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Old 04-14-2019, 05:25 PM   #1
shane_c
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My father recently gave me a Toshiba Satellite L870 laptop. He's had it for a few years and for most of that time it's been acting up. It usually takes a while to start up and shut down and often thinks a while before opening documents or doing anything on the web. He gave up and got another laptop but kept the Toshiba (recently gave it to me).

He was told the motherboard would need to be replaced. Is there a way for me to confirm this with some sort of diagnostic test?

It's had a defrag and a factory reset but is still slow. There's nothing on it right now other than a few word docs. It appears there are Windows updates required going back to 2016 but when I try to run them it gives an error. I'm wondering if it might be a Windows 7 installation problem? Would it be worthwhile trying to upgrade it to Windows 10? Maybe a problem with the hard drive? I've been waiting about 5 minutes to delete an empty folder to the recycling bin...

Any help or ideas on diagnostics I can run would be helpful!
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Old 04-14-2019, 05:50 PM   #2
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I had an old Acer that came with a Celeron that I put Windows 10 on.
It was by no means fast but it ran surprisingly well. Baring that, you could do a fresh install
of 7 and then run decrapifyer on it. Window 10 is a big program but they do have the code
more efficiently implemented and that really helps older hardware.
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Old 04-14-2019, 07:23 PM   #3
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Doesn't sound like a motherboard to me, sounds more like the HDD or just too much stuff installed and it's running out of RAM and constantly having to read and write from the HDD, and the HDD is super slow in those older laptops.

I'd start with a fresh install of the OS. If you are willing to put a little money into it you could replace the HDD with an SSD, and add more RAM if it's 4GB or 6GB.
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Old 04-15-2019, 12:27 AM   #4
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I'd assume the HDD is the original HDD and i's possible the HDD is on its last legs and there are corrupted sectors etc. This could explain the slowness and errors. I don't think it's the mobo unless the computer completely freezes. It's hard to say sight unseen though.

Additional software maintenance to consider are IMO: using CCleaner and using the registry cleanup function to clear out registry issues, deleting old windows restore points/error reporting/temp files/update install backups etc. via disk clean up (built in OS program), software updates of regularly used programs via a program like Avast! smartscan, installing OS updates after figuring out the errors that's stopping it from updating etc. either automatically, or manually.

I reinstalled windows 7 on a computer recently and quite a few things did not work or would not install properly until I installed a specific set up the latest updates. I'm wondering if the issues are partially the same in your scenario.

It's still worth looking into a hybrid drive or SSD upgrade IMO as I'd imagine, age is a factor worth worrying about on the original HDD. Plus, you clone and swap drives first which makes the updates and stuff faster to do/backs up your old drive before you start messing and tweaking the software stuff.

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Old 04-15-2019, 02:09 AM   #5
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Thanks for the replies. There's basically nothing installed on the computer so the HDD isn't full and I can't see there not being enough RAM to run Windows. I should check the specs though to see what I'm working with.

My goal for tonight is to try to get all the old Windows updates done and to run CCleaner and to do the registry check. I will likely have to do the Windows updates one at a time because it gives an error when I try to install the 30 required updates at once.

** Just checked and it has 6GB of RAM
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Old 04-15-2019, 05:56 AM   #6
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An i3 CPU with 6G ram shouldn't be giving you issuers like that. If you can, try another hard drive or even a stand alone OS on a thumb drive or optical disc - i.e. Ubuntu or some such. If one of those run well enough, I'd start by replacing the hard drive.
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Old 04-15-2019, 06:34 AM   #7
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First step on a slow computer is to open task manager and see if something is using all the CPU power, or ram. Second ss to make sure there is free hard drive space, but with nothing on the thing, it's probably not that.



For windows update, what is the error code? Google it, and figure that one out, or post it here.
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Old 04-15-2019, 09:23 AM   #8
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My guess is that laptop came with a 5400 rpm drive that is probably damaged. Look into replacing it with an SSD.
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Old 04-15-2019, 09:56 AM   #9
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For these older laptops, If you dont need all the windows based programs on it, I suggest just running Ubuntu as opposed to Windows. You will be shocked at how much better it runs, and it is freeware that has everything you need. You can do a format of your C Drive and install Ubuntu on it, or just run Ubuntu over top of Windows.

https://www.ubuntu.com/
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Old 04-15-2019, 11:20 AM   #10
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I brought it to work with me today since it takes a long time to do anything. I ran CCleaner and did a registry check. A bunch of things came up on the registry check and I told it to fix them. Also did a disk cleanup and another defrag. Still no difference. For some reason it won't connect to wifi at work but will at home. I'm currently trying to do error checking c: under properties/tools but it tells me it can't check it while in use even though I don't have anything open.
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Old 04-15-2019, 11:31 AM   #11
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Error check has to happen on boot, so it should ask if you want to schedule it for the next boot.


Did you check task manager for cpu usage? I'd also be checking the event viewer for errors. You need to find out what the problem is before running useless stuff like registry cleaners.
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Old 04-15-2019, 12:06 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz View Post
Error check has to happen on boot, so it should ask if you want to schedule it for the next boot.


Did you check task manager for cpu usage? I'd also be checking the event viewer for errors. You need to find out what the problem is before running useless stuff like registry cleaners.
Re: CPU usage.... Right now I'm scanning for and attempting to recover bad sectors on C:. When I go into task manager it shows that application is running. Under the services tab there are 48 processes, some running,, some stopped. But CPU usage is 0%. Every once in a while there is a blip for about 15-20 seconds where it hovers between 3-15% but then goes back to 0% for a little while.

There are 4 rectangles that show the CPU usage. There is usage in every second box as it scrolls along. The boxes in between go back to 0%
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Old 04-15-2019, 02:14 PM   #13
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Click the show processes from all users. Then click the CPU column to sort by it.
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Old 04-15-2019, 03:59 PM   #14
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This was from a few minutes ago, trying to open Internet Explorer. It took about 4 minutes to open the browser.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/si4bw47s0e...85507.jpg?dl=0
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Old 04-15-2019, 04:49 PM   #15
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OK, so not much there. Check the event viewer:


Open the Start Menu, type eventvwr.msc, and press Enter.


and check the system log first, the the application log. Look for some red errors.
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Old 04-15-2019, 05:19 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz View Post
OK, so not much there. Check the event viewer:


Open the Start Menu, type eventvwr.msc, and press Enter.


and check the system log first, the the application log. Look for some red errors.
Under system log there are 6 critical from 2018 (Kernel-Power). There are A LOT of SharedAccess_NAT and WLAN-AutoConfig dating back to 2016. There are also a few disk and service control manager errors.

Under application log the most recent errors are ESENT and WMI.
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Old 04-15-2019, 07:16 PM   #17
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OK, sometimes chasing system errors is a futile hunt as some can be ignored, but the only way to know is google them, you need the SOURCE and event ID. The Kernal-power ones are probably just not shut down cleanly, which happens on a laptop when the battery dies. It should tell you in the description. Not much to be worried about on it's own, but it can damage system files.


The ESENT and WMI can be disk related, or be ignorable. You will have to Google.



Are the SharedAccess_NAT and WLAN-AutoConfig still occurring constantly? see here, I think you can ignore them:


https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/...ent-log-of-win


Your best bet now(after checking those other events) may be to try to get Windows update working. Run it, and get the error code, then Google that. See if you can get it to work. A full system reinstall may be easier at this point, since you don't really have anything you care about. Hopefully it has a restore partition, or install discs.
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Old 04-15-2019, 10:44 PM   #18
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https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...pdate-manually

This is how you can manually install updates for windows 7 if it gets stuck on a specific update.

I am suddenly wondering whether popping in a windows 7 disc and selecting "repair" may help as well. The other comments about a linux live disc are worth exploring as well.

Also...

You may want to make sure to use avast! and do a smart system scan for basic viruses/malware and programs that require updating. Sometimes if everything wants to update, but doesn't get updated, it's like a ton of things getting stuck in a door way.

Also, if you use msconfig and look at the start up programs, is everything loading up all the time? Or are only the necessities set to start up when you start up your computer?
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Old 04-16-2019, 02:37 AM   #19
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Thanks for all the replies! I'll keep working on it. I was going to do the Windows 7 repair or failing that a fresh install last night but couldn't find the disk that came with my home PC. I noticed that on the bottom of the laptop there is a Windows 8 sticker next to the sticker with the Windows 7 activation #. Probably doesn't matter that it's using an older version though. Would it be a bad idea to just upgrade my current to Windows 10 instead without fighting with it to do the Windows 7 updates?

I'll look at the msconfig thing tonight. I tried last night before bed but it took almost 15 minutes to start up. An error saying it couldn't connect to the System Event Notification Service came up so that seemed to be hanging up the PC from starting. First time that one came up.

I'll work on it a few more days and if I can't fix it will give it to the IT guy at work who fixes machines in his spare time.
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Old 04-16-2019, 11:33 PM   #20
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I'd put my money on failing hard drive. Try downloading portable HD tune (https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=182) to a USB drive and see what it reports for SMART status and transfer speed.

Link is to an older freeware version, but good enough for what you need.
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