this morning (with article deadline at hand), got the BSOD and repeated reboots of the computer this morning. Wouldn't even work in safe mode.... Turned out to be a SIMM that went south! Took it out and have been running fine since then. But it had me scared for a bit. Matt
Oh don't get me started on PC issues. I'm chasing something here that randomly locks the darn thing solid. No warnings, nothing in the event viewers. Arrghh.
I have a one year old HP laptop that does the same as Nathans, no warning, no real reason, it just locks up and sits there - like it's stuck in a loop or something. Sometimes if I wait long enough it clears up and runs fine. Sometimes if I close the lid, eventually putting it into sleep mode, when I reopen the lid all is fine again. Usually, it only does it once then it's fine the rest of the time I use it, which could be for several hours... Lately it's taken to asking to run the checkdisc every time I start it, and I notice it's always the same files that are orphaned and recovered. Wonder what's up with that? Glad you got yours fixed Matt, I would not have thought of a bad SIMM... I'm thinking seriously of going ahead and buying Win 7 and wiping the disc and starting over....it's funny that after having Win95, 98, Millenium and XP, all with absolutely no problems, Vista has been a nightmare for me......however, I'm also half convinced the problem isn't really Vista, it's all the HP crap layered over the top of it that's causing me such grief.
First thing I ever do is remove all the manufacturer crap installed on any computer. When I buy a brand name computer that is. For your HP, you should have a utility partition that you would boot into by holding one of the function keys like F12 (it should say what to press on the boot splash screen). Boot into that and run diagnostics. Especially HD. That will tell you if you have a problem with your HD, which is what it sound like to me. If there is a physical defect on the drive it will lock up the machine while the OS tries to read that sector and it would also result in orphaned files due to write failures. And Matt, I feel your pain. Chasing bad memory sticks can be a PITA. Just one of those things that you never expect to go bad.
This reminds me of a joke... The Devil gets an idea that he wants to challenge Jesus to a duel. A duel of computer use. So, being the stand up guy he is, Jesus accepts the challenge. They fire up their machines. They word process. They photo manipulate. They MP3. About 3 minutes from the end of the challenge, the power flickers and both machines shut down. The Devil screams "NOOOooooooooo!" He looks over at Jesus who is sitting with a grin on his face. "What are YOU smiling at??? Your computer died as well!" He continues smiling as he says: "Jesus saves." Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week...
Often if a PC locks up after a extended period of use, it can be an over heating issue. For laptops that can be a real problem. For my Dell laptop I have a very low-tech way of getting some air under the unit when its on the table, I stick a couple of chop-sticks underneath. Otherwise it sits right on the table surface and there aint no air what-so-ever under there. If your drive is overheating, time to get a new one. Managed to salvage a couple long enough to get the data off by sticking it in the freezer for an hour to get it as cool as possible, sticking it back into the PC, and working like mad to copy the data off. Getting all the manuf crap off is definitely a good idea. My Dad has every icon and toolbar known to man on his laptop. I swear that is browser working area is about .5" x 11" :crazy:
With laptops... they can build up a lot of dust and pet air (or whatever) inside the case from the fans. It's worth it to open up the case about once a year and get all that crap out. Matt
It's a Patriot Memory SO-DIMM and they're issuing an RMA number. So at least I may get a good one back from them. Good thing too, they're $35, even from Newegg! Matt
Never liked Patriot. They always seemed lower end to me. Always been partial to Crucial. A couple of bucks more, but bulletproof with great customer service. In close to 15 years of using them, only had a problem once and they shipped out a replacement without waiting for the bad unit.
Still chasing issues here. Got a BSOD that zipped by so fast before reboot I never got a chance to note the codes. Did manage to find it in event viewer and all things are starting to indicate it's bad memory here too. Pulled the 2x1GB sticks leaving me a paltry 4GB to run Win7 but so far so good even if it is a little slower now. If this works for a while and doesn't freeze on me it's off to MicroCenter later today for some more memory. might as well get 2x2GB this time around and take it to 8GB total.
Wow. Complaining that $35 is expensive for RAM? I remember when a 16MB stick cost a couple of hundred dollars... from a discount comp store!
First memory I bought was a 16mb stick for my Packard Bell 486/66 running Window for Workgroups (which I stil have and it runs just fine.....lol). Cost.......$489. But then I had 20 whole MB of ram !
You young whippersnappers. First memory I bought was for a Cyrix system I built. 2mb I believe ran me about $300. Paid another $179 for a 512k chip of video ram to bring my Matrox video card to 1mb total. Anyone remember tweaking the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get as much conventional memory as possible. Those were the days.
Please tell me you are kidding...........you don't know the Nowhere Man? The Beatles.........Yellow Submarine........Blue Meanies
Oh yeah......trying to get Duke Nukem, Wolfenstien, Wing Commander and others to play right was a task. :incazzato: