Laptop, Battery and Internet

[Qui-Gon John]

I'm having a problem with my wife's laptop. It seems when it is running on the battery, the OS will freeze up more often than not, requiring a hard reboot. The only thing I have been able to track so far is that this seems to start while in Internet Explorer. If I run the laptop on battery and do other things, Quicken, Word, Excel, whatever, it is fine.

It was doing this for a while and also the battery had gotten to a very short battery life. But I just got a new battery for the laptop and the same thing happens.

Does anyone have an idea where to start in troubelshooting this problem?

It is on Windows 7 Home Premium and IE is v.8. I could go to IE9, but I'd rather find an answer other than that.

Thanks!

[Brk]

Does the laptop have switchable graphics (integrated graphics that operate under light conditions, and secondary discrete video that kicks in when more power is needed)?

[Qui-Gon John]

I don't think so. It is an Acer Aspire 5100, bought back in April 2007, just after Vista came out. Later I wiped that clean and installed Win 7 Home Premium. How could I check for that?

[YeOldeStonecat]

Age of laptop, plus it's "class"....leads me to suspect budget grade HDD which is beginning to fail. Although Quicken is a bit heavy hitting and should also cause grind 'n crash on a failing HDD...but it's still a strong possibility...web sessions these days wail on the HDD with temp files.
I'd also check for malware, specifically rootkit..since you mention the issue comes up with internet use.
One more thing to check, isolate the wireless NIC. Turn it off...and run some intensive stuff locally. If it's a mini PCI card or some add-on daughter card, reseat it. Flash BIOS of the system, update system drivers and wireless NIC drivers.

[RaisinCain]

Have you tried going into the Control Panel> Internet Options> Advanced tab> Reset option to reset IE to defaults?