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BSOD on my ~5 year old Compaq Presario notebook

M

MikeyPutsOut

Member
Every once in a while, my notebook will give me a BSOD (the same one every time) that does a "physical memory dump," and says there is something wrong with the hardware. How do I figure out what's wrong with it? If I took it to a computer shop, would they be able to correctly diagnose it?

This is running on WinXP (did not come with it, must've come with WIN98 or something) and model 1200-XL400 if that helps. I can probably get a pic of the BSOD later on tonight.

Thanks in advance guys!
 
Okay, I did a little searching on the forums and notice that I need to run certain tests (memory, CPU, etc). But I don't know how to do this, anyone want to lead me into the right direction.

And also, please, I'm not very computer saavy, so if you tell me to do something 'technical,' please explain how to do it, thanks!
 
prime95 is the program you want

Simple answer now = Ram/ memory problem. Most PHYSICAL DUMPS are memory releated. Memory went bad or something
 
right now, I am running MemTest2.5 for about an hour without any problems. I will try out what you guys suggest later on though, thanks!

and keep the suggestions coming!
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
Every once in a while, my notebook will give me a BSOD (the same one every time) that does a "physical memory dump," and says there is something wrong with the hardware. How do I figure out what's wrong with it? If I took it to a computer shop, would they be able to correctly diagnose it?

This is running on WinXP (did not come with it, must've come with WIN98 or something) and model 1200-XL400 if that helps. I can probably get a pic of the BSOD later on tonight.

Thanks in advance guys!
Click to expand...

Read my .sig's URL and follow the first post and send me the MPS Reports .CAB file and the minidumps (turn on minidumps, not kernel or full dumps - it's all in the first post) and I'll do my best to help.

"Physical memory dumps" merely means the OS had a blue screen of death. It could be a RAM issue, or one of a thousand other things. Without more information (like getting the actual minidump file and the MPS Reports) no one can say.
 
Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow dclive (gotta study! 🙂)....

I'm doing the memtest86, going on close to an hour and almost 4 passes with no errors. I'm gonna do prime95 later on tonight to see if the CPU is the problem. Thanks guys!
 
the instructions that follow may require a bit more work on your part than other solutions - it involves getting linux running from a cd, all to run prime95 for a few yours.

If your box has a cd-rom drive, you can download the knoppix boot cd, http://www.knoppix.org/ . just d/l the dynamic(the other non-static one) version of prime95 for linux, http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm.put it on a floppy.

get knoppix burned to a cd, and boot off of it. Once it loads to the desktop, put in your floppy disk.

click on the house icon, and then, in the location bar, type '/mnt/floppy', and press enter. click on the one file on the floppy disk, and it should list out the prime95 files. the one you want is called mprime. drag that to the desktop, and start the terminal(icon looks like a computer monitor). type 'Desktop/mprime', press enter, and prime95 should start. follow the prompts, and you are all set 😉

 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
I tried Prime95 and also tried to get the MPS report, but I get the same BSOD everytime I run the programs. helllllllllppppp!

🙁
Click to expand...

What about in safe mode?
 
1. I ran MemTest86 for about 20 hours with zero errors, so I suppose that the memory is not the problem.
2. I went into safe mode and got the MPS report, I just sent it.
3. I am going to try prime95 right now

🙂
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
1. I ran MemTest86 for about 20 hours with zero errors, so I suppose that the memory is not the problem.
2. I went into safe mode and got the MPS report, I just sent it.
3. I am going to try prime95 right now

🙂
Click to expand...

So in safe mode things run normally and you can do CPU-intensive tasks? Try this and let us know.
 
Originally posted by: yelo333
the instructions that follow may require a bit more work on your part than other solutions - it involves getting linux running from a cd, all to run prime95 for a few yours.

If your box has a cd-rom drive, you can download the knoppix boot cd, http://www.knoppix.org/ . just d/l the dynamic(the other non-static one) version of prime95 for linux, http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm.put it on a floppy.

get knoppix burned to a cd, and boot off of it. Once it loads to the desktop, put in your floppy disk.

click on the house icon, and then, in the location bar, type '/mnt/floppy', and press enter. click on the one file on the floppy disk, and it should list out the prime95 files. the one you want is called mprime. drag that to the desktop, and start the terminal(icon looks like a computer monitor). type 'Desktop/mprime', press enter, and prime95 should start. follow the prompts, and you are all set 😉
Click to expand...

omg.. i rather get ran use windows ME than doing all of that.


-
If you tryed safemode and it didnt crap out, maybe its one of your OS files gone courrpt. Did you try a repair install or full format?
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
1. I ran MemTest86 for about 20 hours with zero errors, so I suppose that the memory is not the problem.
2. I went into safe mode and got the MPS report, I just sent it.
3. I am going to try prime95 right now

🙂
Click to expand...

I need the minidump file(s).
 
Well, a new problem arose. After I finished the MPS report, I went back into normal mode to send it (safe mode w/. networking didn't work for some reason).... and I did two other things, changed physical dump to small dump and tried to run prime95 one last time... welp, I got a BSOD again, and now I try to load in normal mode, safe mode, and every variation and I get a BSOD before Windows completly loads. 🙁
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
Well, a new problem arose. After I finished the MPS report, I went back into normal mode to send it (safe mode w/. networking didn't work for some reason).... and I did two other things, changed physical dump to small dump and tried to run prime95 one last time... welp, I got a BSOD again, and now I try to load in normal mode, safe mode, and every variation and I get a BSOD before Windows completly loads. 🙁
Click to expand...

Nothing you've done would change drivers or anything else related to Windows loading. Stop 50s tend to be driver-related or hardware/RAM/proc related.

 
Okay, well, I was able to get the notebook to load through safe mode.... and you want ALL the files from the c:/Windows/minidumps folder?
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
Okay, well, I was able to get the notebook to load through safe mode.... and you want ALL the files from the c:/Windows/minidumps folder?
Click to expand...

Two or three of the 64KB files would be fine. Zip & send.
 
Originally posted by: dclive
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
Okay, well, I was able to get the notebook to load through safe mode.... and you want ALL the files from the c:/Windows/minidumps folder?
Click to expand...

Two or three of the 64KB files would be fine. Zip & send.
Click to expand...

Looks like bad hardware; you might run your vendor's CPU diagnostics on the box and see if anything pops up, but otherwise I'd do a parallel install of XP on the hard drive to confirm the same problem happens, and if so, I'd replace the box.

The PCs errors are remarkably consistent - ALL the dumps you get point to a CPU problem, and they all are the same.

Anyway, test that by doing a parallel install, and seeing if the issue continues.
 
I can't find a CPU diagnostic program on Compaq's website. Should I use a third party program?

And what is a parallel install?

EDIT- Okay, I figured out what a parallel install is and am doing that right now.

Also, if it is an issue with a failing CPU, would it be easy to replace it at all? Seeing as how it is a notebook and all.
 
I can't believe it, but a parallel install worked! I'm not sure why or how, but it did. I printed through my network and it worked perfectly fine. Before this install, printing through the network would give me a BSOD. Hopefully, this will run fine. This is, though, XP Home Edition rather than XP Professional which I had on before.

Now, are there any steps that I can take so I can 1) to prevent this type of thing happening again and 2) to improve the memory usage (seeing as how it is mainly being used for word processing and internet use and does not have much RAM).

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all that you guys did to help!
 
Originally posted by: MikeyPutsOut
I can't believe it, but a parallel install worked! I'm not sure why or how, but it did. I printed through my network and it worked perfectly fine. Before this install, printing through the network would give me a BSOD. Hopefully, this will run fine. This is, though, XP Home Edition rather than XP Professional which I had on before.

Now, are there any steps that I can take so I can 1) to prevent this type of thing happening again and 2) to improve the memory usage (seeing as how it is mainly being used for word processing and internet use and does not have much RAM).

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all that you guys did to help!
Click to expand...

I'm surprised, but happy - that's great. So, update to SP2 on this install, and make backups of the entire system using NTBACKUP. One easy way to do that is to buy one of those $59.99 160GB hard drives and back up your entire drive to that. You can easily store many backups on a drive that large. Given you have a laptop you might put it in a $25 USB case and attach it via USB; that would be handy and very portable.
 
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