Laptop - Tiny A360+

[_Bat_]

Hi all - i'm back again!

 

I've been playing with said laptop for a while now and it is starting to push me to that stage where I might get out the almighty hammer and be done with it. But first I thought i'd put it to you all

 

A teacher gave me this laptop saying it keeps crashing. After testing it for a few minutes, I found out what she meant - after a couple of minutes of use the CPU runs flat out at 100% and refuses to budge making the laptop unsuitable for the purpose it was bought... or indeed any purpose at all.

 

Thinking of teachers and their uncanny attraction to spyware, I did everything I could to find out where it might have hidden, but with no luck. To be absolutely certain that it wasn't a software problem, i did a clean re-install of XP.

 

But of course, as per my life, the problem still remained. Knowing it was a hardware problem now, I did some research on the net about this laptop and it seems a -crazy- number of people who bought this model (and related ones) have had the same problem (is it any surprised tiny went bust?). According to this forum the problem resided with the fan below the keyboard being faulty.

 

So I have removed the keyboard and turned the laptop on to watch the fan and there appears to be no problem with it spinning. But what I did notice after further testing is that the laptop runs perfectly normally (I tested it for about two hours) when the keyboard is not in position on top of it.

 

Considering that I would receive my P45 if I forced the teacher to use the laptop with the keyboard dangling off it, I thought that there must be some CPU cooling software out there that doesn't seriously reduce performance yet does what I am installing it for and is free, yet i'm not aware of any.

 

Can anyone help me out here?

[Geoff]

When you checked for spyware did you also check for rootkits?

 

Overheating springs to mind? how hot is it running?

[danIT]

Had a similar problem with same model, had to replace the fan. Luckily i had a few spare parts lying around so was easy for me, step by step with screenshots below:

 

http://www.techno-mart.co.uk/tinyfansink/

 

Think this is your only solution, quick fix was to pull the fan apart quick clean and reassemble but didnt last long.

[_Bat_]

When you checked for spyware did you also check for rootkits?

 

Overheating springs to mind? how hot is it running?

 

I'm 100% certain it is not spyware, but overheating. I really don't know how hot it is, I tried to use MBM but this is discontinued software and I guessed it wouldn't work (it didn't on this PC i'm on now, which is old). Do you know of any other software that monitors the temperature?

 

Had a similar problem with same model, had to replace the fan. Luckily i had a few spare parts lying around so was easy for me, step by step with screenshots below:

 

http://www.techno-mart.co.uk/tinyfansink/

 

Think this is your only solution, quick fix was to pull the fan apart quick clean and reassemble but didnt last long.

 

Eh, I was worried someone was gonna say that. I'm pretty certain we have no laptop fans lying around and even less likely one suitable for that model. We have another identical model with an identical problem, so I was hoping to find a free fix for this one so I could do it on the other. Do you not think a CPU cooler would work? I've seen them used at a company I worked for in the past.

[Geoff]

Do you know of any other software that monitors the temperature?

 

Try a linux live CD. An ubuntu one should figure out the hardware sensors pretty easily. Assuming it has them of course.

 

To setup (run as root)

 

sensors-detect

 

then

 

sensors

 

will tell you whats going on.

[danIT]

have you tired removing the fan a dissassembling it, oiling it a little, maybe reseating it?

 

Not sure your "high-end" tiny will provide you with any feedback as far as CPU temp goes?

[Geoff]

if you grep the 'lspci' output for 'SMBus' you can see if it supports hardware monitoring. If there is a SMBus device present on the PCI bus then you can usually extract temprature/fanspeed/voltages data via lmsensors.

[plexer]

You say it appears to overheat with the keyboard in place but not when you use it with the keyboard installed. Is it possible then that when the keyboard is reattached/screwed down that this could be distorting something to the point of the fan not working at all or not working very well.

 

I think a new fan would help out especially if it's a bit old and their may be reduced airflow which is compounded by the keyboard being in place as well.

 

Ben

[stephenhosken]

Hi I have the same Laptop and same problems, from date of purchase before Tiny went bust, I replaced the fan 3 months ago with a more powerful one, (just found one that fitted) and it sees to stop the overheating problem. i still get crashes but only when i use lots of graphics, I know i have a problem with the S3 twister driver as i have uninstalled the original and used a different one that seemed to work fine, but now i cant find the good version. I am looking now for an updated driver or maybe i can get a new graphics card installed. Hope this helps, if you also have a graphics problem please let me know. (screen just stops, need to power off and restart) STEVE