new computer or maintenance? Thread

I've been wondering if I should get a new computer. A year ago I got a laptop, then I also have some 5 year old desktop computer.

The laptop is much faster than my old desktop, but it seems there are a few issues.

* This is meant to be a gaming laptop, which it sort of does ok, but it also seems like the GPU is overheating and crashing often. At least that's what I think it is when all of sudden the screen displays a random, one color in it.. if I had winamp playing music, I might hear the music playing for a while before the computer crashes completely. Sometimes the display has gone blank/black just by browsing the internet, but not because of any overheating... not sure if it's related to the overheating problem in anyway.

* Another issue with the laptop is the blu-ray drive. It seems to fail loading a disc 90% of the time. So I have to open/close the drive door multiple times before it loads the disc. So that's pretty annoying to spend a few minutes on doing that.

* The keyboard sort of feels nice, as in it's easy to type stuff without looking at the keys and without producing too many typos. But, Insert key requires me to also press the "fn" key. The numpad doesn't have numlock, and the numbers in it are just duplicates of the numbers above the letter keys. So, not a very useful numpad. There are some BIOS updates for the numpad issue, but they lock the numlock into one state, which would be used with external keyboards too, which wouldn't be too good if I wanted to use such.

* The USB 3 port does not work with USB 3 devices. Initially it didn't work at all with them. After some driver update it worked, but it didn't seem to work in USB 3 mode, at least windows was telling me I should connect it to a USB 3 port. Some months later it stopped working with them again. Plus I kinda hate the external HDD, as it needs an external power supply, it goes into a power save mode when it's not used for a while, which then makes programs start slow, because usually starting a program triggers the HDD to wake up, even if the program doesn't use anything in it. The wake up may take some 30 seconds, which is dumb, if the program otherwise would start in 1 second.

* I dislike the 16:9 display. 16:10 was so much better, even if it's just a small difference.

So I'm not exactly sure what to do with this, since it's only a year old. If it was a desktop computer, I could easily replace the faulty hardware with new ones... I suppose I could send it for some free maintenance, I still have some 10 months of warranty left. The actual sending is probably not free? Mmh.. or maybe I should just open it myself and see if I can fix it? Like if it's just some dust or loose cables, then I could probably fix it myself, no point sending it anywhere then.

I guess I don't like laptops much. So I'd get a desktop computer if I got a new one. At least every desktop computer I've had before, have been much more longer lasting before any issues have appeared in them.

Edited by: TwinBeast

well if your laptop worked without any misfucction a year before then i guess dusts could be the problem
especialy when it is laptop (and if you use it on your knees or on some clothing surface then your proccessor temperature simple becames to hot and computer starts to work slower and slower signs like you mention are quite similar)
but in some ways it could be even your HDD problems (if it is not SSD the bad clusters or bad sectors can be the reason of it)

anyways i dont recommend to open and try to clean it by yourself till you have a waranty cause just opening it could be the reason why waranty wont try to fix anything (in the case if it is not the dust and you wont be able to fix it by yourself)

in other way some errors like blue ray drive or usb work looks really strange and it can be in some case broken

so the best option is to send it in waranty (just before you do it take care of your docs cause when you get back your pc i guess none of your old info was left)

What notebook you have?

I use a Dell laptop as desktop (with separated keyboard, monitor, and mouse/pen), and it's doing pretty well. Maybe your problem is the settings of the machine.

I have Asus G74SX and I use it on a wooden table, so no clothing. It's been on a few car rides in the trunk (also inside the backpack that came with the laptop), so it's possible that, that has caused some cable to get loose. Other than that, it's always been on a table. Never dropped it, although once I dropped my sword/scabbard on the keyboard (some 1m drop), but neither was damaged in any way.. the disc drive still worked after that incident.

Yea, I have a feeling that sending it to maintenace would result in the HDD being formatted. Well, at least I have enough space to just copy everything on it to the external HDD... Still pretty annoying that I can't open it for simple cleaning without breaking the warranty. But if I have a computer that I have built myself, then I can open it, clean it, and the warranty doesn't break on any of the components.

So you hava a 2GB-dedicated GeForce? You shouldn't be having problems with graphic card, man. I'd send it to an authorized maintenance if I were you.