Several unusual problems with Optimus V

[Swiss]

Hi, I've owned my Optimus V for a few months now and mostly it's been fine.

However increasingly, when I turn on my laptop there are a series of problems. These include: USB ports not working (they power, but do not recognise devices), the GPU timeouts and causes a blue screen error when I start a 3d application (e.g. video games) and the PC freezing on the shutdown screen.

These problems always occur all together or not at all and I cannot diagnose what causes them since they are so disparate. This used to occur fairly rarely but is increasingly becoming more and more common, happening about half the time I switch on the laptop, and if the problems occur, they remain on subsuquent restarts and I must leave the laptop for a few hours.

Any help would be appreciated, short of a full format and hoping it's a software problem I have no idea what's happening.

 

[ubuysa]

It sounds like a Windows issue (or issues) to me, and I'm afraid a clean reinstall of Windows is probably your best way forward.

Don't forget to backup your user data first though.

 

[TheGSL]

A fresh installation might sort it, but it could be indicative of failing hardware too, especially if you have to let it cool down for a while. Run some stress tests from cold to see if one of them causes one of the errors to happen straight away, then you might be able to narrow it down. Sounds a bit like a heat issue of some kind to me anyway.

 

[ubuysa]

A fresh installation might sort it, but it could be indicative of failing hardware too, especially if you have to let it cool down for a while. Run some stress tests from cold to see if one of them causes one of the errors to happen straight away, then you might be able to narrow it down. Sounds a bit like a heat issue of some kind to me anyway.

You could well be right of course but the range of issues reported by the OP seem unconnected which is why I suggested a reinstall is the best way forward. It's important to eliminate Windows as the problem before suspecting the hardware. Of course, if it still fails after that then a hardware problem is all that's left.

 

[dv8tion242]

Instead of removing/risking data, it may be worth taking Windows out of the picture, but still putting the machine under some strain.

Using a livedisk may not be the best solution, but will not risk the current data nearly as much and might allow a finer grained tracking of what is going on. The hiccup, of course, is most livedisks are (ahem) not Windows.
There are a few dedicated distributions which are make specifically for issues like this.
For this, the best suited is probably Knoppix (http://knoppix.net/) which has a compendium of tools, but what it sounds like is just seeing what works. Modern ISP speeds mean 700MB should be reasonable.

What I would do:
-- Boot up with Knoppix (or your choice),
-- Run a memory test as wonky memory can cause any number of issues.
-- Check error logs.
-- See if anything is not listed on the hardware list tool:
lspci
lshw
[These will tell you more about your system than you'll ever want to know: for example, just one piece my of old machine looks like this

*-multimedia
                description: Audio device
                product: GK107 HDMI Audio Controller
                vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
                physical id: 0.1
                bus info: pci@0000:01:00.1
                version: a1
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: bus_master cap_list
                configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0
                resources: irq:19 memory:fcffc000-fcffffff

Once it's been established nothing has fallen out and nothing is melting,
Check initial temperatures (and again say after 30 minutes or so),
At this point, most people are probably going, "Just drop-kick it"

Going through that really isn't as bad as it looks.. Even when I still used Windows it was incredibly useful to have one of these disks around just to establish that the problem was hardware or software. It may not tell where the issue lies specifically, but it narrows the field considerably.

There may be better ways, but those are the first things I'd get up to..
Good luck on resolving the issue!

 

[TheGSL]

In truth, I was a bit hasty with typing my answer. One question I should of asked is, have you installed anything new that could have triggered the problems? Or, what os are you even running?