This is the replacement of the previous that I had in November/December. And they replaced the main board and ram last time I sent it in.
It's either ridiculously bad luck, to get two bad laptops of the same make/model in a row, or there's a compatibility problem, I would think.
But yeah, it is probably not worth it to troubleshoot. Will just end up with more RMA's, replacements, and repairs.
How is there a compatibility problem? What part is in it that could be incompatible? I would assume that they fitted all the parts inside themselves, and that you have no peripherals or any sort of external devices attached to the system. If so, and it's still causing BSODs even with fresh installs, then it does appear to be the rare case of getting dud parts or just not finding the right one.
So you said that you got a full replacement which still bugged out, and you sent that replacement in twice and it still bugs out? Either you are very unlucky in getting a replacement dud, or they lied to you and never replaced it with a new one. I'd say, demand a full replacement laptop one more time because you're tired of beating around the bush on this. That or just go to another more reputable brand (Lenovo, avoid budget models) or threaten that you'll do so to kinda push them in the right direction.
The only other explanation for all of this is if you somehow are installing some really buggy software every time you setup the computer. However Driver Verifier does a good job of catching unscrupulous software activity so that would've been discovered by now. We can still try DV but I'm not sure if it'll end up being fruitful.
I'm rather puzzled as much as you are on the matter, but I do believe it best to put that warranty to use. I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with the incompetence of HP's tech support and the result of it, but it may be necessary to continue that route or diverge to another brand.
I'm not sure. I'm no computer expert, but my PC has not crashed in ~5 hours with me having the wireless adapter turned off via the keyboard button, whereas it was crashing consistently every 10-30 minutes this morning.
And I still had the old pc when I received the replacement, so I know they have me a new one that time. They could have not replaced the parts when it was sent in for repair though.
I guess I'll call HP again today when I get home and see what transpires from there.
If the wireless is causing issues, the motherboard is the problem or the rare occasion where there's conflict with whatever router you are connected too. I have seen the strange case a couple of times where the router itself actually caused the problem and triggered the wireless adapter to BSOD. While I don't believe the router itself is the actual issue (all it does it route data), the wifi adapter may be acting funny when receiving certain packets. If you can, try purchasing a single USB wifi dongle and run wifi off of that with the onboard off (perhaps even uninstalled) and see how that goes. While it's cheaper to try running LAN instead of wifi to test, I wouldn't recommend it since I've seen that kind of conflict affect both wifi and LAN.
Sorry, I guess I didn't mention. I don't have Internet access at my house, which is where the majority of the BSOD's occur. So the only thing connected and receiving/sending data is my Bluetooth mouse. The adapter is the intel Centrino-n 2230 w/ Bluetooth. I also tried two different mice, as well as every intel driver I could find (that seemed reasonably compatible) and the generic Microsoft one. Perhaps why more aren't having this issue is that I don't suspect many people buy the Bluetooth add-on for this laptop, and even fewer actually use it for a mouse. I'm just grasping at straws, if you can't tell.
Sorry for any typos, I am writing this on my phone :|
Also, I noticed that in the task manager the Kernel Memory usage starts ~80MB paged and 50MB nonpaged, but with my mouse connected it rose steadily to 468MB pages and 60MB nonpaged. Seems high for not running any programs and just leetting the PC idle. And when I restarted the computer, it froze on 'shutting down' for 10 minutes before I held the power button. Is this related in any way?
That is quite a bit for paged memory, but you don't have to worry that much about it, since usually paged RAM gets offloaded to the paging file on disk anyways. Now if it consistently rises without ever stopping, then you got a memory leak for the software used for the mouse, so you'll need to either uninstall that software or find and update for it (and possibly firmware update for the mouse too).
Now as for it causing all your symptoms, have you been suffering the symptoms even with the mouse detached? Try functioning the laptop without it and see if things stabilize. If they do, then you have a good clue there. Understand that doesn't mean it's the mouse necessarily, as it could be some issue with the USB ports it connects too.
Also, one thing I haven't considered, have you bothered checking your laptop's power settings? Try setting to another preset (preferably high performance if it isn't). I've seen this resolve issues with some people's laptops as hardware inside doesn't bode well with Windows hybrid sleep states.
Well, I've been without a PC for over 3 weeks, I just got it back. Two hours and it crashed. YAY.
So I spent 20 minutes on the phone with HP executive customer relations, and then was transferred to tech support for almost an hour. Still crashing periodically, and they have and I quote, "No idea what could be causing this issues."
So I'm stuck waiting until tomorrow to talk to yet another case manager about the issue.
Also, in response to Vir, there are no firmware updates that I could find, and I did not connect the mouse since I received it earlier today. And it is always on High Performance.
But thank you all for trying to help, I'm not sure if I should mark this solved? or leave it be as an unsolvable mystery.
I really think HP is not being honest here. Are you confident they've actually been replacing your entire system, and not just replacing parts? The whole thing needs to go.
Of course, there is also the possibility you've just replaced a dud with a dud. HP is labeled one of the worst in consumer brands for reliability of their products. I would not doubt this be the case.
Since the mouse is not involved we can rule that out. Have you tried testing the system's stability without any network connectivity at all? I have seen some rare instances where a NIC/wifi adapter bug conflicts with certain router models and settings, and will crash the system in such an event. Try isolating the system from any and all networks by turning off wifi completely if installed, and disconnecting network cables.
If you wish, if your most recent crash was an actual BSOD, check to see if there's a MEMORY.DMP in your Windows directory that's dated same time as the crash. If it is, zip it up and upload to 3rd party site. I'll try taking a look at it.
Yes, because on the replacements I received the replacement laptop from China while I still had mine, and had to send the previous one back in the same box. I configured my system to produce full memory dumps, and when it crashes again I'll zip it and upload.
Just curious, I have access to a Windows 8 Enterprise edition, via my university free of charge, would it be worth a shot installing Windows 8 to see if the crashes persist? Because HP claims there is no hardware malfunction, which could be the case? With the network driver disabled, it hasn't crashed in about a day. But I am running into a problem where if the screen turns off after x amount of time, when I move the mouse or hit buttons it does not turn back on. I have to press the power button to put it to sleep, and then wake it up again by the power button or a keystroke.
In the mean time, if you think it is worth checking out, here is the SF report for the first crash of the system. The second crash didn't generate a dump file, which is odd.
The drivers that are installed are still the ones that come factory loaded.
-Thanks again.
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