Hi. I have a Hewlett Packard Pavilion zt1771s laptop which I[ch8217]ve owned for four years and which seems to have a serious problem. A few days ago the screen went blank and the hard drive seemed to stop working (i.e. the hard drive activity LED stopped blinking) and there was nothing I could do to get it going again. Before this happened, I had made no changes to my system (e.g. installing new hardware / software etc.) and DONE nothing out of the ordinary. The problem occurred just after I[ch8217]d PRINTED something, but printing is not an unusual activity for my laptop.

Since then the computer has only booted up on about one in five attempts. If it does get as far as Windows (XP Home), it freezes after a couple of minutes: sometimes the screen freezes and neither the mouse nor the keyboard works, sometimes the screen just goes blank and, in both cases, the hard drive activity LED stops blinking. Most of the time, though, the computer doesn[ch8217]t even get as far as the very first screen (i.e. the HP splash screen where it says [ch8220]press ESC to change boot order[ch8221] etc.): when I press the power switch, the fan and the CD drive make an initial whirr but the hard drive doesn[ch8217]t get going and the screen doesn[ch8217]t come on. On one or two occasions (usually when I[ch8217]ve tried to boot into safe mode), the computer has emitted one long, loud beep in a continuous tone.

I first tried System Restore and then reinstalled the software, but to no avail (incidentally, the [ch8220]freezing[ch8221] problem recurred in safe mode and even happened a couple of times while I was reinstalling the software from the HP recovery CDs [ch8211] i.e. the computer crashed even when it was booting from the CD drive). The only time the computer works properly and does not crash is immediately after reinstalling the software (which I[ch8217]ve now done two or three times). As soon as I turn it off and try to reboot, however, I[ch8217]m back to the 4:1 chance that it won[ch8217]t work.

Early on, I got the message [ch8216]General failure reading from drive C[ch8217], which made me (and an engineer I spoke to on the phone) think that there was a problem with the hard drive. In addition, the HP DIAGNOSTICS programme (called [ch8220]e-diagtools[ch8221]) stopped working when it was testing the hard drive. Acting on this, I replaced the hard drive, but the same problem is still present.

I[ch8217]ve had a range of other error messages since the problem first occurred, none of which has appeared more than once. These include: (i) [ch8220]IRQL not less or equal[ch8221]; (ii) [ch8220]page fault in nonpaged area[ch8221]; (iii) [ch8220]the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM 32\CONFIG\SYSTEM[ch8221]; (iv) [ch8220]the BIOS in this system is not fully ACPI compliant[ch8221]; (v) [ch8220]the problem seems to have been caused by win32k.sys[ch8221] (when this message appeared, much of the message text was misspelt, as though someone had substituted one or two letters in each word for different ones).

The only other major problem I[ch8217]ve had with this computer in the past is a heat-related one: excessive heat causes the connection between the keyboard and the motherboard to become loose, causing some of the keys to stop working. This problem recurs every few months and is solved either by pressing on the back of the laptop, which seems to reconnect the cable, or by opening the machine and manually plugging in the keyboard ribbon more firmly. Coincidentally, this problem with the keyboard had recurred just before the larger problem I have described in this posting. I[ch8217]m not sure whether the two are related but I have reseated the keyboard cable as usual and this has not solved the larger problem (while I was in there, I also reseated all the other cables I could see).

If anyone can tell me what the problem is (virus? BIOS problem? hardware fault? old age?) and tell me what I can do to fix it, I[ch8217]d be very grateful indeed. Since I[ch8217]m a computer dunce, I[ch8217]d also be grateful if any reply to this message could be in the simplest language possible.

Thank you very much (and apologies for such a long message, which doubtless uses many incorrect and non-technical terms). By the way, with my laptop down, I have only intermittent access to the internet, so, if you do take the time to reply to this posting, please don[ch8217]t be offended if I don[ch8217]t get back to you straightaway.


Some more information about the computer:
Model: Hewlett Packard Pavilion zt1171s, purchased 2002
Processor: Intel Mobile Pentium III-M 1.06GHz
Hard drive: (formerly) Toshiba MK2018GAP; (now) Seagate Momentus 40GB HD422
256MB SDRAM
Display controller: S3 Savage 4
Audio controller: VIA/Realtek ALC201 AC97 Codec
CD player controller: O2 OZ-163
LAN: Realtek RTL8100L
CardBus controller: ENE 1410

Windows XP Home
Microsoft Works Suite 2002
Avast antivirus
Zonealarm firewall
Spybot
The computer is used primarily for word-processing (Word 2002) and for the internet.

Should you need it, I[ch8217]ll be happy to supply further information about my system but, such is my ignorance, you might have to tell me precisely how to find it!
I believe it is a hardware fault, probably not servicable by the end user. It may be that a simple hard drive change would fix it, BUT if you do and that is not the problem you are out the cash for the hard drive AND you still have a non-working machine. As you have had other issues with it and it is a consumer model rather than a business class machine, I think you need to choose between professional repair or replacement.Could be bad memory or a bad CPU, ... I see you already replaced the hard drive.... or something wrong with the mainboard, which would be more expensive to replace on a laptop than buying a new laptop.

Wouldn't give up on it without testing the memory and CPU.

Bad memory will cause freezes and corrupt files on the hard drive. A computer with a bad memory chip can act VERY much like a computer with a bad hard drive. My bet is that you have a bad memory module. Just a hunch though...

I would normally recommend #1-TuffTEST which is software you can download on the internet for $10.00 that creates a bootable floppy disk that tests most of your computer's hardware. I'm guessing that laptops don't have floppy drives though? In that case, maybe someone else here can recommend a simple memory test with no floppy required. Maybe you could try some new memory from a store with a good return policy. If there is more than one module installed, you can remove one at a time to see if the problems cease. Any corrupt files on your hard drive will remain corrupt. You may need to reinstall Windows again to see any improvement.

Remember any test that stops functioning before giving a result, only means that SOMETHING is wrong with the computer and nothing more. You need a result to accurately diagnose any bad hardware.

If you get it working... Try putting a little wad of handi-tack on that loose ribbon cable (that gummy stuff you hang posters with that doesn't dry) over the cable / socket. Maybe clean the contacts a little.

Good luck!!!I would DLoad and burn to CD the Ultimate Boot CD which will contain all sorts of system testing programs on it including MemTest which will test the RAM...]

Let it run for at least 2 hours and any errors at all mean the RAM is bad.

But i also agree with Royphil...i wouldn't give up on it just yet.

patio. 8-)Thank you very much indeed for your replies, which were extremely helpful.

The suggestion that my computer might be suffering from a RAM problem proved close to the mark. I discovered that the 256MB of RAM that was supplied with my computer in fact came in two 128MB chips, one of which was attached to the motherboard whilst the other sat in an expansion port on the back of the laptop (a bit naughty, this: the literature that came with the computer promised me that there would be one chip of 256MB and that the expansion slot would be empty). Tests on both chips have detected no faults and the problem seems instead to lie with the expansion port: both chips work fine when attached to the motherboard but neither works when placed in the expansion slot. I[ch8217]ve been running the computer for a couple of days with one of the chips in the motherboard slot; it[ch8217]s a little slow, of course, but so far (fingers crossed) the problems I described when I submitted my original posting haven[ch8217]t recurred. I[ch8217]ll give it a few more days then look into buying a bigger RAM chip to sit in the motherboard slot.

Thank you very much again for your help, I[ch8217]m very grateful indeed: I'd almost given up hope on this computer and am delighted to have been able to resuscitate it.


In case anyone else lands on this page with a similar problem, they might be interested to look at the following pages, which I found useful:

First, an article on diagnosing RAM problems:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/components/soa/Tech_Guide_How_to_diagnose_faulty_RAM/0,39023397,39145020,00.htm

Second, the above article led me to the following page in Microsoft[ch8217]s ONLINE Crash Analysis site, which also has some helpful hints on RAM problems, and where I downloaded mtinst.exe, a free RAM-testing programme:

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp


Incidentally, if anyone who sees this page is suffering from the keyboard problem I described in my original posting, the following site DESCRIBES clearly how to fix it and includes pictures of the whole repair process:

http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/hp-keyboard/index-classical.html
Thanx for stopping back and letting us know how it went...Quote

Early on, I got the message ‘General failure reading from drive C’, which made me (and an engineer I spoke to on the phone) think that there was a problem with the hard drive. In addition, the HP diagnostics programme (called “e-diagtools”) stopped working when it was testing the hard drive. [highlight]Acting on this, I replaced the hard drive, but the same problem is still present[/highlight].