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General discussion

Wow What Happened to My Laptop...HELP PLEASE!

May 9, 2009 9:33AM PDT

A couple of things. FYI, I have an acer 1640 laptop running windows XP, it's 3 years old.

First, two days ago, overnight something happened so that my laptop cannot hold a charge any longer at all. If I disconnect the adapter it freaks out and shows 1% battery power left. Even when I reconnect it and leave it "charging" for hours it still shows 1% and will go out shortly after I disconnect it. NORMALLY that wouldn't bother me too much, but about 5 hours later the real problem began.

My laptop worked fine for the few hours after this began happening. Then I tried to troubleshoot the adapter issue by clicking on the charger icon in the bottom right corner of the screen and redistributed the power to "entertainment" accidentally. Somehow I believe this did something, because it began to lag with everything that I did, and although I put it back to "maximum" power allocation about a minute later, it began to give me issues. Shortly after my keyboard would not respond properly. I have to push down hard on some keys for them to register, and it will not register fast typing anymore, I have to hit one key then another then another slow like for them to register.

Shortly after this, my touchpad began to lag in terms of the rate at which the cursor moved, although the mouse connected by usb still moves just fine. Sometimes the keyboard typing and touchpad movement gets better slightly, like when the computer is opening something or processing something...very strange.

Additionally, overall my computer is just moving and processing slower in general now. I liken it to a stroke, where everything still works more or less, just not easily nor quickly. I began using recording software and in creating some songs with multiple tracks, some of these songs slowed my processor to agonizing paces when I would play the song to the point where it would stop playing, I don't know if this was just too much for my cpu to handle so it got ******** a few days later...This is ridiculous.

I have no idea what's going on and would love any insight, thanks guys.

Discussion is locked

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Processor Power Setting
May 9, 2009 5:26PM PDT

You might have changed the processor power settings to run at low speed which leads to your laptop lagged as it's not running fast enough to respond.

Are you able to find an option in which to reset the power settings?

Anyway, if your battery have been running with the adapter switched on often, it has, unfortunately, shown it's age. Else, there's a short circuit within the battery and/or battery indicator in the laptop.

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Power Profile
May 11, 2009 7:09AM PDT

Your laptop has a power profile. It may have gotten switched to "conseve power" because of the 1% warning, and then not switched back when you plugged in.

Look for your power profile and make sure it's set for performance.

That's my guess. As for the battery, you got 3 years. That's avearage.

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Wow...Can Anyone Explain This?
May 11, 2009 1:19PM PDT

Okay, completely inexplicably the problem seemed to correct itself entirely. I didn't change a thing, turned on my computer just now when it was still screwed up just 4 hours ago, and it works perfectly fine. The cursor moves smoothly, the keyboard registers and types each letter just fine, and most puzzling the laptop is now able to hold a charge again. Whatever the problem was, all of these things were intertwined, and I didn't touch my power settings at all, it was always set to maximum power. I don't know what happened, but thanks for all of your suggestions and help guys.