* Display problems in Windows 10

[Fruitbat]

Mike (T), My Windows 7 laptop is now just over 5 years old. It's getting unreliable and in the past 12 months I've had to strip everything off it and reinstall from scratch following the dreaded blue screen nightmare - thank goodness for regular backups. In addition, during winter I don't need to have the central heating on, the laptop generates enough heat by itself, in fact if I was to put a slice of bread underneath it, I suspect it could also double as a toaster - it's got so bad that if I don't use the rather brilliant Targus Laptop Cooling Pad, the machine overheats in no time at all (especially when photo editing) and shuts down.

Mike (L), Although I'd prefer a decent desktop machine, I really need a laptop so I can do what I want to do wherever I am. I had to have a little chuckle about your remark about manufacturers who would have ironed out all the little niggles with drivers etc - they certainly didn't in the case of my recent purchase.

[tatewise]

Mike L:

1. Agreed, but I have just updated my vintage 2009 Windows 7 PC to Windows 10 and with a few well known tweaks it is running faster and better than before. See V6 Help Please (13882). (I have waited until near the 29 July 2016 deadline to allow for as many bug fixes as possible to have happened.)

2. A brand new £1,100 Windows 10 PC is Eric's problem! The manufacturer has NOT ironed out the niggles.

Eric:

Have you checked that all the internal cooling is working effectively. In 5 years you should have cleaned out all the fluff bunnies at least twice and checked the fans all still work. A Google search gives loads of advice.

[Valkrider]

Mike (T), My Windows 7 laptop is now just over 5 years old. It's getting unreliable and in the past 12 months I've had to strip everything off it and reinstall from scratch following the dreaded blue screen nightmare - thank goodness for regular backups. In addition, during winter I don't need to have the central heating on, the laptop generates enough heat by itself, in fact if I was to put a slice of bread underneath it, I suspect it could also double as a toaster - it's got so bad that if I don't use the rather brilliant Targus Laptop Cooling Pad, the machine overheats in no time at all (especially when photo editing) and shuts down.

A common fault with a laptop is the internal fan becoming clogged with dust. Something that is worth trying is using an air line in a garage or one of the cans of compressed air to blow through the vent for the cooling fan (with it turned off of course). It doesn't need much dust inside for them to start putting out loads of heat.

Do this at your own risk though. It has worked for me several times.

[Fruitbat]

Mike (T), The internal fan is whirring away, but just can't keep up with the heat generated. This is where the cooling pad has come into its own. This particular brand of laptop, together with at least one it it's budget labels, has a well deserved reputation for batteries overheating - for a number of years they had an on-going programme of recalling and replacing those at greatest risk. One way of reducing the risk is to take out the battery and work plugged into the mains, but that rather defeats the object of having a laptop.

As I mentioned, it's also becoming unreliable and has a tendency to grind along under pressure, even after a complete re-install. In addition, although it's got an i5 processor, the rest of the machine is hovering around the minimum spec for Photoshop and Lightroom, so it really needs replacing. After I've got a new laptop that meets my needs, I'll probably strip everything of the old machine and use it with just a few, less greedy and vital applications, until it finally gives up the ghost.

[Fruitbat]

Colin,

My favoured way of getting rid of the dust is to suck it out with a vacuum cleaner. That way I know the dust is coming out rather than being redistributed around the innards of the machine.

[Gowermick]

Mike T,

Yes, I realised after I posted that the problem was with Eric's new machine, so shouldn't have had any niggles!

As far as dust goes, I couldn't agree more. My all-in-one kept crashing and freezing due to overheating. I literally had to strip it down, remove the heat sinks and the fans (processor and graphics chips), clean them all, then re-attach heat sinks with good conducting past, then re-assemble everything. The amount of rubbish sticking to the fans had to be seen to be believed, but, note for Eric, they were still rotating before the cleanup, but obviously not fast or efficient enough.

Following the cleanup, all my problems disappeared! How easy it would be on a laptop I don't know, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

NB I don't think a blower or sucker would have had any effect, dust was too solid. They would have just removed the loose stuff and not the important solid stuff.

[Fruitbat]

I take the side off my desktop case every now and again and clean it out, but I have vivid memories of opening my son's dead laptop (same model as mine, strangely enough) to get to the hard drive, to smash it up. It wasn't fun! Combination of cross head and Torx screws, which is OK if you have a set of Torx drivers, which I haven't - ever tried undoing them with a Phillips or flat screwdriver? It took forever and there would have been no way I could have got it back together.

[NickiP]

I tried the can of air trick the other day, the laptop fan started screaching. So I resorted to the old tested way of using the vacuum. I have the added problem of two cats who shed a lot of fur and that's usually what gets sucked out through the keyboard and vents when it gets cleaned.

That said, my 3.5 year old HP Pavilion G6 has had issues for ages with the cooling fan kicking in regularly helping to drain the battery (and make a considerable amount of noise). Some of it may well be caused by dust and fur, but I found this article (there are others with the same information) - http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-ti ... windows-7/ - and dropped the power to the processor to 80% which has stopped the fan kicking in a lot. I have so far not noticed any real issues with this but suspect if I was using something processor-intensive it may struggle with less power.

[tatewise]

If using compressed air, it can cause the fan to spin at high speed and act as a generator &/or damage the bearings.
Usually it is possible to jam the fan blades with a paper clip through the vents and thus prevent it spinning.
Some laptops have a removable cover over the fan to allow cleaning (yet another purchase criterion).

[NickiP]

In my case the fan started screaching when the laptop had been rebooted after using the air can while it was switched off. I suspect it had sent some crud further into the fan. Once cleaned, the fan was working as expected and there hasn't been a repeat of the noise.

Unfortunately HP in their wisdom appear to be making it even more difficult to clean and fix hardware issues with their laptops than they previously did. Its very involved to get to the fan itself to clean it, hence the reason the vacuum cleaner gets used to try and remove as much dust/cats hairs as possible. Over the years I've fixed quite a few hardware issues even on laptops, but I won't be taking this one apart unless absolutely necessary.

[jimlad68]

My dell laptop studio 1558 (2010) was overheating and powering off. Thought it was time to buy a new one. Then discovered a way to clean the 'fan entrance cooling filter', it was completely blocked up with fluff at the 'cooling filter'.

After unblocking it was fine, still going strong. I am more careful now with dust/fluff etc and regularly try to clean it, dangerously with a bent paper clip (not advised).

HOWEVER, to clean the cooling filter was a mammoth task, removal of most of the insides of the laptop, not for the faint hearted, even with an excellent online pictorial guide. I took the view that if I didn't try it was useless anyway. In hindsight I might have saved much time and just bought a new machine, but a good learning experience, and only 1 screw left over.

[Fruitbat]

After last month's fiasco of trying to get a new HP laptop (that cost £1,100) to display correctly, failing miserably, getting seemingly wrong advice from the manufacturer's technical expert and sending it back for a full refund, I spent the next four weeks searching for a replacement and finally concluded that (much to my wallet's distress) I would either have to shell out for the 15" MacBook Pro (at £1,999) and be forever working round the Windows emulation issue, or go for the 15" Dell XPS (at just under £1,500 by the time I'd got a decent discount and paid for 3 yrs warranty). I went for the Dell and... IT WORKS!!!

Not only does the machine do everything I want it to do, but by following the migration guide, mentioned by Mike earlier in this discussion, I've managed to get FH up and running with almost no problems - the only snag I hit was the personalised settings for diagrams didn't come across, but it didn't take me long to recreate them in the new machine.

So thanks everyone for your comments and advice.