Laptop lock up and screen scramble

[Millsy79]

Hi

I've got a Fujitsu siemens Amilo pro V1000 laptop, running XP. After about half an hour of use the computer totally locks up and the screen scrambles making it totally unreadable. The only way to turn it off is to hold to power button down till it shuts off. If you restart it again then the same happens again but on the POST screen suggesting that the problem is most definatly hardware. If the machine is left alone for awhile and the restarted it seems like its working fine again but as before after about half an hour of use the same problem happens again. Has any one got any theorys as to what the problem is and if it's feasoble to fix.

[AngryTechnician]

This is classic overheating behaviour. The machine starts behaving as soon as it's left to cool down, but once it heats back up again, boom.

 

Likely candidates for overheating are the CPU and graphics chip. On a laptop, the same cooler usually cools them both. First step is to check that the exhaust fan is a) working, and b) clear of dust/lint, possibly using a can of compressed air.