blue screens

[daz]

Hi every one im new to this site , butt its very coool and well laid out.
well done .
My freind has a gericom laptop from aldi.
Ive loaded a full version off xp pro onto it becouse it was blue screening.
Had it running a few hours no probs then i turned it off rang my mate to come over to pick it up .
i turned it on and bang blue screen.
sometimes it can be running for some time and then it just blue screens.
Could any one possibly help with this problem.

cheers daz

 

[tjm4fun]

with a fresh load, there are still a number of possibilities:

1. a bad driver
2. bad memory
3. bad hdd
4. the remainder of the components in the laptop.

A bad driver for any of the devices could cause this. IF all the hardware is supported by xp out of the box, it is likely not a driver issue, BUT there are instances where the driver installed is not really the best one for your particular hardware.
The quickest way to see if it is software realted is to try a differrent OS. I would say get the latest version of Knoppix, a live cd linux and boot that. it runs completely in ram, and has very good hardware support. you can hack around, and figure out how to surf the web, and do some general use type of stuff to see if the pc remains stable. If it hangs, or won't load and run, you may just have a hardware issue.

You can download and create a floppy or bootable cd of memtestx86. boot it up, go to options, add all the extended tests and let it run overnight. if it fails any test, note the test. if it has 2 memory modules, remove 1 (ref the documentation to see which is the add-on one) and retest. Obviously replace the module if there is only one and it fails. to be sure, if you have access to another module, try that to verify that there is not another hardware issue on the system board.

Download the diagnostic disk from the manufacturer's site for the make of hdd installed. run the diags, if ok,then it's probably not the cause.

If everything else works ok, then it could be some remaining component of the system that is failing. Verify the cooling fan is working.