What's wrong with my laptop?

[ShiroiHikari]

Okay. I have a Toshiba Satellite P205D. AMD Turion 64 processor, 1.90 ghz. 2 GB of RAM. Windows Vista Home Premium.

Pretty much ever since I bought this thing I've had trouble getting it to hibernate properly. Some of the time it would make a clicking/whirring noise during the hibernation process and would power off before it was finished. Upon restart I would get an error saying Windows didn't shut down properly. How did I solve this problem? I stopped using Hibernate. :\

Starting this week, my laptop has been performing atrociously. I started to notice it when video files would no longer play without some pretty bad lag. Then while trying to do normal multitasking (i.e. run uTorrent, Firefox, and Skype at the same time), Windows would come to a screeching halt, almost as if it locked up completely, but after a few minutes it would start running again.

Last night, I did a scan for malware, concerned that I may have picked something up somehow. It found something, removed it, and asked me to restart the computer to complete the removal process, which of course I did.

I left the room while it was restarting, came back to check on it and the computer was powered off. I turned it back on, left the room, came back, and it was powered off again. I turned it on yet again and stayed to see what was happening.

The BIOS screen came up, and then Windows said it could not start up but that it could try to repair the error. I tried that, let it do its thing and it said it could not repair it. I turned it off and on again and it got past the BIOS screen but made a clicking whirr and powered off. Went into the BIOS setup screen, it stayed running for a minute or so then made the noise again and powered off. Tried to get it to boot Windows again, it made the noise and powered off yet again.

On maybe the sixth try I was able to get into Windows, and it's stayed up ever since but is still very very slow. Needless to say, I backed up my data immediately.

So can anybody tell me what the heck the problem is? Is it the hard drive? CPU? Motherboard? Frankly, I don't know squat about hardware so I can't even troubleshoot it myself because I don't know what anybody is even talking about. Any help would be appreciated.

[Ante Bellum]

Sounds like a major internal problem, probably in the motherboard or registry. I had something kind of similar, where it would start up, stop, and couldn't run at all, and then it finally stopped even starting up.
Maybe you ended up with a rootkit, if the malware was removed and you're still having problems, or maybe before the malware was removed it did some damage.
If everything is backed up, it might be worth it to reinstall the entire computer.
I'm not really sure, Mithrandir would have a better answer to this.

[Tsukuyomi]

Reformatting may be the way to go if nothing else comes up ^__^

Do you remember the most recent thing that was installed ^__^? I heard that's always a good thing to try to remember ^^ If you did indeed install something, try to remember what it was and then uninstall it ^^ It may be causing some clash with other stuff ^__^

[ShiroiHikari]

I've noticed that the fan isn't pulling in or venting out as much air as it used to and that the underside of the laptop gets pretty warm. Could that be what the problem is?

[Ante Bellum]

You may be frying it a little, but my laptop has gotten really hot without breaking down...How long do you leave it on at one time?

[Tsukuyomi]

Maybe too much dust ^^? Have someone who knows how to crack a lappy open (without harming it of course) and clean out the dust ^__^ That may do the trick ^__^

Hope all goes well, Netty hug:

[Arya Raiin]

Sounds like to me that it picked up something that messed up windows very badly, or one of the parts (most likely the mother board or drive) have a defect.

Is it still under warranty? If it is, return it, other wise try reformatting the hard drive.

[Tsukuyomi]

What anti-virus do you have ^^? Malwarebytes is good to have around for catching maleware and the likes ^^

[ShiroiHikari]

I use Malwarebytes.

[Nightshade X]

Malwarebytes isn't an antivirus, I don't think. It's a malware/spyware removal tool. A good one, too.

Should you need an antivirus, use Microsoft Security Essentials: http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

I use it and I've found that it's pretty good. Plus, you can't beat the price.

[Tsukuyomi]

*Looks back up at her previous post*

oops, I guess I did make it sound like I was saying Malwarebyes was an anti-virus I meant whatever anti-virus you have plus having Malewarebytes around as well is good ^__^

[Shao Feng-Li]

Since you've backed it all up, I'd definitely format the hard drive and reinstall before taking it in for repairs.

[ShiroiHikari]

Well, I figured out that uTorrent is directly related to the problems I've been having. I don't know WHY it's making my system choke but it is.

[Tsukuyomi]

Well, I figured out that uTorrent is directly related to the problems I've been having. I don't know WHY it's making my system choke but it is.

Ack, that's not good 8(

I hope everything's better now ^__^ Maybe, there's something else out there that's better compatible with your system ^__^

[Shao Feng-Li]

uTorrent? That's weird. It has near no effect on my machine. I wonder why it doesn't like yours.

[ShiroiHikari]

I don't know but after it's been running for a while, it slows my system so bad that I have to press and hold the power button to get it to turn off. And then upon trying to restart it, it shuts off before it can finish booting. This is driving me fricking insane.