Blue Screen

[ElJerid]

When booting a portable HP Pavilion dv6000, I get a blue screen and
immediately, the system restarts (too fast to read the screen info). This
happens continuously.
First idea was to reinstall Windows (XP) from restore DVD, but during
install, I got an error message that no HD could be found. Bios settings are
ok.
My conclusion is that or the HD is defective, or the disk controller of the
motherboard. Does anyone know a tric to make sure if the culprit is the HD,
or the motherboard (I have no other similar PC to make any testing) ?
Thanks for any tip.

 

[Gerard Bok]

When booting a portable HP Pavilion dv6000, I get a blue screen and
immediately, the system restarts (too fast to read the screen info). This
happens continuously.
First idea was to reinstall Windows (XP) from restore DVD, but during
install, I got an error message that no HD could be found. Bios settings are
ok.
My conclusion is that or the HD is defective, or the disk controller of the
motherboard. Does anyone know a tric to make sure if the culprit is the HD,
or the motherboard (I have no other similar PC to make any testing) ?
Thanks for any tip.

Keep in mind, that the 'blue screen' comes from Windows, not from
your PC's hardware. The only place some Windows stuff is stored
on your PC is on the harddrive.
So, if you get a blue screen, it cannot be that death

Download some live-CD and try to boot from there.
BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/)
Knoppix (http://knoppix.net/)
And most of the other Linux CDs

 

[ElJerid]

Have you tried booting to safe mode?
If you can finish booting in safe mode, disable the
reboot-on-error setting and write down the major details of
the bluescreen. If you cannot boot to safe mode either,
perhaps a camera would capture the bluescreen info.



What video chipset does that have? Several HP dv6000 models
with nVidia northbridge were effected by the northbridge
solder bump and underfill defect, fiasco.

HP's initial response was a bios that keeps the fan spinning
faster but it wasn't enough to help some people, their
systems began degrading in several ways including screen
corruption, loss of the wifi, and other less common
problems.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01087277&lc=en&cc=us

Granted, it's still a windows system and also subject to all
the other problems other systems have too.





The hard drive is SATA, IIRC, meaning you can pull it out,
connect it to any other system with SATA support (including
a desktop) and run checkdisk, run the HDD manufacturer's
diagnostics, etc., to see if the drive appears to be working
properly.

You might try booting the laptop to a USB flash drive or
floppy drive, etc, to DOS and run Memtest86+ to see if it
has memory instability. Check whether the fan is operating
and not overly clogged with dust (many if not all DV6000
unfortunately require complete disassembly to even clean the
fan housing, but perhaps shining a flashlight inside the
bottom fan port you can see how bad it is or isn't).

One last option would be to buy a replacement SATA hard
drive, then if it doesn't work with the replacement you
return the hard drive for a refund (minus restocking free,
provided you buy from someplace with a good return policy
that allows a "used" part return).

Thanks for your response.
Of course, I tried to boot in safe mode, but the same problem appears, which
seems normal is there is a hard disk failure or if the HD is not recognized.
The video chipset or other overheating problems are probably not the
problem, as everything seems to work normally when reinstalling XP from DVD,
until the error message that no HD is detected.
I tried to check the HD, which is indeed a SATA unit (from Fujitsu), but as
expected, the connectors are not the same as for desktop units. So, because
I have no similar portable available, I cannot do any check, hence my
initial question.
Finally, your last suggestion of returning the unit to a local dealer for
testing seems to be the only solution to my problem. But the fixed cost for
examining the system is 80 Euros and if finally the motherboard appears to
be defective, the repair cost will be similar to the price of a new
portable...

 

[~misfit~]

The hard drive should have the same connector as a desktop
SATA hard drive, both the data and power. If it didn't seem
to, perhaps you still had an adapter board plugged into the
drive that needed removed?

That's the problem with posting laptop problems to a general hardware group.
If he'd posted this to a laptop group he'd likely have been told that the
HDD adapters on HP/Compaq laptops are a known weakness and simply replacing
them often fixes the problem. Parts sellers know this, check ebay for an
inexpensive replacement. (Of course, check the HDD in another machine with
the adapter removed first...)

I learned about this from a friend when I told him that I was about to throw
out a ~3 year old Compaq laptop as, from what I could tell the IDE
controller on the mobo seemed to be shot and a new mobo was worth more than
the machine. $3.50 and a week later I had a perfectly working machine...
--
Cheers,
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.