJNet
Hard Drive may be bad.

You may want to run a test.

BIOS may have a HD test in it.
I assume you know how to get into the BIOS screen.


I agree, the HD is the first thing I would check.

Originally Posted by dishdude
I'd try replacing the HD with a SSD and a fresh install of W10. A 6 year old laptop with i3 processor is still very usable for surfing the internet.


IMHO 6 year old laptop has a few good years in it. I have a real old Dell D630, Core 2 Duo, 2 gig ram, dual booting Windows 10 and MX Linux. Runs just fine with the web, office, video's, social media, mail.
 
try going into safe mode. press f8 numerous times after the hp splash screen. Once in safe mode bring up a command prompt and type chkdsk /f c:
The other thing is if you have a win 10 install disk boot from it. At the first prompt press shift f10. A command prompt should come up. type dir c: and dir d: see which one is the right size for your c:. the type chkdsk /f c: or chkdsk /f d:
 
Originally Posted by SubieRubyRoo
Personally, I would smash that with a BFH and buy something new that fits your price range. A six year old laptop is essentially the same as a Yugo, and you can buy a new, much faster laptop for not much money and have hardware and software that will play nice with each other, and a warranty for a year or so. The hardware advancement in just the last 18 months alone is staggering, both processor and graphics wise, let alone NVME SSDs. Even if you do fix your current problem, a new laptop at the same price as your old one originally was will be many, many times faster.

Your best bet if you're intent on saving it is to review the Windows error logs and start looking up the 0x000000 codes that will get you some info on the failure; this will be much simpler if you see the same error code each time. One thing to note, especially since you are dealing with old hardware: have you ensured all of your chipset, graphics, NIC, etc etc etc drivers are updated and are actual WIN 10 WHQL certified? OEM manufacturers typically do not enable you to change the "deep" settings even when in BIOS, because they design the mobos and BIOS to be as pain-free for them during the warranty period, not pain-free for you long after they expect you to be a repeat customer. The settings you are looking for may not even be user-accessible, in which case you're SOL, sorry.

Yes, things are "supposed" to play nice since they are all in Microsoft's playground, but hardware manufacturers give up on software support and updates LOOOONG before MS throws in the towel from trying to get your money for their latest and greatest OS.


Yep they had a brand new HP at my Costco today for $549 I5 Chip and 8 gig of Ram.
 
You need a new hard drive.

I do this all day everyday for a living as an IT Equipment Coordinator. I regularly refurbish 5+ year old laptops and desktops that run SUPER slow, I just pop in an extra stick of RAM (which wouldn't have sped the PC up by itself BTW) and a new SSD hard drive and a fresh copy of Windows 10, and they're always super fast afterwards.

You can create a bootable Windows 10 flash drive at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and install the new hard drive.
 
A new HDD and Linux Mint will probably get you at least another 3-4 years out of it. Maybe more.
 
This. If it's an operating system problem, the easiest solution is to delete the problematic operating system. I'd back up the data, install Mint or something similar and see what happens. If it still locks up, then check into another HD, diagnose further, or junk it.
 
Originally Posted by Garak
This. If it's an operating system problem, the easiest solution is to delete the problematic operating system. I'd back up the data, install Mint or something similar and see what happens. If it still locks up, then check into another HD, diagnose further, or junk it.

thumbsup2.gif
 
I am typing this on a 8 year old HP that had similar issues a year ago.. I also have a new laptop in my office but this one is in my mancave.

First off i would backup everything u want to keep off of your laptop on a portable hard drive..


With that being said open Task Manager as soon as you can and scroll down to see what is sucking your CPU and memory. I found a few items that found their way into my laptop that were using a major part of my memory and CPU. Click on those items and End Task.

One item in particular was using over 50percent of my memory and i was unable to do anything until i stopped it.

May work may not worth a try.
 
it may just be something as simple as a bad cpu fan or plugged heat sink

win 10 uses more resources so the fan on variable speed cpus often runs all the time

take the back off the laptop and take a look
 
Originally Posted by Nick1994
You need a new hard drive.

I do this all day everyday for a living as an IT Equipment Coordinator. I regularly refurbish 5+ year old laptops and desktops that run SUPER slow, I just pop in an extra stick of RAM (which wouldn't have sped the PC up by itself BTW) and a new SSD hard drive and a fresh copy of Windows 10, and they're always super fast afterwards.

You can create a bootable Windows 10 flash drive at
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and install the new hard drive.


I agree. But start with a cleaning.

If rotating media is in there now, just image to an SSD in external enclosure and pop it in when done.

No more rotating media for me for years now. Writing this on a Gateway that still runs fine
smile.gif
 
That's exactly what I did with an iCore7 DELL I got used on eBay (HD magnesium frame notebook) …

Plenty fast after that … and didn't want someone else's HD in it anyway …
 
Originally Posted by JMJNet
Hard Drive may be bad.

You may want to run a test.

BIOS may have a HD test in it.
I assume you know how to get into the BIOS screen.

Thats my bet too, Run HD tests if it will run.
 
you just overloaded it, as noted more RAM is the answer. i am not very computer savy but internet searching can teach you. i upgraded RAM on an older lappy + replaced a hard drive on a 17" Dell. bigger is better! smaller machines are harder to work on period! search how to speed up+ upgrade your laptop, read + learn as i am doing on that very search
 
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