Laptop Lifespan

 My nearly four year old Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop is beginning to act quirky
once in a while. It's used every day as a home computer and left on most of
the time. Do laptops generally have a limited lifetime? Any experiences out
there regarding this matter or computers in general?

  Bob wrote:


Does it have enough ventilation underneath?  Apparently heat is the killer,
which has enabled people to make money by selling add-on cooling fan-thingies
to set the laptop on.

--
Cheers, Bev
===============================================================
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely and in a
well preserved body, but to skid in sideways, totally worn out,
and shouting HOLY SHIT, WHAT A RIDE!!!

 It sits on a laptop stand with plenty of airspace.. One of the quirks is
once in a while it will freeze up. I can close the lid, placing it in sleep
mode and find that after a while there's a solid power light (normally a
slow flash). The only way to reset the thing is to disconnect the a/c line
and remove/reinstall the battery followed by a reboot. Things are fine then
til the next incident.

 Bob wrote:

   Seems to me that it is likely a software issue. Windows is a piece of
work.

   Same thing happens with desktops but it is easier to "pull the plug".
Not that it couldn't be hardware, but it is just a likely, if not more
so, to just be one of those windows things. Search the web for windows
freezes.

   Jeff

 
I second checking this out - sometimes the "close the lid to put into
sleepmode" doesn't work with particular pieces of software running. My
experience of this is with a different OS and a different make of
laptop, but it would be worth checking out.

Hanne