Laptop keeps crashing

Raoul

Every hour or so my Dell studio 17 just crashes and a blue screen comes up saying something about dumping physical memory and then the computer restarts. I am going to try and get a picture of the screen next time it happens. I don't get enough time to do a full virus scan with mcafee.:(

dazzday

Could be a vast number of things. Really need to see a screenshot to know where to start.

Did you install any new drivers?
Any specific applications it happens during?
New hardware changes(Ram, Hdd etc?)
New software installations?

However my first advice is to boot into safe mode and run a AV scan.

x in the city

Raoul wrote: »

Every hour or so my Dell studio 17 just crashes and a blue screen comes up saying something about dumping physical memory and then the computer restarts. I am going to try and get a picture of the screen next time it happens. I don't get enough time to do a full virus scan with mcafee.:(

possibly driver conflict, have you installed software recently?

last resot is to install windows again..:p


take a note of the error code a post up, or just google it and see what comes up

Raoul

I did as a matter of fact install lots of drivers recently. So probably fecked it up. To be honest I have already exhausted all the online help before I seen a message here and resorted to reinstalling windows. So hopefully that has resolved it.

The newest software that I installed was expat shield. I think it was the drivers though. Took a picture of said blue screen will post up in a few. I would like to know if it was expat shield that did it cos I really want to use that program.

Raoul

Any help is appreciated

Raoul

So reinstalled windows, then I reinstalled all the windows updates. The same blue screen happened again:(.

Goin to reinstall all the dell drivers now and see if that helps.

alanhiggyno1

i had that problem and updated the bios and solved my problem.also get good driver update programme like driver genius pro off priatebay and update all ur necessary drivers and do a complete virus scan.mcafee is **** get avg or spybot..

Raoul

I have the latest Bios .

I got a hotfix from the microsoft website. Hopefully that works.

How do I know what drivers and stuff to install?

Raoul

So....Windows has been reinstalled, all virus scans done, updated everything with driver genius and "fixed" the problem with the hotfix.

Its happened again

Anybody got any other ideas? It's the exact same blue screen as the above one.:(

MASTER...of the bra

Those blue screens are useless, they're so vague, they don't narrow down the problem and there's nowhere really to look up the errors.

I've been getting blue screens on and off for over a year. I've tried everything, have a look in Device manager for a yellow exclamation mark or an unknown device, you might be lucky and it will tell you that somthing is incompatible with somthing else.

It could be faulty hardware (more than likely since you re-installed and it's still at it), which I found to be the cause of my problems, my computer ran chkdsk by itself the other day.:cool:

This page tells you how to run chkdsk. Give it a go.

Memtest will test your ram.

Seagate will test your hard drive if it's made by them or a subsidary.

Give this page a read amuha.org Use Ctrl + F to look for your error. It might give you some info.

skar

could be many things, but in my experience it is RAM or HDD problems...
a. First check in the BIOS that your HDD is in IDE mode if not change to IDE and see if problem still there.
b. If there is two RAM modules try remove one and see if that helps then replace with removed one and check(use your computer as normal) again.
c. Try new HDD. Remove old and install new HDD, OS then look up in the ceiling and pray...

Raoul

MASTER...of the bra wrote: »

Those blue screens are useless, they're so vague, they don't narrow down the problem and there's nowhere really to look up the errors.

I've been getting blue screens on and off for over a year. I've tried everything, have a look in Device manager for a yellow exclamation mark or an unknown device, you might be lucky and it will tell you that somthing is incompatible with somthing else.

It could be faulty hardware (more than likely since you re-installed and it's still at it), which I found to be the cause of my problems, my computer ran chkdsk by itself the other day.:cool:

This page tells you how to run chkdsk. Give it a go.

Memtest will test your ram.

Seagate will test your hard drive if it's made by them or a subsidary.

Give this page a read amuha.org Use Ctrl + F to look for your error. It might give you some info.

Laptop has been running well for the past week and then again last night. Blue screen. I have completed the seagate test and no problem. I ran the chkdsk and to be honest fell asleep and woke up and my log in page was on. so running again and seeing what it says.

The webpage you gave me for info is only for older versions and for the same error the webpages were missing.

After chkdsk I am going to try memtest.

Also how do I go about putting the HDD into IDE mode and does this affect system performance??

Thanks for the help so far guys.

stuff.hunter

IDE mode for SATA hdd will slow the system down

Raoul

stuff.hunter wrote: »

IDE mode for SATA hdd will slow the system down

Yeah I read that. Do you advise against putting it into IDE mode?

Raoul

Still haven't run memtest or checked the RAM but the problem is still there after all the other tests and "fixes". Will be checking the RAM later.

Raoul

So went 6 days without a crash. Thought I was in the clear but nope.

So I found out that I have two errors:
2000-0333
2000-0123

One is a memory problem and the other is a graphics card problem.

On the dell website it says that I should reinstall the graphics card and the memory.

I have my laptop about a year and a bit. Out of warranty, unfortunately.

When they say reinstall do they mean, get a new one?

loldog

OK, a suggestion. Try installing a different OS, like Ubuntu Linux. The reason being that a Linux OS will give you much more information about your hardware - I'd guess you have some bad RAM or something. Dell actually sell some PC's with Ubuntu preloaded so you probably won't have any issues with hardware compatibility.

Or, you could install Windows and Linux side by side, a dual boot, so that if Windows fails again you can use Ubuntu to diagnose.
.

Raoul

How much more info could it tell me? Or could it fix it?

Like I know its something wrong with my RAM and my video card but could linux tell me specifically?

And you can actually have a log in window at the start which allows you to choose linux or windows right?

loldog

Raoul wrote: »

How much more info could it tell me? Or could it fix it?

Like I know its something wrong with my RAM and my video card but could linux tell me specifically?

There's some examples here of what you can do. You can also use the disk utility to check the health of the hard drive, there are some commands to test your graphics as well. But the main thing is that it will probably tell you some useful information during the boot or shutdown process. You could try the Ultimate Boot CD as well.

Raoul wrote: »

And you can actually have a log in window at the start which allows you to choose linux or windows right?

Yeah, once your machine starts up, it goes from Bios to the Grub boot screen, and from there you can choose to boot into either Linux or Windows.


Make sure you install Windows first, then Ubuntu. Or else install Ubuntu from Windows using Wubi.
.

Raoul

Will try this tomorrow.

I have become an expert on diagnosing windows problems at this stage. ha.

loldog

Any luck with that? I'd be interested to know if it turned up any new info for you.

.

Raoul

Right, well, I hadn't rang dell so far before any of my posts because I knew my warranty was out of date.

Anyway, on the phone to the technician and he made me do a pre boot test (which I previously had done). This showed that I had dodgy RAM modules and both would need to be replaced.

To cost of the parts alone would be 150euro before paying for labour. However, he for 120euro, I could buy an extended warranty for a year or for 189.99 I could buy an extended warranty for three years. Both covering the costs of the new hardware.

So, I bought the new warranty. I am happy enough with this as it means my laptop is ok for the next three years.

Cheers for your help though. Dell technician is supposed to be coming tomorrow to fix the laptop.

kierank01

I feel like you have been ripped off:

http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr2sodimm.html

This is not really surprising from Dell.

Raoul

Well, would you not pay the extra money just so that you have the three year warranty, so basically if anything like this happens again, I wont have to worry.

loldog

Fair enough, glad you got it sorted out.

.

Raoul

Appreciate your help!

kierank01

Raoul wrote: »

Well, would you not pay the extra money just so that you have the three year warranty, so basically if anything like this happens again, I wont have to worry.

not really, If I could pay 50/60 euro for 2 memory modules, for which I would expect not to have any problems for 2/3 years, compaired to spending 200 euro for the same, then I would pay 50/60.

Hope the problem is sorted.

Raoul

Yeah but for the 120 euro extra, I am now covered against any other hardware problems for three years.

I am not over the moon with the amount of money. But I have peace of mind.