hello all. ive been having problems with my dv8000.

ive had it for about a year and a half, it has basic specifications
1.8 ghz turion
512 mb RAM
80 gig hard drive
ati vid card

the problem:

it has been entering standby,hibernation, or shutdown mode randomly. and when i touc hthe computer is it VERY hot. it is running hotter than my desktop is.

are there any hardware or software adjustments that i can do?

i would like to upgrade the the processor if that is an issue.

1. Make sure that it is clean of any malware. Malware can cause your computer to shutdown randomly, act like hardware issues, but really be software, act funny, etc.
2. It may sound stupid, but double check your power settings in the control panel.
3. I remember at work a couple years ago the dv8000's with the Turion did run pretty hot. It wouldn't hurt to blow some compressed air in there and get rid of any potential dust that may be inhibiting airflow. A cooling pad would most likely help if you want to use one of those. There are some models that almost require a cooling pad. If you can't get one of those, try to keep it elevated and on smooth surfaces.
4. Download "speedfan"; it is a free monitoring utility. Let us know what your core temps are at and we can decide how to combat the issue from there.

How hot? And with what are you measuring?

Is it clean of heat trapping dust?

If you don't have a full anti-malware arsenal, check out my sticky, Cleaning Out Malware.

See if blasting a desk fan into the interior help.

Personally, I have never felt hybernate mode was reliable, I don't use it.

sorry for the late reply but i have been consumed in school.
i have checked for malware, its clean.

the laptop is shutting down randomly when the underside of hte laptop is blazin hot.
hot enough to where if i left my hand on long enough i might leave a minor burn.

Originally Posted by pajelaandrew

the laptop is shutting down randomly when the underside of hte laptop is blazin hot.
hot enough to where if i left my hand on long enough i might leave a minor burn.

Well, understand, it is SUPPOSED to shut down, to avoid permanent damage. I hope you have a current backup of your data.

Excessive heat is usually caused by 3 things:

1. Inadequate cool air flow - Make sure your fans are spinning
2. Dirt and dust buildup - traps heat like a blanket - laptops, because of their construction and difficulty accessing the internal components, sometimes must be taken in to a shop and disassembled by a professional, then thoroughly cleaned.
3. Abnormal electrical currents - cause by a failing component, or mismanaged overclocking

Even once the above is verified and corrected where necessary, you may still have some heat issues - an inherent problem with laptops. You might want to looking buying a Laptop Cooling Pad w/ext. power supply. I recommend you select one with an external power supply instead of one that runs off the laptop's power - this is so the pad's power demands don't place more demands on the laptop's power circuits, increasing the very heat you are trying to get rid of. Sadly, those that run on external power are hard to find - probably because road warriors don't want to lug yet another power supply around.

well would installing linux be an easier solution?


i know that the installation and finding the drivers would be a pain but i know that windows is hogging tons of resources and i think it would be beneficial to install a type of linux (ubuntu or fedora core) onto the system.

would installing linux be an easier solution?

Too much heat is caused by inadequate cooling or over-stressed and/or failing electronics. Windows uses a lot of resources, but holding all that data in memory is not working the computer. It is primarily the activities you do that causes the CPU, RAM, chipset, graphics, and hard drive to work hard, and heat up. Meaning a computer at idle should run at the same temperatures, regardless the operating system. Windows at idle may keep a computer a little warmer, because Windows rarely is doing nothing - but the differences of a degree or 2 are insignificant because you should not be getting so close to the threshold in the first place.

What are the actual temperatures? Your computer may have come with a utilities disk, and if so, it should have a monitoring program (or check for a more recent version on your maker's website). If none, I recommend CoreTemp for newer Intel and AMD64 CPUs. Speedfan (already mentioned), or you can try Motherboard Monitor. Unfortunately, I have found that these programs often have problems properly identifying and labeling the sensor they are reading. The temperatures shown are as accurate as the inexpensive, low-tech sensors will allow, but it may say System Fan instead of CPU Fan. Fortunately, the programs do allow you to edit the labels, so I use Everest to verify the temperatures (as it is able to put sensor to label correctly), then edit the label in the monitoring program. In Everest, look under Computer > Sensor, then wait a couple seconds for the readings to appear. Unfortunately, Everest does not minimize to the system tray to show real-time temperatures, otherwise, you could use Everest instead of the others.

I don't work on laptops (by choice) but you might look in the BIOS to see if there are some PC Heath setting that will toggle down the speeds when a specific temperature is reached - this certainly affects performance, but if the machine can stay in production...

What activities causes the system to shut down? Normal use? By "normal" I mean processing email, creating a word document, or researching on the Internet while operating the system is a normal environment. Or are you doing "extreme" activities, that is, 3D animated gaming, CAD/CAE/CGI, video editing, and/or working in a hot environment?

Did you try the other activities? Although the typical laptop user is not able to thoroughly clean the internal side of the laptop, you can power down and remove all the covers and slide in peripherals, then use a can of compressed air (Walmart, Home Depot, Radio Shack) and blast some of the air flow blocking dust. And again, you need to determine if the fan(s) are working properly.

What activities causes the system to shut down? Normal use? By "normal" I mean processing email, creating a word document, or researching on the Internet while operating the system is a normal environment. Or are you doing "extreme" activities, that is, 3D animated gaming, CAD/CAE/CGI, video editing, and/or working in a hot environment?

normal use is like, aim, and watching lost on abc.com.


as for the other questions i will post ASAP

the core temperature is currently flickering from 85-92 C which is pretty damn hott cpu usage is around 15% with only three programs on the desktop

Yeah - that's too hot. You need to check the other suggestions and let us know where you are on this.