Bluescreen Mania - 6625wd

I recieved my 6625 on the 11th of july and had just enough time to install drivers a a couple of games, before i had to pack it down in my bag in order to go on a two week holiday in France (umm.. the food is great). I came home yesterday night.

Luckily the sun shone throughout the fortnight, because the performance on my new lappy was not quite as brilliant.

Dont get me wrong, i love the laptop (except the keyboard which i wrote about in another thread). But there's is something wrong. It crashes relentlessly. Bluescreen after bluescreen after bluescreen. Sometimes it crashed while starting windows up, other times it starts windows up, let's it run for about 30 seconds - then bluescreen dumping memory and crash. Games usually only crash to desktop, but i've seen a few bluescreens here as well. Having to save every 5 minutes takes out the charm of Medieval 2...

I tried calling zepto (DK) all afternoon but I never got through.
I seriously supsect it to be at harddisk error, since the cause of crashing under startup is NFTS.SYS, and both Scandisk and Windows Menmory Diagnostics (from the startup cd) reveals hardware errors. So of course System restore doesn't help a thing and niether does un- and installing drivers.

The reason might have been that I (stupid me) thought that the button in the start menu with the old xp "turn off" symbol on it meant close computer. It doesn't, it only makes it slumber. And then I moved the lappy around.

What should I do? Is this something I can fix myself without haivng to send it to rep (of course then, they could fix my keyboard aswell...)?

 

In theory, the option to roll back to the last good config should fix this problem.

Press the F8 key a few times just as Windows is starting to boot and you will get a screen with various boot options - see the attached blurry photo. If the rollback doesn't work, you can uninstall / reinstall drivers in safe mode. Sometimes booting in safe mode then reboorting normally will clear a problem.

John

 

Done it all... The start in last known good config option i must have taken at least a 100 times.
Now, windows is having trouble loading and starting it's processes. It must be a harddrive issue. Or a perhaps a virus (don't think so), I dont have an antivirus program yet, and I had to log on for 3 min in order to verify windows within 3 days (doesn't that mean that people witout internet are unable to own and use a computer?).

 

you can activate windows via a phone also, so you don't need internet to activate windows.

 

Got through to zepto, (they are on holiday 50% staff, hence the hold up) and now I downloaded their test programs from their site and I'm about to test my memory. That means i just have to send in whatever part is broken, instead of sending in my pc and waiting 3 weeks for it to return. Hope i find what i am looking for!

 

Just got a RMA... I ran the tests and the harddrive was fine. The ram was full of errors though. Unfortunately it was both sticks.... That means theres probably something wrong with the motherboard. So instead of just sending in a broken stick of ram, I now have to send in the whole machine. And because it's summertime i can expect it back in 3 weeks. Moan, moan, moan...

 

I'm very sorry having to revive this thread! I just got my 6625wd back from RMA. As I suspected they changed the motherboard and sent the machine back to me. I wanted to test it so I started up C&C3 and started playing a bit. After about 10 minutes the screen frooze and I had to turn it off. The odd thing then, was that i had to wait for five minutes before the pc would boot again (can someone here explain as to why that is necessary?)... And after that every time, the pc will run for about 0,5-5 minutes and then completely freeze. It didn't matter wether I was doing anything or just letting it sit at the desktop - it even frooze once while it was booting.

So, its the motherboard again, right?

But what are the odds of getting 2 broken motherboards? So, there must be something breaking them. What could that be?

I could sort of tollarate not having a computer the last 2 weeks since i was on summer holiday - but on the 27th I going to start studying and a lappie is an absolute necessity here. Damn.

Any weekend advice before I send the machine right back to Hedehusene?

 

It's not good to read that Zepto didn't manage to fully debug your computer while they had it.

The first thing I would do is to reset the BIOS in case there's a bug similar to one in the 6x24W BIOS. Is the fan coming on at medium or fast speed when the computer boots up? What CPU temperature are you getting?

If the motherboard has been replaced then I would start to suspect some other component which is malfunctioning and affecting operation. However, I won't make a guess as to what. Sometimes these problems can only be diagnosed by swapping parts. However, the more you can work out what circumstance cause problems the easier it will be to fix. Check whether mains and battery operation both have the same problem.

John

 

I just did a sys restore and that took care of the freezing, but now I am back at getting bluescreens again... The fan starts up at quite high, so i guess ill try and reset the BIOS. I assume ill be able to find out how to do it in one of the 6224 threads. But why didn't zepto do that at the RMA if they knew the BIOS was flawed (still, I yet dont know if it that is true)? Also, they neglected to fasten the keyboard although I asked them to.

 

The BIOS bug in the 6x24W is that it keeps the fan running fast du to misreading the temperature. I was wondering if your notebook had a similar but opposite bug which isn't running the fan enough. Anyway, a fast fan at bootup seems to be normal and should avoid any risk of overheating before the software power management cuts in.

If your BIOS is similar then press F2 at the Zepto splash screen to get into the BIOS, F9 will restore the defaults and F10 will save the current settings. It's worth a try. These Zeptos seem to have a very powerful BIOS with many options, which increases the risk of a glitch.

John

 

I was wrong about system restore stopping the freezing... It seems very cosistent. Windows will work perfectly, and then suddenly nothing happens and if I'm playing a game then wierd noise will come out off the speakers.

I reset the BIOS and it didn't do a thing.

"Check whether mains and battery operation both have the same problem" How would I go about doing that?

 

I presume you are normally running on mains when you get the lockups. What happens if you are running the computer on battery?

Also, what happens if you put the computer into Power Saver power profile? It should run slower but does it still lock up?

Are the lockups occurring under light usage or only when gaming?

John

 

Ill try playing with the power... I doesnt matter whether I am doing anything or just letting it start and have it sit at the desktop. The only thing that is consistant is that it freezes 4-5 minutes after turning it on. The computer doesn't seem hot at all.

It doesnt seem to freeze when I am runnig in safemode, but then i tried to run media player in safemode and it frooze.

 

Just tried tampering with the power... didn't change a thing.

 

DId they check the power adapter for the laptop? Becos if the laptop gets wrong power, it will break the motherboard (at least this is the case with desktops). Hope youll find a solution, as i havent had any problem with my zepto, other than the hibernation (other thread) and it hanging up at boot when restarting after major software changes

 

Hmm that might be worthwhile checking! Something is breaking my motherboards - it might as well be the psu. Im going to call in about it when they open tomorrow.

 

Check your temperatures (idle and gaming as well, if you can)

Use Speedfan or everest