blue screen of death... options...?

[V]

i knew itd happen one day... so what are my options...

laptop is 4 years old, cost $249, lasted 10 months of deployment.

It would also overheat and do a thermal shudown if i didnt have it on a cooling pad, battery would hold more than a 30min charge either.

2 weeks ago i bought a new laptop and its waiting for me in NJ when i get home.
All my pic and doc files on the laptop i already transferred to an external HD last week.
Only special programs i had on it were HPtuners, which i still have the cd at home somewhere, so ill just put it on the new laptop, i even think i backed up the tune files.

basically is this old one fixable with the BSOD? or do i just call it a day and trash it? I wouldnt mind having it as a dedicated tuning laptop though.

Can anyone here fix it up for me if i send it to them around christmas time?

[Savage_Messiah]

could need windows reinstalled... could be dead memory or a dead hard drive... with my old laptop it was usually dead memory, except the very last time it was the hard drive. Both byproducts of it overheating like it was its job IMO

[V]

well right before it restarted to when it wouldnt boot, a whole virus alert thing kept going off, so im thinking its that

[cdacda13]

Since you already transferred all your files and programs, its worth a shot to format and reinstall windows to so if that is the problem.

If the problem continues, you could buy new memory and/or hard drive, they are cheap enough, especially if you just want a laptop for tuning. New batteries can be had for a low price too.

[Masonite]

Where are you located?

masonitechnologies.com

[V]

Im currently in Afghanistan... lol

i guess ill throw it in our shipping container now and mess with it in like feb/march when it arrives home, lol.

[r0nin89]

could need windows reinstalled... could be dead memory or a dead hard drive... with my old laptop it was usually dead memory, except the very last time it was the hard drive. Both byproducts of it overheating like it was its job IMO

Truths.

Depending on the BSOD error its probably the operating system or memory is dumping.

[Saitin]

What error are you geting?

[V]

no clue yet, the blue screen last for only 1-2 seconds then it tries restarting all over again... i gotta keep doing it to try to read the error. ill check it out again tomorrow.

[GP99GT]

blue screen on XP or vista is almost always a hardware failure...usually memory. i can take a look at it for you paul when you get back...what are you doing when it comes up? if you can, open up the bottom and pull out a stick of ram (if it has multiple sticks) and see if its one or the other causing it

[V]

yea matt, ill let you check it out someday, im in no rush, and kinda dont feel like pulling it apart myself. like i said, i have 2 new comps standing by when i get home so i should be fine.

[bobb1589]

what make / model? it sounds more like an overheating issue than anything. which could have caused permanent hardware damage, or could just be causing it to go on a fritz when it heats up. sometimes just taking a can of compressed air and blowing otu the fan will do the trick, sometimes its more involved. also you can try and "freeze" the system when you get the BSOD by hitting the "Pause" button on the keyboard so that you can read it... try and get us the error, it may help lead toward what is wrong

[V]

UPDATE:

last weekend i was home in NJ and came across the orignal recovery disk for this laptop for 2005. So today i took the time to do a full system restore/recovery. It formatted the HDD. Prior to doing this, i used a hard drive dock and ran the HDD through my new laptop in order to check for any important files id want/need and i backed them up on my external HDD. After the system recovery, the old Laptop now seems to be working fine. Apparently it seems I had a virus that affected the boot sector of the original operating system. I will be using the old laptop now as a back-up/automotive/tuning laptop.

[Knipps]

Reminds me. Time to do a back up on to my external...