TheDraggon

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Problem...
1 yr old (no physical damage) n450, 2gb ram, Win 7 netbook was stuck in startup repair loop. Would boot to safe mode, and safe mode w/ networking. Now after attempting an F9 factory system resore it gets to loading drivers, then fails, says it has to restart then fails again.

Things I've done...
System restore to several point-all successful, no change in problem
chkdsk- no problems
Windows memory diagnostic- no problems
Tried repairing with a full Win 7 disk in an ext DVD drive. Failed.
Windows

I'm thinking a hardware issue...but where do I start?

My wife LOVES this little machine, so any help is much appreciated!!
 
Hard-drive is a very probable cause, so is RAM. The Windows checkdisk is useless to find hardware issues on the drive. It checks the file system, but is not good at all with finding physical issues.

Try running with 1 gig of RAM if it has two sticks, try both, one at a time.
If that still causes crashing, buy a new hard-drive and install windows on that see if that helps. Although you either need to boot it enough to create a restore DVD set, or use your own Windows disks, or contact ACER and have them send you a disk set, or buy a drive from them directly with the thing setup already.
 

TheDraggon

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Thanks for the reply. I changed back to original 1gb stick. No difference.

I'm going to try some hd check utilities run from the ext dvd drive, and see what's up.

In your opinion what is the best/easiest hd utility?
 

TheDraggon

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I used Seagate's hard drive diagnostic utility since that's the HD that's in it. Both short and long tests confirm a good hard drive.

RAM- eliminated
HD-eliminated

Any other ideas?

A suggestion for a general hardware diagnostic tool to go beyond RAM and HD?
In a desktop, I would just start pulling parts until I found the culprit, but I can't do that with a netbook.

Thanks for any help in advance...
 
If the hard-drive tested as good, could be any other hardware, motherboard, ram (or ram socket), etc...

Try running a Linux Live boot see if it starts up OK, or install Linux right on the drive see if that works.

Maybe something is up with the drive anyway, I have not see a low-level drive test utility give a false report, but I have seen other test utilities do that.
 

TheDraggon

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OK, I used Mini XP on a flash drive to fully(slow) reformat the drive. Reloaded win 7 from the recovery partition. SUCCESS!!!!

I let Windows do it's updates. After it installs the updates, BAM!! BSOD!
STOP 0x0000007F (0x00000000,0x00000000,0x00000000)
-divide by zero fault

What about this idea...
Would Windows updates try to install a generic driver that is incompatible with at netbook?

If so, how do I find the offending update?

How do I prevent further install in the future?
 
Try installing Windows 7, run all of the drivers and patches from ASUS, then let Windows do the updates.

I have not seen Windows 7 mess up drivers if it did not know what they were. I ran a few laptops that did not have Windows 7 drives, the hardware Windows 7 could not find it left as Generic VGA and such, but they worked fine.

Could be CPU, could be RAM here. Try a BIOS update also, maybe some CPU instruction is having issues.
 

TheDraggon

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Loading Dump File [C:\Users\Mike\Downloads\BSODDmpFiles\mraimondi\Windows_NT6_BSOD_jcgriff2\123011-59217-01.dmp]
Mini Kernel Dump File: Only registers and stack trace are available

Symbol search path is: SRV*c:\users\mike\documents\symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
Executable search path is:
Windows 7 Kernel Version 7600 MP (2 procs) Free x86 compatible
Product: WinNt, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS Personal
Built by: 7600.16905.x86fre.win7_gdr.111025-1503
Machine Name:
Kernel base = 0x81a43000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x81b8b810
Debug session time: Fri Dec 30 13:30:51.409 2011 (UTC - 7:00)
System Uptime: 0 days 0:00:47.221
Loading Kernel Symbols
...............................................................
..............................................
Loading User Symbols
Loading unloaded module list
.
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 7F, {0, 0, 0, 0}

Probably caused by : monitor.sys ( monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+32 )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

0: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP (7f)
This means a trap occurred in kernel mode, and it's a trap of a kind
that the kernel isn't allowed to have/catch (bound trap) or that
is always instant death (double fault). The first number in the
bugcheck params is the number of the trap (8 = double fault, etc)
Consult an Intel x86 family manual to learn more about what these
traps are. Here is a *portion* of those codes:
If kv shows a taskGate
use .tss on the part before the colon, then kv.
Else if kv shows a trapframe
use .trap on that value
Else
.trap on the appropriate frame will show where the trap was taken
(on x86, this will be the ebp that goes with the procedure KiTrap)
Endif
kb will then show the corrected stack.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000000, EXCEPTION_DIVIDED_BY_ZERO
Arg2: 00000000
Arg3: 00000000
Arg4: 00000000

Debugging Details:
------------------


BUGCHECK_STR: 0x7f_0

TRAP_FRAME: 87453590 -- (.trap 0xffffffff87453590)
ErrCode = 00000000
eax=00002710 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000000 edx=00000000 esi=907dea88 edi=6f821738
eip=8bfbf64a esp=87453604 ebp=87453604 iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc
cs=0008 ss=0010 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=0030 gs=0000 efl=00010246
monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+0x32:
8bfbf64a f7f1 div eax,ecx
Resetting default scope

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT

PROCESS_NAME: System

CURRENT_IRQL: 0

LOCK_ADDRESS: 81ba8f60 -- (!locks 81ba8f60)

Resource @ nt!PiEngineLock (0x81ba8f60) Available

WARNING: SystemResourcesList->Flink chain invalid. Resource may be corrupted, or already deleted.


WARNING: SystemResourcesList->Blink chain invalid. Resource may be corrupted, or already deleted.

1 total locks

PNP_TRIAGE:
Lock address : 0x81ba8f60
Thread Count : 0
Thread address: 0x00000000
Thread wait : 0x0

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 8bfbf64a to 81a872eb

STACK_TEXT:
87453590 8bfbf64a badb0d00 00000000 00002004 nt!KiTrap00+0x8b
87453604 8bfbf95a 6f821738 6f821764 8bfbd248 monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+0x32
87453620 8bfc0343 6f821764 860634c8 8ce29ec8 monitor!BrightnessInit+0x98
8745373c 860352c3 731d6180 87453778 860634c8 monitor!EvtDriverDeviceAdd+0x3c3
87453758 86035755 731d6180 87453778 8da6b910 Wdf01000!FxDriverDeviceAdd::Invoke+0x28
87453964 86035821 91ff04b0 8745398c 81a57767 Wdf01000!FxDriver::AddDevice+0xc1
87453970 81a57767 8da6b910 91ff04b0 8fbfb3e8 Wdf01000!FxDriver::AddDevice+0x1b
8745398c 81bf27cf 91ff04b0 86035806 00000004 nt!PpvUtilCallAddDevice+0x19
874539d4 81beb306 8da6b910 86035806 00000002 nt!PnpCallAddDevice+0xb9
87453aa8 81bea892 8fbfb3e8 87453cd0 8d80b538 nt!PipCallDriverAddDevice+0x565
87453ca4 81be4636 83191208 8d80b538 87453cd0 nt!PipProcessDevNodeTree+0x15d
87453cd8 81a56f7f 81ba6e80 831ca798 81b7d5bc nt!PiProcessReenumeration+0x74
87453d00 81ab106b 00000000 00000000 831ca798 nt!PnpDeviceActionWorker+0x224
87453d50 81c51a55 00000001 9eee4584 00000000 nt!ExpWorkerThread+0x10d
87453d90 81b03219 81ab0f5e 00000001 00000000 nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x9e
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!KiThreadStartup+0x19


STACK_COMMAND: kb

RAM- same behavior with different physical sticks- ruled out
Bios- updated to latest moths ago- never had a problem- no new version out

This is an analyses of my BSOD dumo from another forum...

"This was caused by the generic monitor.sys that Windows loads for your monitor, and it appears to be related to the brightness calculation causing a divide by zero fault."

FOLLOWUP_IP:
monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+32
8bfbf64a f7f1 div eax,ecx

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 1

SYMBOL_NAME: monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+32

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: monitor

IMAGE_NAME: monitor.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 4a5bc286

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x7f_0_monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+32

BUCKET_ID: 0x7f_0_monitor!BrightnessTargetToPercentage+32

Followup: MachineOwner
---------
 

TheDraggon

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Apr 18, 2006
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How can I find this out?

I got it up and running again, updated ALL ASUS software and driver, but every time I do a Windows update, the problem returns, then it's HOURS to get it cleared up.