Toshiba Laptop Internet Problems

PrettyBoy

Not sure if this is the right section but last night my Toshiba laptop started giving me trouble. I have had the laptop since August and I only use it for iTunes, internet and MS Word the odd time. That is literally all I use.

It would connect to the internet for maybe five to fifteen minutes before freezing, as in the screen would suddenly fade and the 'loading' icon would stay on and never go off. When you click anything it just says "(Not responding)". Pressing 'CTRL+Alt+Del' would not work so the only thing I could do was turn the computer off by pressing and holding the power button.

This happened a few more times so I used the system restore and went back to Tuesday. Despite this, the problem persisted, so I went back to Saturday. The problem was still there so I went down to Micro-Pro in Rathfarnham (where I bought the computer). The guy there said it sounds like a virus but when he looked at it he said everything was OK and he couldn't find a single thing wrong and he doesn't know why it's happening. He said they could do a service on it for €100+ which would fix whatever it is. I don't have that money so I went home and let AVG scan the whole computer, finding nothing wrong.

I started thinking it might be Google Chrome crashing or something so I uninstalled it and started using Internet Explorer. IE was working pretty well for around two hours and then the same thing happened - screen suddenly fades, the computer becomes non-responsive and the loading icon appears and stays there. Now the internet only stays on for around ten minutes at a time before doing this.

I should also mention that last night I when I saw the internet was acting up I clicked into iTunes and it said that some files were missing and iTunes needed to be reinstalled. I did it and it seems to be working OK now.

Now I have no idea what to do. I'm on IE at the moment but it's going to freeze in a few minutes. I don't use the computer much - just for the internet a few hours a day and when I'm updating iTunes. I don't have €100 to service the laptop. I'm sure it's nothing the warranty would cover, yet the guy in Micro-Pro said everything looks OK and there are no signs of any viruses.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?

PrettyBoy

Anyone?

Wetbench4

Are you using wireless internet, or plugging it in by cable? Trying switching to see if it makes a difference. Might be a problem with your network card

PrettyBoy

Wetbench4 wrote: »

Are you using wireless internet, or plugging it in by cable? Trying switching to see if it makes a difference. Might be a problem with your network card

It's just happened while I was offline. The mouse became non-responsive, loading icon appeared in its place and then the screen just faded. This is really doing my head in. I have to keep shutting the computer down by pressing and holding the power button. I'm worried that constantly doing this is damaging my laptop. There has to be something wrong the computer, rather than just the internet.

Podman

You might check your power settings and device manager for any strange or conflicting settings.

Also, most laptops weren't designed to be left on constantly. Make sure that you switch it off for a while at least every few days.

In my experience, it is normal for Vista to be 'non responsive', just give it the time it wants to correct itself.. either by waiting, clicking the screen again, or ctrl-alt-del. Often, the program starts responding again.

My Toshiba used to die every time it got too hot, now I have to position it so that none of the fans on the bottom are blocked.

I used to put something under the front or back "legs" to raise it 1cm off the table, and on my knee it's positioned to be clear of clothing and other blockages.

The heat situation might not be the big problem though, just sharing my experience.

jhcristy

Back up your data including your music folder (this music folder will include your itunes library, but that is another day's work, the way that apple strews your music across folders but I diverse). Find the key combination that Toshiba use to reactivate the recovery partition and put your laptop back to the factory floor condition. Save yourself a €100 and start from scratch with a new laptop.