Hi!
My dad's Vista work laptop recently went from slow but useable to so slow that the screensaver couldn't render. My dad took it to the IT department, and they said that they didn't want it anymore. Long stroy short, I have it now.

I first thought that Vista had a virus or something, and that I should have no problem booting from my Debian install disc and installing Linux.

Unfortunately, this has not proven to be the case. It is currently running the Debian installer. I selected the language and everything, but it's now loading the installer components and is extremely slow. When I switch to aother VT (ctrl+alt+f2) I can see it redrawing the screen. When I do any command, the output is much slower than I normally expect. For example, I ran "cat /proc/cpuinfo" and it took 4 seconds of scrolling before it was done.

Earlier, I tried to use Clonezilla to make a backup of the hard drive "just in case." It went fine for the first few minutes, but then the "remaining time" counter started counting up instead of down. I opened top in another VT, and it was using about 85-95% of the CPU.

It has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, and /proc/cpuinfo says it's running at just under 2 GHz. (in the Debian installer)

Does anyone have any idea what the issue is? Since the problem occurs in both Vista and Linux, I'm inclined to believe that it is a hardware issue. I've always wanted to take apart a laptop, and if I can't get Debian working that's what I plan on doing. But if anyone has any ideas of what the problem is, I might try fixing it instead of throwing it out.

Thanks!

EDIT: I just checked the output of lspci, and the everything's Intel except for Broadcom wifi/ethernet (yay...) and something called "CardBus bridge" by "02 Micro, Inc."

EDIT 2: It's getting progressively slower the longer that it's on. The lines are printing/scrolling slower.

I think I'd check the RAM first - how much and maybe run memtest for a while. Memtest should be on your install media, or you can find it on a Gparted live CD. If it were starved for RAM that would drag everyting in the dirt.

Next, it might have a "stuck" interrupt - some device signalling an event that can't be ignored and the CPU has to go service it continually. Offhand I am not sure how to tell you to look for that other than watching top or ps as a place to start.

CPU temperature? Disk space? Just poke around the system for anything obvious. Even poke around in the BIOS settings for anything that doesn't look "right".

1 members found this post helpful.

It has 2 GB of RAM (according to /proc/meminfo).

OK, I'm going to start a memtest and see how it goes.

Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Wow, even the BIOS boot menu has slowed down.

I have it sitting on a laptop cooling pad, the laptop fan isn't running very fast, and the bottom isn't hot, so I don't think that it's a temperature issue.

Disk space shouldn't be an issue, since I'm booting from a CD, right?

That makes it sound thermal (although RAMusage is also time related in some ways). If the clock is throttled by temperature that would be the relationship.

Check the CPU fan and heatsink - just take it out and clean it if possible.

*** EDIT ***

I have a couple of desktop machines with Core2 Duo CPUs, they do seem to run a little hot at times and require regular heatsink attention. Mine tend to idle in the mid to upper 50 degrees C.

1 members found this post helpful.

Now that the memtest has been running for a bit over 10 minutes, the bottom is starting to feel hot... so you're probably right about the thermal issue. But the fan isn't spinning at it's fastest...

Something else-- a section on the very left of the screen (about 2 inches wide, stretching from the top to the bottom) is dimmer than the rest of the screen. I can still clearly see what is on the screen, but it is noticeably dimmer. I don't recall seeing that when the memtest started. Could that mean anything?

Thanks!

EDIT: The bottom is definitely getting hot, and the air from the fan feels hot as well.

The memtest didn't report any errors. So do you think that this can be fixed? Would new thermal compound help? Once I have it apart, I'll clean out any dust, dirt, etc.

I have Clonezilla booted now (not doing anything, just up and running), and the laptop is definitely cooler now. Top shows that the idle percent is staying above 95%. However, when I display a file using cat it still displays slower than I would expect.

Is there anything else that I should do to test it?

Thanks for all the help!

Make sure all the air vents are clear. Dust build-up can cause overheating.

Turn it off and blow it out with compressed air or, if you have a canister vacuum, turn the vacuum on it.

1 members found this post helpful.

I will make sure that I do that! Thank you!

Nothing except clean the fan, heatsink and all air passages.

If you have the ability to redo the heatsink compound that would be a big plus. If you have never done that before (don't want to presume too much), gently clean everything that is on both surfaces then apply as little new compound as is necessary to cover both surfaces but as thin as possible. The heatsink grease is actually thermal barrier, but it forms a uniform thermal surface by filling any gaps and thus prevents hot-spots. So the rule is: uniform and complete coverage, but as little as possible.

I bet you get a good notebook computer for your efforts!

Good luck!

1 members found this post helpful.

That's what I figured, jsut wanted to make sure there wasn't something else I was missing.

Thanks for the directions! Yes, I have applied thermal compound before. Once. I think I did a decent job, because the CPU didn't fry itself!!! (I would have actually checked the temperature, but I couldn't get sensors to work...I think it was the mobo's fault, I had 2 cpus in there (Celeron and P4) and neither gave temp reading. Also, the audio was really messy. But that's pretty far off-topic, so I'm going to stop now.) So hopefully it'll work.



Actually it's a laptop, but close enough.