General computer talk/advice

Battery is like any other tablet, and these days many other laptops, just bare cells soldered and glued in. Like if you can get the thing open and closed again, I could change it, just need a soldering iron and some patience removing the glue. But it's not a consumer replaceable item no.

Even say dells xps15. You can replace the battery but you need to remove a lot of stuff first and void warranty in process. My razer, opening the bottom panel is enough and does not void warranty. Few laptops have externally removable batteries now.

Your opinion does seem to be from a niche these days. There are people out there appreciating big user serviceable parts, but average Joe gives no fucks. I personally love that my laptop is so lightweight and portable, I don't appreciate that the battery and storage are only replaceable parts though, no idea why the ram is soldered, even WiFi is I think

 

Found out more about my new iMac.

It's a 2001 Indigo iMac. It has a 500MHz PowerPC 750CX processor, 320 megs of ram (upgraded from the factory 64 megs), and a Rage 128 Ultra GPU, with extra VGA output for, you guessed it, a second monitor. It runs MacOS 9.2.2 (flawlessly with extensions disabled), and I'll be upgrading it to the max supported 1GB of ram and OS X 10.3 Panther. It'll also get a wireless card.

I'm in love, it's like a gateway drug. I'm already looking at buying an eMac.

 

Its still a thing that mainly only applies to high end gear though, (and some ultra thin cheap shit) most average consumer laptops still have proper removable batteries.

Just looking through the Windows laptops list on curry's all of the laptops HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo and a couple of others all have removable batteries. The models with "conventional" latch batteries are some of the HPs and Acers, the rest are internal but aren't glued in and use a removable connector for easy replacement.

I'd argue that most users value a replaceable battery over many different options in a laptop, batteries are one of the first issue to arise in any laptop I've owned and given the average 5 years of use before upgrading its pretty likely to be bad during ownership.

On a side note, I don't really understand the appeal of thin laptops, I've yet to find a bag or any space not "tall enough" to fit even a chunky thinkpad with no issues, smaller dimensions are understandable but thickness has yet to be a hindrance to me.

 

Fashion. Form over function and all that crap.

 

Less fashion but weight. I used to have a bog standard 15" dell Inspiron, ya know nothing fancy but pretty much exactly normal laptop size. I highly appreciated the reduced size and weight of my hp sleekbook that replaced it, hated the weight when I went to the 2007 Macbook pro (which didn't fit my backpack very well with its aspect ratio), loved the sleekbook when I switched back and now live my razer blade 14. Hardly the most lightweight laptop in the world, but I'll accept it's got to weigh a little more when it has double the battery capacity, a GPU and single piece aluminium casing like a unibody Macbook. It's actually same dimensions as the sleekbook still.

I don't personally want say an 11-13" ultrabook, but I do actually get the appeal. Housemate has an xps13, takes no room in his backpack target than being like even my razer happily fitting but still occupying quite some space, when he's packing a few days of clothes too as he often does that's important to him.
--- Post updated ---

Dad's girlfriend has one of the £300 Acer's. Entirely soldered and glued battery. It's not even a slim laptop, it's full size 15", it was marked removable in PC world when she got it but pc world rarely list items correctly

 

True, I also think cost cutting and planned obsolescence plays a little part in certain designs aswell.

 

I don't know but I don't think manafacturers go out of their way to make their devices not repairable, just it is a consequence of slimming the device down, you can only have 2:
Slimmer Device
Cheaper Device [to design etc]
Repairable Device

And the first two are the most often chosen. Clevo is probably the last two.

 

Here's an update on the computer.

I do think the whole start up issue was fixed, because it hasn't done it since then. But, it's not out of the woods yet. Lately it's been doing something different. It started doing it the morning after the previous issue was resolved.

Spoiler: What do you think this sounds like?

After a while, the CPU usage drops to very low percentages, and everything opened like Chrome, Task Manager, and even the desktop and taskbar will act strange. By strange, they become unresponsive for a period of time, and with Task Manager, just clicking from performance to processes will make TM freeze up for a bit. The only thing that seemed just about unaffected by it was the Resource Monitor, I was able to use it with no issues to recall while the computer was going nuts. The computer may also possibly freeze up at times. It also seemed impossible to open up stuff. The main things I noticed with it was very low CPU usage, the lowest I had seen it, and what appears to be a consistent timeframe leading up to when it happens. Typically it seems to act up about 1 hour into usage. First time I noticed it, it happened at about 1 hour and 25 minutes in, second time it was about 1 hour in, and today about 1 hour and 20 minutes in. Another thing I noticed when I turned it on today, when the computer was acting up, when on Disk under the Performance tab on TM, the Average response time, Read speed, and Write speed all went to 0, and occasionally some numbers from monitoring the computer appeared for a couple of seconds before returning to 0. After forcefully restarting the computer, and when I opened TM back up, those three items returned to normal. I recently tried to run a SFC scan using Command Prompt as administrator, but the computer started acting up when it was at 97%.

So it pretty much acts normal until about 1 hour into using it, as if it's on some kind of time limit.

 

Try running Prime95 on it and see if it freezes quicker than in 1 hour?

Still could be disk issues, with HDD (hard disk, one that has spinning disk inside) you could have bad sectors and issues happen only when reading/writing on those, it does exactly what you write up if there is such.

Using some other computer download and burn this to dvd:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Then boot problematic computer with that dvd and do HDD checks, check youtube for tutorial videos, here is one random video:



You can also try this (same use other computer to burn it, then boot problematic computer with it):
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Check if computer acts up when using that for more than one hour (surf the net, don't use disk drive), then you know that it can't be HDD if it still freezes up.

Of course it still can be software issue, but eliminating hardware issues usually is easier as you test components like CPU, memory, HDD and then if nothing is found to be wrong it can be software issue. There are

If you have that SSD (Solid State Drive, faster, no spinning parts inside), then problem might not be the drive, but something else.

Basics of diagnosing computer problem is systematically eliminate potential causes by doing tests and usually it is virus check or hardware checks where to start.

They will do same things in computer repair shops, but give you big bill, I know as I used to work on such for some time.

 

This is a lot to take in, but I'll see what I can do, because I'd like to get back to using it like I normally would.

Now I have some questions, I don't know if I'm right about this, but I think that some of those programs like Knoppix and UltimateBootCD can be utilized by using a USB. Would it be possible for me to go that route? Would that affect the process in any way?

 

You would need to make USB stick bootable, that is additional step that I believe youtube has some tutorial videos, burning CD or DVD is easier way, but that USB stick method is certainly possible too. You need to then select boot from USB stick option instead of CDrom option in bios or boot menu, so it does add bit to complexity.

I think that to make USB stick bootable, I needed to use floppy disc emulator, it is a long time since I did that, so don't remember exactly, but it is a lot easier to burn DVD or CD image to disc and it is great to have recovery CD/DVD around for a future needs.

Of course if computer does not have optical drive, USB stick route is only option, but you need to really look for tutorial video of making bootable usb stick.

 

Okay, I think I'll probably stick with the CD/DVD route then, but if I have to go the USB route, I'll consider it. It'll depend on a lot of factors.

It leaves some problems though, I don't have any blank CDs/DVDs laying around, and I think the ODD on the computer I'm using isn't as good as it used to be. How long do you think it would take to burn those programs to a disc? Because I'm thinking that I might be able to use the other computer that's having issues to do it, at least if it can burn stuff of course, which I'm assuming it can. I'd have to wait until I have the money to get some blank discs though.

 

It really depends from ODD and blanks of what speed it burns, but if it is anything from 5 years, then I guess it is only few minutes, but you need to download those files and if HDD is in poor condition any writing can cause it to act up.

That is why it might be best to use other computer, but if you download directly to USB stick, maybe that could work better or use other computer to download to USB stick and just burn on problematic computer?

 

I think I worded the condition of the ODD on the computer I'm using wrong. What I meant was the ODD on the one I'm using doesn't work properly. The one on the other computer though works fine, which is why I considered trying to burn the files onto the disk using that computer.

 

Before using ultimate boot CD may I suggest you use Crystal disk info, it can be run from windows and is a lot more user friendly for those with less technical knowledge and will give you a general idea of the health of your drive. http://download.cnet.com/CrystalDiskInfo/3000-2086_4-10832082.html

 

Thank you for telling me about it. I'll consider using it too. If I remember, I'll download it onto the computer next time I turn it on.

 

Idea is specifically not to run from Windows to eliminate messed up Windows factor out.

 

All the program will do is give him the basic condition of the drive using it's S.M.A.R.T data. Just something a little easy for him to check before delving into more complex troubleshooting.

 

Crystal Disk Info is known to me, I have used it to monitor drive temps for two years or so:



It gives some indication, but I remember several cases from time when I was working as computer technician, where problem was in HDD and smart did not really reveal anything (we actually started to call it stupid as it really was hit or miss), I don't quite understand how it can not show failures sometimes, but doing through checkup gave then clear result of drive failure while smart claiming everything being fine.


However I'm thinking that maybe his neighbor could do that more complex troubleshooting as that neighbor did got computer to boot up so maybe would make it easier?

One problem when you have been with computers from early 80's is that it is kinda hard to see what is difficult for common people, thousands and thousands of fixed computers so lot of stuff is still so easy that don't need to even think to make them happen, but many of those are nearly impossible to someone not done such things. Even I have forgotten more than half of everything already, it is hard to realize some things being difficult.

 

I agree, it's one thing to tell someone to do this, this and that. But in truth it's much harder to diagnose an issue when you don't have the machine in your hands. I used to be a tech before I quit to care for family and I understand where you're coming from when you say it's easy to forget that a lot of the terms and diagnostic tools we use that are second nature to us are completely alien to others, I'm guilty of forgetting that aswell.