Crashing, I did normal fixes. Still xing. Is this hardware or software

Interestor · 18 Nov 2012

My win7 Alienware m11x is crashing showing blue screen in windows and safemode.

System restore tried, failed. I uninstalled recent programs and network drivers. Ran check disk.

The situation improved somewhat, but still crashes with blue screen. Screen displays different stop codes, including 0x000000F4. No minidump.

Would new OS solve the problem? Could I fix this with only parts of win7 reinstalled?

Or is this a hardware problem and I should get a new hd?

Thank you

Arc · 19 Nov 2012

fill up your system specs.
See your system specs and fill it up here.

Do some disc maintenance.

Update your SSD's Firmware (Skip, if it is not a SSD)
Reseat the sata and power.
Run chkdsk /f/r, following the option two of the tutorial Disk Check
Seatool for dos: SeaTools | Seagate download
Burn it in a blank cd. boot from the CD, click on "Accept", wait for it to finish detecting the drives, then in the upper left corner select "Basic Tests", then select "Long Test" and let it run.

Interestor · 19 Nov 2012

Hey Thanks,
Well the thing is not stable enough to download your systeminfo file. I added a few things that I know. It is a stock Alienware M11x small laptop i5 quad core processor, 8 GB ram, win7 64 bit home premium, big GPU, small screen, good wireless, no CD.

1. No SSD. It is 283 GB 7200 rpm hdd.
2. Reseat? Not sure, do you mean make sure power cable is plugged in? or disassemble the laptop to make sure hd is attached?
3. I have ran check disk in both modes. The Automatically Fix mode helped a little (I think).
4. Can't download and no CD drive. I suppose I could rig some other computer things together to get this program on a CD and into my laptop, but that sounds like an extra big project. Going in that direction, I think I should try to reinstall windows from this cd I have. Do you think the reinstall would be ineffective?

Also, the stop errors on the blue scree have read both 0x000000F4 and 0x0000007A, if that helps.
Also, I do see files in the mindump folder. On one day the computer wrote some. How useful would one be?

Arc · 19 Nov 2012

As you are thinking that chkdsk helped a little, in this situation Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 should be effective.

Interestor · 19 Nov 2012

Sweet, thanks. I'll try it.

Interestor · 19 Nov 2012

WHoa, I though I could reinstall windows less surgically. I now read that it is a format disk, then reinstall everything operation. Definitely emergency only.

Currently, I tried opening up, then pulling HD and putting back in (=reseat?). Then I vacuumed the fan and exhaust ports. Wasn't visibly dirty but it did get hot when running before.

No crashes yet. Would either of these two procedures have fixed something?

Do any of my symptoms point to imminent HD failure?