Do your wheels need balanced ?

 

Mine vibrates some lately when it gets hot, but that's just when the engine fans are on. Seems I got a bit more carried away off-road than I thought in the last year or so. With yours, I seem to recall you use yours mainly as a commuter? Which would mean possibly a tire needs balanced if it's dependent on speed, or maybe a stock suspension component is showing its age, or, have you been down a muddy road lately? A little bit of mud buildup inside a wheel can cause a speed-sensitive vibration.

 

x2 on wheel balance, they need it with each tire rotation (3000 miles), but I've driven with my laptop in my backback every single day on my way to and from work in all of my cars for years, and it sits in the footwell behind the drivers side, and that has never caused an issue, and I've taken them off road with me, which is some pretty violent movement, and it has never caused an issue... how violent of a vibration are we talking? That doesn't seem very likely to me.

 

I've driven with my laptop in my backback every single day on my way to and from work in all of my cars for years, and it sits in the footwell behind the drivers side, and that has never caused an issue, and I've taken them off road with me, which is some pretty violent movement, and it has never caused an issue... how violent of a vibration are we talking? That doesn't seem very likely to me.

X2, my laptops that I have/had for work , and the ones I had back in college were moved around every day, subject to shock/vibration, etc. and I've never had an issue. Granted these were a mix of Lenovo/IBM Thinkpads, an HP Probook, and a Dell Precision, which are all built to take a beating, but unless your vibration is really bad or the laptop was either poorly made (as many consumer models are) or already on its way out I doubt the vibration itself caused it.

John,

I had a screen go out on a laptop a while back because I left it in the back seat of my car (inside a laptop bag) for a few days and it got extremely hot in there. The battery was also shot.
Just thought I'd mention that.

This is a possibility if you left it in the car parked for an extended period of time. Temperatures in a car can get well into the triple digits inside a parked car on a hot day, which is bad news for LCDs and batteries (especially in non-business grade laptops).

 

John,

I had a screen go out on a laptop a while back because I left it in the back seat of my car (inside a laptop bag) for a few days and it got extremely hot in there. The battery was also shot.
Just thought I'd mention that.

 

If you've got a vibration, I'm with the others above: most likely a wheel balance, or just maybe an alignment problem. As tires get older they will wear unevenly because the alignment will gradually go out, so older tires and older vehicles may have a slight vibration -- you may feel it in the steering wheel. And of course there are bumps in the road, but on a smooth road there should be no vibration at 70mph.

That said, I can't imagine a poor alignment or out of balance tires would wreck your computer; the vibration would have to be outrageous to damage it. Did you hit any huge potholes or drive on any really trashy roads? That kind of vibration could damage a sensitive laptop.

My laptop rides in my Patriot every day just like yours: in its case on the floor behind me. I doubt your screen problem is related to riding in your Patriot.

Hope its a cheap fix!

 

John, being on the floor, the laptop had no cushioning from bumps and vibration compared to if it was located on the back seat.

If wheel balance is a concern the only way to eliminate that possibility is to have the tires road-force balanced. It's the best method out there. Normal spin-balancing doesn't address a lot of issues that the road-force method does. All my vehicles have had that done, including my brand new one.

You can search for one located near you on their (Hunter) website. Wheel & Tire Balancer | Road Force Touch® Wheel Balancing Machine | Hunter Engineering

 

no results found near by. I live in nw Tn though

is this really a lot better than a regular wheel balance?

how much is price difference?

do you work for them or a believer in the forced road balancing?

 

mud in the rims?

 

nope

 

I put used tires on the back of mine and even though they were spin balanced, they create a vibration that is more pronounced at certain speeds. So much that I can see it in my dash mounted cell phone holder. Sometimes my steering wheel vibrates at certain speeds and sometimes it doesn't.

 

That could also be belts failing in the tires. I had a set of tires the would balance but were awful on the vehicle. It was a FWD Pontiac Grand Prix, and the tires were on the front. Under acceleration they were fine, but as soon as I reached cruising speed, they would vibrate. My guess was that under acceleration the torque kept the belts under stress so no problem; once the tires relaxed they started flexing out of control. I'm no expert, but that was what others told me at the time.

That was a miserable set of tires! At the time I was on a pretty tight budget and I lived with those tires much longer than I wished.