- Feb 28, 2010
- 4
- 0
- 18,510
So, as happens, a friend needed some help with his PC. Unfortunately, it runs Vista, and I do not have a lot of experience with Vista. This is irrelevant since I'm pretty sure the issue is hardware failure, but I'll give ya'll the rundown, and maybe you can give me a few things to try.
As far as I can tell, here are the specs.
Model Gateway GT5622 (Def not my thing, but I guess it works for my friend)
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 @1.8Ghz
3Gb RAM - 2 X 1gb, 2 X 512gb (what a weird configuration, but standard on this model)
Not sure of the Mobo, I'm sure it is whatever was standard on LGA775 Gateways
300w PSU
Geforce GT 430 with 2gb of DDR3 in PCIE slot
Rocketfish soundcard in PCI slot
500gb Seagate HDD
So, here are the symptoms.
Computer runs excessively slow, even for a Vista Machine. At times, it locks up, and must be rebooted to run. It gets BSODS, one of which was page fault in non-paged area while Vista was loading, another was a physical memory dump while it was running. Most times after a BSOD it restarts, but only goes to a black screen. Sometimes it locks up while I'm in the BIOS, and must restart. Sometimes while loading safe mode it locks up. Sometimes while booting, after POST it will say No Floppy Detected Press F2 to continue, and at this point it often locks up, or shortly after it locks up, or I get a BSOD (I think it gets this because the floppy is listed in the BIOS as the 3rd boot option).
I've tried testing the RAM by removing 1 stick at a time, and I get the same issues. I tried different RAM, same issues. Tried RAM in different slots, same issues. I would have to say I've proven it's not the RAM, unless I just happen to have 8 sticks of RAM that are all bad (not likely).
Next was heat. I downloaded speedfan, and ran that in the background while playing 10 hours of He Man singing "What's Going On" on youtube, while monitoring everything. At about 10 minutes, I got a physical memory dump, which then went to a black screen. CPU temps were 45-50C, and the fan speed was ~1650rpm. Processor usage was 50-70%. None of this was alarming, except maybe watching He Man dancing around to Techno music.
I don't really have a way to test the PSU at the moment, as I don't really know how and I don't have a spare I can plug in to test with. I looked up some ways to test it, but I don't have the right gear (not a big electrical guy). I would think if this was the issue, the system would not power on at all, rather than run for a while and then give a memory error, or give black screen while still running.
HDD is not the original, was replaced within the last 2 years. I don't think it is the issue. If all that was happening was during the loading of Vista I was getting a page BSOD, I would suspect something here, but it happens even after Vista runs, and at times it even locks up in the BIOS, which brings me to my final conclusions...
I am suspecting that the Mobo or the CPU is the culprit, or both. Symptoms persist during the boot sequence and in the BIOS, these are things that take place outside of the OS. I would try doing a fresh Vista install, if I had a copy of Vista to use, but I don't. My friend is looking to see if he still has the setup disk, but I am not confident that he will find them, or that one of them is a Vista disk.
So, based on this info, do ya'll agree with the diagnosis? Are there other things you would try? I'm open to suggestions, as I don't think my friend understands what I mean when I say I think his computer is done for.
As far as I can tell, here are the specs.
Model Gateway GT5622 (Def not my thing, but I guess it works for my friend)
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 @1.8Ghz
3Gb RAM - 2 X 1gb, 2 X 512gb (what a weird configuration, but standard on this model)
Not sure of the Mobo, I'm sure it is whatever was standard on LGA775 Gateways
300w PSU
Geforce GT 430 with 2gb of DDR3 in PCIE slot
Rocketfish soundcard in PCI slot
500gb Seagate HDD
So, here are the symptoms.
Computer runs excessively slow, even for a Vista Machine. At times, it locks up, and must be rebooted to run. It gets BSODS, one of which was page fault in non-paged area while Vista was loading, another was a physical memory dump while it was running. Most times after a BSOD it restarts, but only goes to a black screen. Sometimes it locks up while I'm in the BIOS, and must restart. Sometimes while loading safe mode it locks up. Sometimes while booting, after POST it will say No Floppy Detected Press F2 to continue, and at this point it often locks up, or shortly after it locks up, or I get a BSOD (I think it gets this because the floppy is listed in the BIOS as the 3rd boot option).
I've tried testing the RAM by removing 1 stick at a time, and I get the same issues. I tried different RAM, same issues. Tried RAM in different slots, same issues. I would have to say I've proven it's not the RAM, unless I just happen to have 8 sticks of RAM that are all bad (not likely).
Next was heat. I downloaded speedfan, and ran that in the background while playing 10 hours of He Man singing "What's Going On" on youtube, while monitoring everything. At about 10 minutes, I got a physical memory dump, which then went to a black screen. CPU temps were 45-50C, and the fan speed was ~1650rpm. Processor usage was 50-70%. None of this was alarming, except maybe watching He Man dancing around to Techno music.
I don't really have a way to test the PSU at the moment, as I don't really know how and I don't have a spare I can plug in to test with. I looked up some ways to test it, but I don't have the right gear (not a big electrical guy). I would think if this was the issue, the system would not power on at all, rather than run for a while and then give a memory error, or give black screen while still running.
HDD is not the original, was replaced within the last 2 years. I don't think it is the issue. If all that was happening was during the loading of Vista I was getting a page BSOD, I would suspect something here, but it happens even after Vista runs, and at times it even locks up in the BIOS, which brings me to my final conclusions...
I am suspecting that the Mobo or the CPU is the culprit, or both. Symptoms persist during the boot sequence and in the BIOS, these are things that take place outside of the OS. I would try doing a fresh Vista install, if I had a copy of Vista to use, but I don't. My friend is looking to see if he still has the setup disk, but I am not confident that he will find them, or that one of them is a Vista disk.
So, based on this info, do ya'll agree with the diagnosis? Are there other things you would try? I'm open to suggestions, as I don't think my friend understands what I mean when I say I think his computer is done for.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram