Frustrating problem that I need help with...

M

merlin803

n00b
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
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I have a laptop that is a few years old that is frustrating the crap out of me with its "issues".

I am more familiar with trouble shooting desktop problems and am hoping some one can provide some tips or suggestions...

Gateway M460 laptop

Issues:

Random freezing in Windows (sometimes it runs for hours and sometimes only minutes).
Occasionally will not boot up. Power light comes on but lcd doesn't and hard drive light just comes on for a few seconds. Sometimes have to remove battery and power cord for a few minutes before it will boot up.

What I have tried:

Running on battery only - still happens
Running on power cord only - still happens
Taking one of two sticks of memory out - still happens
Switching out the other stick of memory - still happens
Running memtest on both sticks of ram over night - no errors found (and this seems to rule out over heating).
Updating video driver
Updating wireless and Ethernet drivers
Flashing to most recent bios version
Changing bios settings (not too many even available to change)
Formatting drive and reloading Windows XP (3 times actually)
Scanned for viruses (none found)
Removed wireless card - still happens

Any suggestions? I am hoping it is not the motherboard but it is looking more and more like a possibility. Could a bad hard drive cause these issues?
 
Same as a desktop. Be sure and clean out all air vents and fans. Sounds like it may be an overheating problem.
 
GoodOlBoy said:
Same as a desktop. Be sure and clean out all air vents and fans. Sounds like it may be an overheating problem.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion and I originally thought the same thing except in some cases it happens from a cold bootup and sometimes the freezes happen after just a minute in Windows. In contrast, I have ran memory tests all night and have had sessions in windows that lasted 5+ hours with no issues. It seems completely random.
 
Hve you tried running a physical sector scan on the hard drive? I work on laptops all day at work and this is pretty common on some of the older ones I see.
 
strikerP4 said:
Hve you tried running a physical sector scan on the hard drive? I work on laptops all day at work and this is pretty common on some of the older ones I see.
Click to expand...

Do you mean the disk check option through Windows that runs the next time you boot (checks and attempts to correct disk errors)? If so, I am actually running that now.
 
One other thing that I forgot to mention is the following error when I bootup. It has only happened a few times and i forgot about it until it just happened:

Resource conflict – PCI on motherboard
Bus: 06, Device:09, Function:04
 
open a dos prompt and use the following command with the switches.

chkdsk /f /r

it will ask you if you want to do it on the next startup. Reboot and let it run. watch for bad sectors. I usually take the drive out of the laptop and hook it up to a server(any other PC will do) via a USB adaptor to run the scan.
 
merlin803 said:
One other thing that I forgot to mention is the following error when I bootup. It has only happened a few times and i forgot about it until it just happened:

Resource conflict – PCI on motherboard
Bus: 06, Device:09, Function:04
Click to expand...

Try disabling you internal NIC and if that doesn't help start disabling onboard sound, USB controllers, ect.. until you find the one causing the issue.


Make sure you have the most up-to-date BIOS and even if you do Re-flash it anyways.
 
I ran the chkdsk and I also downloaded a disk drive checking program from Hitachi and ran it and no errors were found.

I have tried disabling the NIC - still get the random freezing. I will try disabling the other items suggested.

It has also been suggested that I try applying new thermal paste. Does this sound reasonable? If so, are there any tutorials that you could point me to?

Thanks!
 
Clean your fan and vents.. Also apply new thermal compound to the processor & if possable, the gpu.

That fixed 2 Acers & 1 Gateway for me so far :)
 
Well, I finally figured out what the cause of the problems is....

It is the video driver (Intel 915 GM). It appears to wreak havoc on the other device drivers.

If I uninstall the device drivers for the video and just let Windows use the generic ones then no issues at all (and the other missing device drivers automatically install).

If I re-enable the driver and reboot - all of a sudden the wireless doesn't work and other random device drivers are missing - (wireless driver, cardbus controller...) and randomly the laptop won't start up.

I did try updating to the latest video driver but still had the same issues.

If properly installed, there are 2 instances of the video drivers in Device Manager (this is normal from what I read). If I uninstall the 2nd one, my system is more stable but uninstalling both of them makes the system very stable.
 
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