HP Laptop on XP Pro - Issues in Normal Mode

Sully

Hey all,

Id like to put a question out to the general IT people who may have came across an issue im having with a HP Laptop at the moment. Its running Windows XP Professional, and has been passed down second hand from a large company (a bank) without being wiped.

Recently its started to stop functioning in normal Windows. Sometimes it says its logging in but does nothing, other times the background loads but nothing else, other times it just crashes and sometimes the blue screen pops up (didn't take down the code, as its only happened twice).

I checked it for viruses and spyware several times using different software - it came back clean (apart from a few tracking cookies, of medium threat). Startup list and process is clean. No extra hardware was recently added, and the only software was WinAMP but that was a short while before it started acting odd.

Strangely, it works perfect in Safe Mode. No issues at all, even with networking enabled. I thought something in the startup list must be causing it to mess up, so I re-booted in normal mode asking for no application to start. It works the odd time, I got to a virus scan (another one) at 92% before it crashed tonight.

Before I decide to wipe it clean and re-set it up, has anyone else any suggestions or came across this type of issue before?

Cheers.
Kevin

majiktripp

Run Memtest on the Ram and Run a Checkdisk on the HDD just to make sure its not the main hardware causing the issue.

Sully

Will do, thanks.

Sully

Just completed ChkDsk, came back all clear. Nothing to report.

Will do the MemTest next. Thanks.

majiktripp

Other options would be the usual Msconfig and Hijack this check to see if theres any rubbish starting that shouldn't be , could also be a driver update or something like that that has been installed as if the machine works consistantly well in safe mode but not in normal mode then there is something starting up on normal boot but nice to rule out the hardware first.
Keep us updated!

Capt'n Midnight

chkdsk checks the files and folders

www.hdtune.com will do a SMART test on the drive

TBH probably best to do a clean install if you have the media as goodness knows what's in the reg, especially if they've uninstalled stuff none too cleanly

device manager show hidden devices to remove drivers from peripherials that aren't there anymore also look at program files folder to see names of folders left behind by poor uninstalls

other option is to system restore to as early a date as possible though may make things worse

Sully

majiktripp wrote: »

Other options would be the usual Msconfig and Hijack this check to see if theres any rubbish starting that shouldn't be , could also be a driver update or something like that that has been installed as if the machine works consistantly well in safe mode but not in normal mode then there is something starting up on normal boot but nice to rule out the hardware first.
Keep us updated!

I chekced that as I normally would, all clean.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

chkdsk checks the files and folders

www.hdtune.com will do a SMART test on the drive

TBH probably best to do a clean install if you have the media as goodness knows what's in the reg, especially if they've uninstalled stuff none too cleanly

device manager show hidden devices to remove drivers from peripherials that aren't there anymore also look at program files folder to see names of folders left behind by poor uninstalls

other option is to system restore to as early a date as possible though may make things worse

Ill have a look at that. I used the options available in the BIOS to do a memory test and also a hard drive test. Both clean. Running MemTest now, at pass 9 (how many tests does this doing do?) and all is OKAY so far.

System restore was done by the owner, but nothing came of it.

majiktripp

I reckon if its possible to wipe and reinstall , you may aswell, too much time wasted trying to narrow down what the issue is. You might be lucky as the laptop could have a recovery partition which would install all stock driers etc. Just have to de-junk it after the restore.

Sully

Yeah, that MemTest was going on for ages and not giving any errors.

It went to the stage that, in normal mode when you asked it to shutdown, it told you it was but never did.

I started formating a few moments ago.

Thanks.

Sully

Formatting went well. Laptop is fully back up and running.

Cheers for your help anyway