I was given this laptop and would like to get it working again. I believe it originally had Vista installed and was later upgraded to Windows 7. It boots up in Safe Mode but when I start Windows normally, it gets to Welcome screen and crashes - BSOD. I have attached a system info file and a dump file. I will appreciate any useful advice.
Thanks
Hiyya mate now seeing (I am guessing) the machine is getting on I would first do these in safe mode
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker
Disk Check < if necessary include the /f and /r in the command line as per Option2
And then run a drive test from a stick such as this SeaTools for Windows | Seagate
Thank you for the reply. Well, I ran chkdsk then ran SeaTools and it found and fixed a bunch of hard drive errors. I was then able to at least get into windows 7 desktop (while not in safe mode), but it would crash (blue screen) after a few minutes and for some reason it will not give me any new dump (.dmp) files.
So I said, the hell with it, and I did a clean reinstall of windows 7 32-bit because that's the disk I have (it had a 64-bit OS installed when I got it). I was able to activate the new version of windows 7 and then installed SP1. After SP1 installed, the system crashed just after getting to my desktop. I tied to restart it and it now shuts down almost immediately (doesn't get past the bios flash screen before it shuts down) as if it is overheated or something.
So I let it sit for awhile, and then reinserted the SeaTools disk, and right now it's about 10% through a long scan and has found 31 errors.
Hmm sorry mate but looks lie a new drive. Now if you can afford one a SSD is the go and if you are not a heavy user the 250GB drives are really quite workable and you can use it to boot and a second spinner to store data.
The alternative is a larger spinner say 500GB (don't like larger than that myself) and personally although 3GB RAM is ok for the 32bit system I would make it 4GB - actually the more the better. Any more new stuff then I would be looking at getting another machine.
If you do get a new install going ok just watch out for the 10 stuff if you do not like it and especially update KB3035533 - just make sure you set updates to let you choose what to download and install and untick the optional stuff in settings.
A good thing to have on board if you don't like 10 is the GWX Control Panle which you can use to clear any 10 related files off the machine . Ultimate Outsider - Software Downloads < but ONLY the control panel the other stuff nags and is unnecessary. The button in that is the clear the cache one .
SeaTools was able to repair the hard drive and this got rid of the bsod. The laptop would then boot into Windows 7, but if you tried to do anything beyond idling, it powered off. So I decided to see what would happen if I installed Ubuntu. My thinking was that maybe it was still a software problem. Ubuntu installed with no problem, but it would die if you did anything more than idle such as downloading and installing software. So I assumed the CPU might be getting too hot.
I took apart the laptop using a YouTube tear down video for guidance. I blew lots of dust and dirt off the fan and heatsink and I cleaned off and replaced the thermal grease. I then reassembled the laptop and it actually booted up with no problems. So I used my Ubuntu CD to add a nfts partition where I reinstalled Windows 7 and then upgraded to Windows 10. So I now have a working dual boot Windows 10/ Ubuntu system. It ran for about 8 hours today with no problems.
Well it was the next thing I was going to get into mate.
Personally I would also check out the power supply adaptor and the battery while you are at it. The adaptor you can test with a digital multimeter - cheap as chips these days and the battery you can use this ditty of mine
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. Now the section you want will be labelled - fpr example Asus boards usually have "Nuvoton" and Gigabyte boards "ITE" in any case the section you want will have Vbatt or VBAT in it (dead give away) Edit HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.
Use PART A: and when scrolling down to look for the PSU as this suggests you will come across a section covering the battery and it will show you the volts on the different cells and the capacity in watt/hrs.
Both will show you the condition of the battery the volts need to be within 11.4 and 12.6v anything above or below those is not acceptable (if very close then replace) because the machine has to use finely adjusted volts for everything - the capacity is just an idea of how much there is in the "tank" as it were - if the figure are low then the battery has seen better days and I personally keep a spare for all my laptops they are not expensive these days.
In my pic it shows the PSU section for a desktop but in that read out there will be one for your battery I just haven't got a pic of the battery readout on this machine right now.
Sorry to see you go to 10 though am putting it off until I seriously have to but hey have fun.
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