Laptop I think has hardware fault....any ideas?

[DanGent]

Hi there,

got a laptop here that I'm close to writing off. Still think it might be the hardware but putting it down to CPU or RAM.

Here's whats happened:
First a BSOD unmountable boot volume error. It's a Fujitsu HDD so ran Fujistu's diagnostic software and no error. Ran chkdsk from an XP recovery CD and then it booted into windows. Few odd things that happened next. The laptop froze (including cursor) and one continuos beep from the BIOS. I think this may have been to do with me using a universal charger and not the one for the laptop (so I got hold of the proper laptop charger!). Even after using the proper charger the laptop would keep getting BSODs (pagefault errors). I ran speedfan and prime 95, the CPU was a bit hot (57c at idle) but my PC is 50c at idle and some laptops do get hot. The laptop then got a BSOD while stress testing.

Sorry what I've written here isn't exact (e.g 0x000 fault codes) but I thought a windows install would solve the problem, but alas, the install doesn't complete, instead it gives me an IRQL error! tried to install Windows XP Home off 2 CDs I've got. Ubuntu ran fine off a live CD though for quite a while when I backed up all the docs to an external harddrive.

Ran Memtest86 and the program halted with a "halting CPU0" error message, yet memtest86+ ran fine for 13 hours. Just ran a prime number CPU test from UBCD and that resulted in a black screen (though I've never used this tool before so can't comment on how good it is!).

My next step is to work out what socket the CPU is. Can't use CPU-Z as no windows, found an Intel CPU identification program on UBCD, I know its similar to
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mobile-Intel-C...item35a8a64368
just might not be this socket. For £7.50 I'm tempted to get it just to test this laptop.

Anyone any thoughts on what I've done before or what I should do? Help much appreciated as I'm quite stuck on this!

Thanks,
Dan Gent

[dodgybob]

Have you got any spare ram you could try in it, or if there are two sticks, could you try it with just one of them installed to see if there is a ram issue? The difference between the memtests is rather odd so worth exploring and ram issues can cause a lot of the symptoms you're getting.

[DanGent]

Good idea, and just keep memtesting with memtest86? (not memtest86+).
I hate the way they have such similar names! Memtest86+ is what I normally always use as I find the output much easier to read.... have you any preference? Are there any other memory testing programs you could recommend? I know theres a windows diagnostic one but I fancy avoiding MS if possible ;^)

Thanks for the reply,
Dan Gent

[dirky]

Memtest86+ is the newer one afaik, so I would stick with that. You might also want to create (if you can) an ultimatebootcd for windows (http://www.ubcd4win.com), takes a while but will boot a mostly functional XP live cd - but most importantly it will allow you to run CPU-Z which is included on the CD.

[DanGent]

It turns out I might actually have been very foolish and only tried installing XP Home from one CD (which this laptop's drive has had a problem reading).
Another copy of XP home I've got has so far worked fine! I really did think I tried 2 copies..... At the moment XP is installed fine and downloading updates. Whether there is some underlying hardware problem that will resurface I'm not too sure.

UBCD I use all the time, UBCD4Win I will have to check out as it sounds very useful!

cheers dodgybob

[DanGent]

Nope, spoke too soon ;^)
It was all going so well then when tried to install firefox (was only accessing the website so nothing to do with firefox), I got a BSOD
Stop 0x0000007F (0x00000008, ......
Which from the MS page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/137539 means several things. Its pointing to the RAM or the motherboard. I've never found it worth it to replace the mobo on a laptop as they're usualy £170+ from China with a 7 day warranty (or something similarily ridiculous).

This page says its Norton or Mcafee (which aren't installed: Avira is) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822789

Only problem is is that this BSOD doesnt appear very often. So its very hard to test for! Especially when Memtest doesn't give any errors

[DanGent]

Just looking at BlueScreenView to see the BSOD now. Its actually the 2nd BSOD of this nature to happen since reinstalling. I just mustn't have noticed the first one.
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP is the only info it gives me and ntoskrnl.exe is the only thing highlighted in red for both. Looks like a hardware fault to me!
I'm thinking that Memtest86 is giving a useful error? Gonna try running it again but removing each stick of RAM one at a time.