my notebook suddenly won't boot winxp?

[aakerman]

I have a semi-old 1 GHz celeron, 256mb ram notebook, with windows xp pro on it.
It has worked fine since I bought it, except it overheats easily..

Today, I have been using it quite a lot, maybe 3 hours spread over 3 seperate sessions.. so a couple of hours ago, I turned it off like I always do, and went to do something else. An hour late, I came back, turned the notebook on, and 5 seconds after the "Windows XP Professional booting" screen came up, a blue screen appeared quickly, and then the notebook rebooted itself. It does this sometimes, I have noticed, but it always boots fine on the 2nd boot. Not this time ! - It just won't boot.. it does the same thing - boots, blue screen, reboots... all the time! Safe mode doesn't help...

What could be the problem, and how do I fix it?

 

[dnuggett]

Do you have time to snag the error message off the screen before it reboots?

 

[aakerman]

not at all.. it is there for less than a second.. probably about 0.2 seconds 8(

 

[dnuggett]

There are two things that come to mind, and alot of other suggestions that can come later. Try reseating the memory. Is the 256 MB in one chip or two?

 

[aakerman]

Ugh :] I don't know if I dare open up the notebook, as this will void the warranty ... hmmm, quite a dilemma

 

[Ionizer86]

What's your room temp right now? You may want to crank some ac and test again. Here in S. Fla, it's really hot today!

 

[StraightPipe]

usually checking the memory is quite easy, it's a square panel on the bottom with about 2 phillips head screws.

unscrew and pop off the panel. the RAM is probly laying right there, see if you cantflod it up and the push it back in place, then fold it back down.

(checking the ram wont void the warranty, unless you have some crazy-stupid warranty)

Edit: make sure you ground yourself before you touch anythiing on the inside of the laptop. (ie: ground=touch something large and metal)

 

[aakerman]

Hehe, well Ionizer, I live in Denmark, and it is almost wintertime here right now... I spotted some snow on our porch yesterday

The thing is, it's my father's notebook.. if I mess up the warranty, he is going to be slightly unhappy... incidentally (sp?) he has lost his warranty receipt, so I guess we really have no choice

 

[dnuggett]

You will not void the warranty by reseating the RAM. This does not require you to "open the notebook up".

 

[StraightPipe]

RAM is no problem,

Warranties go void when you start messing with the mobo, or removing panels that have stickers saying "Removing this Panel Will Void the Warranty!"

 

[allthismoney]

The Ram is probably causing it to bluescreen, if not that try to get another hdd and reload it to check the O/S.

 

[sciencewhiz]

You can check the ram without opening it up. Download memtest86 from memtest86.com