emachines m5305 questions

[packeteater]

My system runs fine it just has the problem of over heating, i have cleaned it with can of air many times, and there is no way in hell i would get an apple computer. i have looked into the alienware ones befor, but for right now they are way expensive for what i make now. What i will prolly end up doing after i am into college and all is buy a new oen adn leave the laptop for a web server or something along those lines.

Then you will have to find a way to help it cool more efficiently. Probably will need to open it up to see if you can even do anything about it. Since your warrantly has ended it should matter if you open it or not :) Maybe youl find some dust your aircan couldnt get to. You should be able to just remove the keyboard to get a good look inside.

[lil_freak]

My system runs fine it just has the problem of over heating.

You may want to invest in one of these then, to help with your over heating problem: http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...oducts_id=1127

You can also find similar laptop coolers for less, just www.google.com for it.

[NleahciM]

I'd reccomend opening up the thing and making sure that the heatsink is properly attached to the processor. Maybe add some arctic silver between the heatsink and the cpu as long as you have it off. Also make sure that the heatsink is attached to/touching everything that it is supposed to (on alot of lappies the keyboard is used to dissipate heat) and make sure that the fan is clean and functioning properly. If that still doesn't alleviate the problem - you might want to see if you can replace the fan with a faster fan. Good luck!

[phobal]

new fan, too?

I say reformat, reinstall, defragment.

[spahkle]

new fan, too?

I say reformat, reinstall, defragment.

don't forget animal sacrifice.. it is an eMachine after all

[astcell]

I'm surprised that yuou can install Windows on an eMachine. I think you would get an error like, "Bill says, 'WTF are you trying to do! Idiot!'"

[lil_freak]

I'm surprised that yuou can install Windows on an eMachine.

Last I checked all eMachines had Windows installed on them.

I think you would get an error like, "Bill says, 'WTF are you trying to do! Idiot!'"

Do you really think Bill Gates cares what type of computer you install a Windows OS and or program on? I think he only cares if his products are making a profit and people have a demand to buy them.

*Astcell, I do like your comment. It did make me laugh.*

[GurtDotCom]

Another eMachines user

I am an Electronics Technician in the Navy and about 10 months ago I bought an eMachines laptop model M5310. I took it with me on deployment and it served me well. Several other people onboard had compairable laptops of different brands. Out of all of them, mine performed the best. I had no problems while everyone else did. The other computers included a Toshiba, HP and compaq. I had no problems up until now. When I run Diablo or any other graphic-intensive game, it overheats and shuts down. I have cleaned it out and the problem persits. I know the software is fine and that the problem exists somewhere with the video processor. I just wanted to let you know that others are have the same trouble.

[TheCotMan]

For christmas i recived the emachines m5305 laptop. It seemed to be real nice at first, its a 2.0gig AMD, Radeon processer, 512mb ddr ram, runing windows xp and xandros linux 2.0, and madrake 9.2. The motherboard on it was replaced too after i recieved it. I am now having problems with it over heating and shutting down when running lots of programs, or downloading a lot. Also it wont play games like counterstrike or diablo anymroe it will overheat in 5 minutes tehn shut down. I was wondering if anyone can give me some inishgt on what to do b/c my warrenty is up and i need to fix this problem teh cheapest way possible. Thank yout oo all that can be of help.

I know someone who has a laptop with overheating problems and here is a short list of things to check:
1) Check to make sure you have the latest version of BIOS for your board, and if you do not [then you should] upgrade
2) That having been done, inspect the BIOS settings for power savings, temperature control, etc. Some machines exist with power saving settings that will shut down fans or throttle them down, while speed stepping of the CPU is not so good. [try doing what you can to force the fans to always run to see if this helps.]
3) Look through the options available in your BIOS and see if there are any settings which relate to power, speed, or which could alter the way that your system is cooled. Also related, memory can malfunction if it gets too hot as well. See if the BIOS support enforcing a slower speed for memory. Also, consider removing memory for testing. Also, consider upgrading memory to decrease the amount of HD activity as virtual memory/swap is heavily used to make up for the lack of physical RAM-- and of course, HD generate lots of heat!
4) If the MB was updated, but the HD was not, then it is possible that the new board may have a new chipset for APM system which was not detected for the installed system on the HD. Scanning for hardware can sometimes help with this, but is no guarantee.
5) Examine setting within your OS and see if there are power control settings which might cause fans to stop operating after a period of time to save energy
6) Remove and re-seat your RAM and other components. Heating has a number of side effects with parts other than the CPU. Generally, short term CPU issues include "flakey behavior" as the timing per instruction starts to take a little bit longer due to the effect with speed of processing/moving data when conductors are hot, and some instructions are not able to complete before the clock cycle ticks over. Of course this is bad news, as previous commands in the pipeline will expect data to be available from the previous command which may not be done. Other than the processing/communication issues with heat, you also have a small issue with epansion of components which can cause existing defects to be more obvious in use.
7) Make sure the fans are actually working as they should
8) If thie above fails to help, you can try warrantee and see if they will cover the warantee on replaced parts too (restart of 90 period for replaced parts.)
9) Some states have "anti-lemon laws" put in place to protect consumers. Primarily these have been for cars, and bigger ticket items, but I would not be surprised if some states has these laws for items which are of greater price than some fixed amount (say $1000.) It may be a way to convince them to fix it. Even if the law is not willing to help, threats of its use can sometimes work in your favor.
10) if you are stuck the the hardware, and cannot get it to work, there are companies out there which made special tables which have multiple fans for resting your laptop. These are really sort of like oversized heatsinc.
11) Open all of your ejectable drive bays and point a room fan at your laptop while you use it and raise the laptop up with spacers so it gets airflow over the bottom of the laptop as well as the sides.
12) Make sure the next laptop you buy is better. Some examples of laptop which I find good:
IBM
Dell (business line, not consumer line)
Sony Vaio

The IBM have had a great track record. I have a P133 Thinkpad 560 which is about 8 years old, and it still works today. it has never had overheating problems and it actually running right now with Linux. IBM laptop have had a pretty good track record with working with multiple OS and makes extensive use of standard hardware.

Dell Laptops (business line) are huge, freaking bricks which weigh a lot, but they are quite reliable. (I do not like their home and "student" laptops.) Dell also uses standard hardware, and all of my hardware for mine is working under linux (Including the Lin/WinModem and the multi-video output video card with RCA, SVGA and LCD including multi-display with a 2 display cloned or double-size desktop)

The Sony Vaio have historically had some really kick-ass hardware on them, but support for Linux when they are brand new is sometimes a bear. It can take months before drivers are made to support their new hardware. However, when it comes to advanced hardware for a good price, the Sony Vaio are pretty good.

Laptops I do not like:
eMachine (despise), Toshiba (mild dislike), Hitaichi (dislike), HP (despise), AlienWare (overpriced and waste, but might buy if price was similar to the top 3), GateWay (junky cheap parts which fall apart if you type too hard; expect things to break) Dell Home Laptops (barf: have a horrible track record.)

I can't think of other laptops right now.

[LosT]

things to try...

First of all, go and get the latest Omega drivers. Then make sure you have the latest VIA drivers.

*IF* you are running XP, those particular laptops had a problem returning to CPU speed when going back from battery to AC power; so check to see that you have the latest BIOS for your board...

You can also try something along the lines of Clockgen to see what speed you are actually running at~

I have heard of Gentoo being installed ok on this model...just FYI


LosT

[skroo]

Also: http://www.linux-laptop.org/ may be useful to you.

[D_A_Heitbrink]

I have the same problem with the same model, It is not always graphics related stuff that causes it to shut down, I am a Comp Sci. Grad student and if I use it to run a FCM algorithm on a large data set it will shut down in middle of the process. I realy pretty pissed about this one.

Apple laptops had the same problem, and a class action suite was filled against them for it. I think I am going to try to compile a list of ppl with the same problem, if you can email me at d_a_heitbrink@hotmail.com

[lil_freak]

I have the same problem with the same model, It is not always graphics related stuff that causes it to shut down, I am a Comp Sci. Grad student and if I use it to run a FCM algorithm on a large data set it will shut down in middle of the process. I realy pretty pissed about this one.

Apple laptops had the same problem, and a class action suite was filled against them for it. I think I am going to try to compile a list of ppl with the same problem, if you can email me at d_a_heitbrink@hotmail.com

EnPower Laptops run FCM algorithms very well. They also don't cost that much, you may want to look into getting one.

Also, are you running a FCM algorithm to just return cluster centers and the degrees to which the different data points belong to each cluster center or to translate directly into a membership function(s)? Or both? Or something completely different?

[highwizard]

I am a Comp Sci. Grad student and if I use it to run a FCM algorithm on a large data set it will shut down in middle of the process.

Apparently standards are getting lower and lower for college these days.

[D_A_Heitbrink]

I did find if you use a program to set the multiplier and the voltage you can manage the cpu speed and hence the temp. CPU MSR works. It does not run as fast... but better then shuting down. Emachines tech support said to run a large box fan next to it.
I use FCM for segmentation of 3D datasets, it works relatively well I have tried to modify it to get try to get some better results but I have only had moderate sucess at this point.