Hard drive problem?

[keekwai]

I downloaded and ran the drive fitness test carlton68 recommended and it reported no problems. Hoping to get lucky I reinstalled XP Pro which didn't go well. It would hang during installation and other times dialogs would end up garbled, very strange. Finally got it installed but still had the problems of course.

 

Sometime after that point the computer would not boot to anything at all. No chance to check for a virus as LHL suggested or check the RAM using the utility buksida recommended though I did create the floppy. But this got me to thinking that since I had two sticks of RAM I could switch positions and leave one out altogether. Sure enough she booted right up. I ran the RAM diagnostics and all was good.

 

So far everything seems to be back to normal minus 256MB memory although both sticks tested fine individually in the #1 slot. I'll try running both again (2x256) latter.

 

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions, it looks as though the problem has been solved.

[zzzz]

One of mine has a similar problem. It can only accept 1 ram. If I insert 2 or more, it will lock-up near the end of the boot-up process. Even w/ only a single ram, it locks up every couple of days or so, at a higher rate than my other unit. The rams will work together ok in my other unit so I suspect the problem is w/ the motherboard.

[Guest]

Intermittant Blue Screen of Death often indicates a memory prob. They may be ok separately but not work together. If you get the same prob when you put back the 2nd stick, you have your answer.

[carlton68]

I always thought this only happened to me. Had a laptop at work that had two memory banks and both in use. All of a sudden the bios told me during boot the amount of memory was changed. Did boot and work without problems, just with less memory than before. Memory bank B was there physically, but not recognized by bios. Swapped memory modules, same problem. Could use only one memory bank/module. Laptop was due for replacement a month later so I did nothing about it.

Never had this problem with a desktop computer.

I thought about describing this problem earlier in this thread, but since my encounter with this problem was the only time I heared about it I didn't want to point into the false direction.

Well, with drive fitness test at least you know for sure your harddrive is ok. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[keekwai]

"Well, with drive fitness test at least you know for sure your harddrive is ok. Sorry for the inconvenience."

 

No need to be sorry and not an inconvenience at all. You steered me in the direction I was asking, a way to run some diagnostics to see if I had a hard drive problem. Now I have the drive fitness test on a floppy ready to go next time around and the memory diagnostic utility. Both of which I would recommend others have ready before the inevitable problems appear.

[adikgede]

Believe me the problem you describe is not unique to laptops. We have thousands of servers with the Intel L440Gx+ board. 1 pair of 512MB pc100/pc133 SDRAM and the RAM will go bad and the machine will only have 768MB RAM available. RAM goes bad and I guess people don't expect it to because its solid state, but after hard drives RAM is the number one problem I see, followed distantly by bad eepro100 NICs.

[carlton68]

Well,

knock on wood I had never the problem that RAM went bad. In the case described it was the mainboard that stopped recognising any RAM in slot B while the same RAM worked perfect in slot A of the mainboard. I know that RAM can get quite warm in desktops and for sure gets hot in laptops. There's no cooling for RAM, therefore they might die earlier than expected.

This week I read an article about fanless power supplies for desktops. Negative effect was they are heating up the inside of the computer case ant therefore all components got hotter. For the HD they measured the temperature with a normal and fanless power supply. HD manufacturer confirmed that the MTBF of the drive at the higher temperature would be only one third of the MTBF at normal conditions. Fanless power supply is no option for me under these conditions.

[Guest]

Its funny you should mention it, I've had two machines this week with this RAM problem. Theres me pulling my hair out running every hardware diagnostics known to man ! They work fine on their own but put the two sticks together and its blue screen city. Now tried them in slot A and C and they're fine.

 

I guess the phrase "never approach a computer and say - I'll just do this quickly" has a whole new meaning.

[carlton68]

Buksida,

I can imagine this gives you a few headaches. Sometimes there is no logic behind, just try and error all the while you know it should work but won't. I am happy I don't do this for a living, just to help out family and friends. And I have to admitt, most time it works as desired.

What I think funny about the RAM are the mainboard manufacturers recommendations. At the first release of themainboard they release a list with a handfull of RAm they have tested and verified with this mainboard. However half a year later said RAM (which was expensive anyway) isn't available anymore.

A rather amusing RAM story: a friend has an older Pentium III computer, original configuration was 64MB+64MB RAM occupying the only two slots. He wanted to upgrade his RAM so he asked me what he can do. I checked the handbook, clearly said max. 128MB per slot giving 256MB max. He bought one 256MB module (I told him it won't work but he bought it anyway). Put it in slot 1 and 64MB in slot 2. Computer started recognizing ALL 320MB! However had a few problems when using all the RAM. He took out the 64MB leaving just the 256MB in slot 1, computer works fine since then. Maybe 256MB modules weren't available back then when they designed the mainboard?

[Guest]

What I would do is check the BIOS. There is a good chance that some of the parameters got changed (possible virus of the interesting flavor). Next, I would reseat the memory.