Toshiba Satellite A355D-S6930 keeps freezing
Posted by malibukid71@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 10 comments
I have an old Toshiba Satellite A355D-S6930 and I have liked this machine since day 1. Yes it is old and out of date (I'm just wanting it as a toy as I have a newer laptop and a desktop) but I would like to revive it by putting Windows 10 on it. It came with Vista and I upgraded it to Windows 7 and it appears to have factory drivers available up to Windows 8.1. I looked up the specs for Windows 10 and spec wise it shouldn't have an issue running it. The only real problem is the same problem I've been having since I shelved it about 10 years ago. It keeps freezing, it used to be only once in a while so it was still fine to use but it has gotten worse over the years. Now it is to the point I can't even get into Windows. The furthest I've gotten was hitting return after putting my password in. Sometimes it freezes almost immediately. Of course I thought it was a hard drive problem so I just put a brand new SSD into it. I've gotten as far as installing Windows 10 before it freezes and as little time as while I'm in the BIOS looking at settings. I'm really hoping there isn't some hardware failure I've been dealing with all these years.
2.1GHz AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core ZM-80 processor
4GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics
TooManyBulborbs@reddit
I highly recommend testing Linux and see if that freezes too. Sometimes windows 10 had absolutely awful driver support for old AMD and ATi stuff.
malibukid71@reddit (OP)
I'm not so sure it has anything to do with Windows since it was doing it when I had Windows 7 on it and is continuing to do it with a brand new blank hard drive and has even froze while I was in the BIOS.
TooManyBulborbs@reddit
Try different ram modules then
malibukid71@reddit (OP)
I have a bag full of old RAM (I even have as old as 4mb chips from an old DOS machine I built long ago), so hopefully I have some in there. I would hate to have to find some online.
TooManyBulborbs@reddit
Old ram like DDR2 is still cheap, nobody wants it. The rampocalypse is only affecting DDR4 and 5.
malibukid71@reddit (OP)
I got lucky and got a good deal to bring my desktop up to 48gigs of DDR4 before things got crazy. It was built well so I'm hoping to be able to hold out until prices come back down (if ever) before I have to replace it.
Computers_and_cats@reddit
Did you test the memory? Does it feel like it is getting hot before it freezes?
Some of those older socketed mobile AMD CPUs needed to be reseated due to issues with thermal cycling. Not super common but sometimes it was necessary. Same with the old laptops that had desktop Pentium 4 CPUs in them.
malibukid71@reddit (OP)
I haven't tested the memory, I may have a stick or 2 laying around I could throw in there. The system has always ran pretty hot. I remember setting a brand new soda can fresh from the fridge next to it once...I got distracted for a bit then picked it up to open it and found it was actually warm because I had it sitting at the air discharge. I hit it with a can of air before I started messing with it but I haven't opened it up to give it a really good clean.
AudioVid3o@reddit
Windows 10 is probably technically supported, but this system will be most comfortable in windows vista/7 or linux
Glittering-Ninja3573@reddit
yeah dont run windows on hardware this old, hell if you can, avoid windows alltogether