[SOLVED] Is my notebook going to die soon?

[countrystrong]

It's an ASUS N750JK (i7 4700HQ CPU, 16 GB RAM, graphic cards HD 4600 + GeForce GTX850M, Windows 10 on a 840EVO 250GB SSD). It always had some problems -the original motherboard had to be replaced by ASUS when it was in guarantee- but recently it had some more issues that I described in a couple of separate threads, as apparently they were not related to each other. But now I wonder if those issues are just all signs that my notebook is going to die soon!

1. there was an electric short when I connected headphones. That caused the notebook to shut down and I had to remove the battery and put it back in order to boot again.
2. CPU temperatures easily run high in the nineties (Celsius) for no apparent reason. Cooling remedies don't seem to be effective so far. High temps might explain some other random shutdowns and, in the long run, stress the notebook hardware. BTW, according to Samsung Magician the SSD's gets a bit too warm too. The temperature is now around 50 Celsius, which Magician describes as "High".
3. The notebook's data HDD, a 750GB Hitachi TravelStar 7K1000 , suddenly crashed a few days after issue #1. The problem started just after I turned on Bitlocker encryption, but I don't know if it was caused by Bitlocker in the first place OR something broke down at hardware level, perhaps the hard disk controller? The disk went from apparently A-OK to data catastrophe, lost partitions, bad blocks everywhere.

What do you make of all this? Can I still use this notebook with important data and possibly invest some money on it (it needs a new HDD) or should I leave it for, say, playing Tetris? (just joking!).
BTW, this notebook is not going to support Windows 11 but it could still live with 10 or Linux.

Any advice is welcome!

For further details, see my previous threads about the specific issues...

[SOLVED] - ASUS notebook having sudden shutdowns -- headphone jack induced short, overheating, or something else?

Two days ago My ASUS N750JK notebook crashed after I inserted the headphone jack into the headphone hole. The same headphones work fine on a different notebook. Actually, I had briefly put the jack in the mic port, my bad, then I immediately moved it to the correct headphone hole, then Windows...

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Question - Corrupted Bitlocker data partition

I used Bitlocker in the past on this same PC and never had problems. Yesterday I turned on Bitlocker on drive C: and, after a first reboot, on E: (data HDD). I selected the new Bitlocker encryption mode, not the compatible one. It’s Windows 10 pro 2H20 on an ASUS N750JK notebook. I saved the BL...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

the notebook itself cannot die. only single components which can all be individually replaced.
whether it's worth it to continue to invest money into it is up to the individual user.
personally, i would donate it or maybe just keep it around for emergency backup use if nothing newer is available.

whether it's motherboard may die again, it's power supply may be failing, or if other single components may also be nearing the end of their lifespan is nearly impossible to predict.

but that thing is using very outdated hardware so looking into upgrading may be a good idea anyway.

 

[JWNoctis]

Did any S.M.A.R.T. checker tools say anything about a failing drive? Obviously something went wrong but it's hard to say what. Replace your HDD if it's failing.

Also, get your notebook's heat sink cleaned and repasted. Slim ones like that had poor cooling with few exceptions, whatever material their case is made of. Heat pipe could also fail, though it might be considerably harder to qualify that.

 

[countrystrong]

Thanks guys. Yes, of course a machine never literally “dies”. You could always repair or replace individual components, if it’s worth it. But, what I am actually worried about is losing more data, firstly, and wasting money, secondly, because some other components are likely to fail, either because of age, or overheat (the thing has always been hot like a stove, with CPU nearing TJ temp even when it was freshly pasted), or electric shocks (a short came out of the blue when I just plugged in headphones).
So I guess I am going to follow @JohnBonhamsGhost ‘s advice and keep the thing just for emergencies or experiments, anyway not for anything needing reliability.

@JWNoctis As to the crashed HDD, I did not check S.M.A.R.T. recently but for sure I did not get notifications and there were no warning signs like any data loss. The disk worked nicely and all of a sudden it became a giant bad sector, so to speak. I am just in doubt if it was an epic failure at hardware level (PCB?) or a minor issue that became a big one because of the interference with Bitlocker during encryption.

 

[hang-the-9]

Static electricity through the ports can cause the system to crash, that is normal.

Higher temps in older systems is also normal, have you tried new thermal paste and make sure it's all clean inside?

Drive crashing is also normal, and actually is to be expected and planned for with backups.

Nothing particularly off with the system past normal computer hardware things happening with it.