Laptop keeps crackling/popping and locking up!

[The Flying Penguin]

I hope this is the right place to post this. It didn't seem appropriate to post it in one of the Ubuntu support sections.

I have a Fujitsu P1610 that is giving me major problems. It crackles and pops when you move it (kind of sounds like its coming from speaker) and constantly freezes. When I press down on the eraser style mouse or if I put too much pressure on the keyboard it starts crackling. Sometimes it will crackle on its own and you have to pick it up and put pressure on the bottom left and it stops. Sometimes if you pick it up when there is no crackling, the crackling will start. Picking it up also seems to have the effect of making the laptop completely lock up about half of the time. This thing does nothing but crackle, pop, and freeze.

If you let it sit without moving the mouse, it locks up (only takes 5 min or so). I was in the process of reinstalling my OS when the problem got so bad I can't even install Ubuntu! Usually, it freezes as the live cd loads and if I'm lucky enough to get into the live cd, it will freeze during the installation. If I let it boot the XP login screen and then plug in my external USB DVD drive, sometimes that will cause the laptop to lock up.

Sometimes, after a lockup, when I restart the machine the monitor is completely black but the lights on the unit indicate CPU and hard drive activity!

My dad has one of these so I tried swapping in his RAM and hard drive but still had the same problems.

I opened it up once and could not find anything wrong. Nothing seemed loose.

Is something shorting out? Am I going to need a new motherboard or something?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[theraje]

Sounds like something may be up with the power... most likely the grounding. Of course, it's hard to tell without actually seeing it in person, but with the steps you've taken that would be my first suspicion. If you have a similar power cable, try hooking that into it and try it then.

If it still does it (or does it on battery power) then it's got to be something in the laptop itself. Try making sure the speaker wires are all seated properly and the solder joints haven't become damaged, etc.

By the way, do you have any idea what may have caused the laptop to start behaving like it has been?

[pcgeekguru]

I would have a tech check the laptop for you before you use it anymore. I wouldn't want it to be a fire or shock hazard.

[The Flying Penguin]

It still does it even on battery power or with a different power cord.

So just now I tried restarting and the screen was black and the lock light was flashing. I couldn't get it to turn. No matter what I tried it wouldn't start. I finally lifted up on both sides of the lcd frame and all of a sudden the lock light went out and the machine fired up with the lcd on.