somethin seriously wrong with notebook

[apu95]

ok, so my dad has had a notebook for a while. its a compaq presario which came with WinME, and has a 700 mhz P3 with 128 ram (shared) and a 15 gig hd. i upgraded and formatted the whole thing and put xp on it for everyone's sake

anyways, the notebook's had its use for a while (about 3 or 4 yrs methinks) and now its starting to fail. it turns off by itself, "whenever it feels like it". its really weird. for example, my dad had it plugged into the AC supply, and turned it on. it booted until the WinXP logo part, and it beeped 3 times and shut off. we turned it on again, it booted into windows, ran for like 10 min, beep 3 times again and initiated the shutdown sequence.

it cant be a trojan or somethin, since it turns off at boottime too. i figure the power supply might be dying, but i cant understand the beeping.

anyone care to explain this?

thanks guys,
Apu

PS: the part where the battery goes is totally dead. it wont charge a battery or recognize a charged one, and if u put one in the pc and turn it on (even when plugged into AC), it wont boot)

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Have you tried going back to......dare I say.......Win ME?

Looks a bit sluggish for XP.

 

[j79zlr]

That PC is fine for XP, I would up the RAM if possible. Have you looked on Compaq's site to see what 3 beeps means?

 

[ShepsCrook]

You might want to check the battery. It's battery probably can't hold a charge anymore.

(I do know that it was plugged into the AC, but some computers are strange like that and use the battery)

 

[AcftMecH]

might be bad memory. look here: http://www.2computerguys.com/bios.html

gives bios error beep codes for most bios's. 3 is for bad memory.

 

[apu95]

You might want to check the battery. It's battery probably can't hold a charge anymore.

(I do know that it was plugged into the AC, but some computers are strange like that and use the battery)

thats the weird thing, the computer doesnt work with a battery, at all. it didnt have the battery in it when it was plugged into the AC and started beeping.

might be bad memory. look here: http://www.2computerguys.com/bios.html

gives bios error beep codes for most bios's. 3 is for bad memory.

im gonna check up on the bad ram, i didnt think of that. but if the ram were bad, wouldnt that mean that it wouldnt be able to boot up at all? since the ram check is in the startup sequence, with the BIOS, then why would it be done in the middle of the windows logo or in the middle of use?

thanks again
Apu

 

[Perris Calderon]

I think some of your problem, but not all, is overheating

 

[apu95]

I think some of your problem, but not all, is overheating

yeah, i thought about that too, but the fan is working, and the problem happens even when freshly turned on the in the morning.

 

[Perris Calderon]

yeah, i thought about that too, but the fan is working, and the problem happens even when freshly turned on the in the morning.

well, the fresh boot makes for thinking it's not overheating, but the fan running doesn't mean it won't overheat

those little ports and little fan get clogged...I can't run a laptop on my bed unless I put the laptop on a hard surface with all cooling ports clear

clean out those vents regardless