I thought my Vista laptop was finally starting to give up the ghost for
the last couple of days. I have been noticing the fan was running at
high speed more than normal and for no apparent reason and also realized
the display seemed a little darker.

This has been going on since Thursday evening. I copied any files I
thought I might need onto a thumbdrive and have been waiting for "the end".

About 15 minutes ago (while responding to Harry) heh ... the fan went
to very high speed and I noticed the areas around the keyboard were
getting quite warm. I thought the time was close.

Then I noticed the AC adaptor plug wasn't fully seated into the
computer. I checked the battery status and it was down to 18 percent.

Pushed the power adaptor jack back in and within two or three minutes
the fan slowed to normal where I can't hear it running and the AC icon
is back on the battery status. Now I can feel that the areas that were
very warm are starting to cool back down.

Running on the battery must make it run hot. It's also amazing that it
has been running like this since Thursday evening. I don't shut it down
when I am not using it ... I just put it to sleep.

Looks like it's not dying.

On 5/10/14, 9:46 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:

I thought my Vista laptop was finally starting to give up the ghost for
the last couple of days. I have been noticing the fan was running at
high speed more than normal and for no apparent reason and also realized
the display seemed a little darker.

This has been going on since Thursday evening. I copied any files I
thought I might need onto a thumbdrive and have been waiting for "the end".

About 15 minutes ago (while responding to Harry) heh ... the fan went
to very high speed and I noticed the areas around the keyboard were
getting quite warm. I thought the time was close.

Then I noticed the AC adaptor plug wasn't fully seated into the
computer. I checked the battery status and it was down to 18 percent.

Pushed the power adaptor jack back in and within two or three minutes
the fan slowed to normal where I can't hear it running and the AC icon
is back on the battery status. Now I can feel that the areas that were
very warm are starting to cool back down.

Running on the battery must make it run hot. It's also amazing that it
has been running like this since Thursday evening. I don't shut it down
when I am not using it ... I just put it to sleep.

Looks like it's not dying.


That's really strange. Usually, many laptops "sense" when they are
running on batteries and power down slightly so the screen is less
bright and the drive spins a bit more slowly.

I'll have to invoke the "temp" app when I next use my laptop and see if
there is a difference between plugged in and battery power.

On Sat, 10 May 2014 21:46:04 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


I thought my Vista laptop was finally starting to give up the ghost for
the last couple of days. I have been noticing the fan was running at
high speed more than normal and for no apparent reason and also realized
the display seemed a little darker.

This has been going on since Thursday evening. I copied any files I
thought I might need onto a thumbdrive and have been waiting for "the end".

About 15 minutes ago (while responding to Harry) heh ... the fan went
to very high speed and I noticed the areas around the keyboard were
getting quite warm. I thought the time was close.

Then I noticed the AC adaptor plug wasn't fully seated into the
computer. I checked the battery status and it was down to 18 percent.

Pushed the power adaptor jack back in and within two or three minutes
the fan slowed to normal where I can't hear it running and the AC icon
is back on the battery status. Now I can feel that the areas that were
very warm are starting to cool back down.

Running on the battery must make it run hot. It's also amazing that it
has been running like this since Thursday evening. I don't shut it down
when I am not using it ... I just put it to sleep.

Looks like it's not dying.

Vista is the biggest pig in the line of windows os's. Update it to
Win7 and you'll have a new machine.

On 5/13/2014 3:34 PM, jps wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2014 21:46:04 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:


I thought my Vista laptop was finally starting to give up the ghost for
the last couple of days. I have been noticing the fan was running at
high speed more than normal and for no apparent reason and also realized
the display seemed a little darker.

This has been going on since Thursday evening. I copied any files I
thought I might need onto a thumbdrive and have been waiting for "the end".

About 15 minutes ago (while responding to Harry) heh ... the fan went
to very high speed and I noticed the areas around the keyboard were
getting quite warm. I thought the time was close.

Then I noticed the AC adaptor plug wasn't fully seated into the
computer. I checked the battery status and it was down to 18 percent.

Pushed the power adaptor jack back in and within two or three minutes
the fan slowed to normal where I can't hear it running and the AC icon
is back on the battery status. Now I can feel that the areas that were
very warm are starting to cool back down.

Running on the battery must make it run hot. It's also amazing that it
has been running like this since Thursday evening. I don't shut it down
when I am not using it ... I just put it to sleep.

Looks like it's not dying.


Vista is the biggest pig in the line of windows os's. Update it to
Win7 and you'll have a new machine.


Thank you for your kind advice. The fact is I *have* a Win7 laptop (as
well as a new iMac) in addition to this old Vista laptop that I use
daily.

The Vista laptop works just fine and is not noticeably slower or behaves
as being more "bloated" than the Win7. Both are 64-bit machines and
both have the same CPU speed and RAM. The only thing the Vista is
slower in doing is a cold boot and even that has improved by eliminating
some programs that I don't or rarely use from automatically starting.
Once it's up and running there is very little noticeable difference
between it and the Win7 laptop. Since I rarely turn it completely off
(I use sleep mode when not using) the slow cold boot is not really an
issue.

Vista certainly had a bad reputation when it first came out but with the
subsequent service packs many of the initial issues that people
complained about were mitigated however the initial image remains in
many people's minds. I agree that Win7 was a vast improvement over the
original Vista OS but, with the service packs installed, it's not
monster is was.

I use it because it's the oldest computer I have. I figure I'll wear
this one out before shifting to the Win7 or the iMac on a permanent basis.

Geeze. I am starting to sound like Greg except he's still using Win98.