Computer problems - need advice or help

[onthetown]

My laptop isn't even a year old yet, and it's already starting to die or something on me.

Purple and blue lines started appearing randomly on the screen a couple of months ago. They spaz out, especially when there's movement (like drawing with my tablet, watching a video clip, or even typing for crying out loud), and sometimes increase in number until the point where they just make gigantic white patches appear, take over my moniter, make everything flip out and move around, then everything goes back to normal. They usually reoccur within ten seconds. It's been happening for about 80% of the time I spend on my computer (my laptop is my desktop).

Apart from that, everything is lagging down excessively. A good example is that if somebody sends me an IM, it will appear on the screen but freeze everything up - five seconds later the "x is typing" band will disappear, and five to ten or more seconds after that the little "bing!" sound will finally happen, and then after a few more seconds my computer finally unfreezes.

Files have been somehow moved and deleted quite a few times - I can't guarantee that everything I save to my computer will stay saved where I put it, or that things won't be destroyed or mauled.

I do virus and spyware scans every day and clean up whatever problems there might be (there's never many), I defragment it every week, and I've gotten to the point where I've deleted everything from my hard drive that I don't need in a vain effort to speed it up. My only game is DDO and the little cutesy games that come with the computer, and my only programs/files that I use are AIM, occasionally Yahoo, Firefox, my tablet and scanner, and my music.

My old computer, the desktop before I got this, had the purple lines start to appear and freak out toward the end of its life - but that was a 10 year old computer! This thing isn't even a year old yet (thank god it's under warranty).

Anybody know what might be going on? I'm trying to avoid bringing it back to Future Shop for them to look at it because it takes them WEEKS just to check up computers around here, and I need this thing for school.

My only theory is that my laptop is an evil, nasty, malicious little machine that is heck-bent on killing me through stress. Once through with me, it will be free to rally up the rest of its counterparts and take over the world, hailing the age of evil, nasty, malicious little laptops.

Help.

[Escef]

Boot into safe mode and then run a virus scan.

Uninstall Yahoo and either get another messenger program that uses the Yahoo network or install the newest version of Yahoo.

As for your files being randomly moved or deleted, the machine WILL NOT do that on its own. Either someone else uses your machine and does these things, you have some kind of weird virus, or your computer has been hacked (Yahoo seems the likeliest way in).

As for your screen, it sounds like it's a loose connection. Open up the section of the laptop that holds the screen and check to make sure the connections are secure. If that isn't the problem, it is probably one of the following: your graphics card is dieing, or the screen is defective and needs to be replaced. The first, on a laptop, is damn near unrepairable. The second requires the screen be replaced (you can purchase a replacement screen for less than $100 if you know where to look, installation should take less than an hour for a first timer).

As for your system slow down, it sounds like either you have a virus bogging down your system, a lot of unneeded bloatware, or both. I'd recommend saving all of your information to a flash drive and just reformatting the thing.

What are you using for anti-virus software?

[onthetown]

AVG, avast!, and Advanced System Care (which seems to work well despite I've never heard of it before, my mom seemed to like it). About 10 different other anti-viruses and anti-spywares have been installed and uninstalled over the past month just trying to get something to work, but those are the 3 that seem to be doing alright right now.

I was considering reformatting it as well, but I don't know how.

It was the graphics card in my old computer, but I didn't think that could be possible with such a new machine?

[Escef]

AVG, avast!, Advanced System Care (which seems to work well despite I've never heard of it before, my mom seemed to like it), and Norton.

Obviously I've been trying a lot of the virus things :smalltongue:

I was considering reformatting it as well, but I don't know how.

It was the graphics card in my old computer, but I didn't think that could be possible with such a new machine?

AVG's pretty good. But I've seen viruses get past it. I spent a few days booting into safe mode, running scans, rebooting, scanning again, rebooting into safe mode, scanning, screwing with the registry, scanning, rebooting... Open up your task manager and start looking at your processes, any that you aren't sure of do a Google search on.

Reformatting is easy, it's just time consuming. You need your operating system install disk. That's it. Reformat the drive and re-install the OS. Which will cause you to loose all your data, which is why I say back it up onto a flash drive first. Also, download drivers for your wireless and graphics and save them to the flash drive. I don't know about Vista, but I found out the hard way that XP does not come pre-packaged with default drivers for wireless.

Anything can be a problem with any machine. Maybe something over heated and got damaged, maybe something inside the machine let go due to an undetected error, maybe the machine got jostled just right (or wrong, depending on your point of view). I had a friend who was really hard on his laptop. On day it totally screwed up on him and just didn't work right, was sluggish, didn't want to open anything. Turns out he had abused it so much that he unseated half of the machine's RAM.

If the problems is your graphics card... I don't think I can help you. Is the machine still under warranty? If so, don't crack open the screen section just yet.

[KuReshtin]

If the laptop isn't even a year old, it should still be covered by your manufacturer's warranty, that will take care of the problem with the lines on the display and stuff.
The easiest way to verify if it's a graphics card problem, or a display problem is to find an external screen (regular desktop screen) and connect that to your laptop.
If the problem appears on the external screen, it's the graphics card that's shot, and that will most likely require a motherboard replacement.
If the external screen works fine, then it's (probably) a problem with the laptop screen.
Both of these will be covered by the warranty, unless you have done anything to cause the problem (dropped it, spilled coffee/tea/coke/juice/wine or generally mishandled it).

There are very few laptops that have a warranty of less than a year.

Also, if you decide to run a recovery of the operating system, there's probably a hidden partition on your hard drive that is protected (so should be unaffected by potential viruses on the machine) that you access through pressing the F10 or F11 or some such key at the very start when you boot the machine up.
Check your computer's User's Guide for more information on how to access the recovery partition, or call the manufacturer's supportline, and they will be able to tell you.

[onthetown]

To the reformatting thing, I don't have my OS install disk... I didn't think new computers came with them anyway? I'm not about to go spend money on buying Vista or any other Windows just to reformat.

I'll try the external screen thing. Yeah, it's still covered by warranty, but as I said Future Shop here takes ages to get anything done, and I've got a lot of projects and a final exam coming up in school that I'll need my computer for. Bringing it back for the store to look at it is a last resort at this point.

Thanks for all the help!

Edit: Looks like I'll be bringing the computer into Future Shop after all -- my boyfriend just offered to let me use his notebook while my laptop is being fixed.

[KuReshtin]

Like I said, the machine probably comes with a recovery partition on the hard drive, which means you won't need a CD to be able to reinstall the OS.
Read the User's Manual for the machine to see how you access the recovery partition.

It's a wise choice to bring it in for a repair. Just make sure to check with the external screen before you contact them The more information you can give them initially, the easier it'll be for them to get things started with the repair, and the less time it'll take to get your machine sorted.

The other reason it's a good thing that you take it in now is that if you don't call them and leave the machine to be repaired, and then the warranty period expires, you'll get stuck with what is most likely a very costly repair, just because you figured that the repair would take too long.
I can't remember the amount of times customers of mine have called in after the warranty has expired and try to claim it on the warranty because "the problem appeared several months ago".
That excuse doesn't work. Never has, never will.
After all, it is your responsibility as a customer to contact the manufacturer to claim on the warranty.

[onthetown]

I'll be doing the external screen tomorrow before I bring in the computer - my boyfriend who is lending me his notebook happens to be borrowing the monitor from my old desktop, so I can kill two birds in one stone.

I'm searching through the manual but I'm not very well-versed with computers, so I'm not very confident about trying the recovery thing if I reformat. I'll back up everything before I take in the computer tomorrow in case they say it would be a good idea, and I'll see if I can get them to do it :smallbiggrin:

[KuReshtin]

Running a backup is ALWAYS a good idea before you leave your machine to be repaired.

I also thought of two other things that I thought I'd mention.

1. If your laptop is a branded machine, it could be worth contacting the manufacturer directly, and not go to a dealer. It could cut down the time of repair significantly, since you'd not have to depend on a third party to send the machine to the repair centre (unless the dealer do the repairs themselves).

2. If your machine is still within warranty, and you want a set of recovery CDs, call the manufacturer of the machine and tell them you need a new set of CDs as the recovery partition doesn't work. They will then send you a set of the recovery CDs, and should do so free of charge since it's within warranty.
I would say that most companies has a policy to not send out recovery CDs unless the recovery partition is defective, so you will have had to try the recovery (or at least tell them you've tried it and that it doesn't work).