Laptop Freezing Up With REDline across the top of the screen

Thank you in advance for your help on this topic. I have an HP 7000ZD laptop. Recently my laptop froze on me and had a RED line across the top of the screen. My computer felt hot so I thought it was overheating. I took a home fan and had it blasting air into the fans of the computer and it seem to work fine. However if I took the home Fan off the computer the laptop would freeze on me and with a RED line across the top of the screen. I took the laptop into an authorized HP Repair shop and the said I needed a new fan assembly on the laptop. I put the new fan in and the same problem still happen. But if I placed the home fan onto the computer it worked fine. So next HP told me I needed to replace my processor. I received the processor today and yet again same problem laptop would freeze on me and with a RED line across the top of the screen. I have reinstalled windows; I have ran the disk repair. And still the same problem. Can my Hard Disk being going bad? It seems like the last thing I haven’t replaced. Why can I have a Home fan blowing on the laptop and it works and if I don’t have a fan blowing into the laptop it freezes? Thank you again for anyone’s help on this. It’s mind blowing to me.

 

HP/Compaq laptops seem to have trouble when they get a bit older with this sort of problem. How old is it? It's obviously a cooling problem, so there is absolutely no need to replace processors and whatnot.

+ are you confident about opening the laptop case yourself instead of sending it for repair? Cooling can be an easy and cheap fix

 

Its about 5-6 years old. I just replaced the processor today. Can it be the hard drive?

 

No, I highly doubt it. Have you had a look inside the laptop? between the processor and the heatsink there should be a white substance. It's called thermal compound, and through experience HP/Compaq tend to use pretty low grade stuff which dries out after a while. The thermal compound should look like it's tacky (but do not touch). If it's not and it looks dry, the best solution is to replace the compound (costs about £20 for a good cleaner and a good compound), and give the whole heatsink area and fans a good shot of compressed air. With the new fan assembly, and brand new processor, it should run like a dream!

 

I have done that today replaced the processor replaced the Fan Assembly. Place the thermal past on the top of the processor and still am having the same problem. Thank you for your help. Any other things I can do?

 

On the underside of your laptop, there will be the true model number of the laptop (zd70xx), if you can supply that i shall do some research on it, because now you've intrigued me. The only other option is the graphics overheating, but i need to know exactly what's inside.

 

HP zd7000 and there is another below it HP zd7015us This is crazy why this is happening. I want to say THANK YOU for helping me with this. HP doesnt even have an answer for me. SO THANK YOU AGAIN!!!

 

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00218664.pdf

By the way, top spec machine 6 years ago! Above is the service and repair manual for your laptop, and it's actually very well laid out. It doesn't look like that graphics processor has a seperate heatsink or is even connected to the main heatsink (see page 5-36, the GPU is the square in the bottom left of the image) which is kinda strange for a 128MB Graphics card, or maybe i'm missing something.

Use the service manual to work out whether it does actually have a heatsink itself, and make sure everything is clean and tidy in there. Sometimes a good blast of compressed air through all of the heatsinks and fan vents can reveal all sorts of rubbish inside, and make sure to get anything out of the nooks and crannies of the system board aswell using the air. You will have to set aside some time to get this done though, it may be a long job, Just make sure you use some sort of anti-static bracelet, and dont use feather dusters or anything to clean it, canned air is the only way so don't be MacGyver and try something daft.

I'm going to bed, it's 3AM in uk :zzz
I'll be watching the thread so let me know how you get on

 

thank you I will try that! I will let you know if that works...