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Laptop woes..
Well, since the last time I wrote about my laptop giving me a hard time, it has been up to its tricks again lately. About two weeks ago, the screen got loose again. I quickly fixed it that night, and got it back again. Then, about a week ago, it went out for a third time! This time, I took it all apart, and made sure I did my best to push that pin in as best I could. Also, I added a dab of contact cement to the end of the post that gets pushed on, hoping that will keep it from popping off again. I hope it works, because I am getting tired of taking it all apart, and I'm sure it will just wear out parts of it more. But, this morning when I went to use it, it came up with something else. There always seems to be something else, dosen't there? I opened it up, and closed iTunes. Then, I saw that I had some unanswered messages that came up in IM. Before I could see how many, or from who, the laptop bluescreens on me. That was stunning, as the laptop NEVER bluescreens on me. But, that did not last but for the better part of a second before it tries to reboot. While rebooting, it quits with a message telling me that Windows could not boot due to a missing or corrupt system file. Last time I got this kind of message, bye-bye windows. I write it down in a hope that I can just replace it and make it work. This time, it was just pci.sys and not the main system file. I accidentally hit a key, and it reboots. Fine, we'll see where it goes. It claims there is a write to memory error now. oh, great! Reboot again.. Memory has changed from 256M to 128M. Reboot! This time, Windows boots up fine (just REALLY SLOOOOW). So, I do a scandisk for good measure, relieved that I don't have to deal with reinstalling the OS again. But what's up? I reboot again, and reset the memory to 256M. Off it, and let it cool down, and I go out. So, I fire it back up not long ago, full memory, and it seems to work fine. I wrote the entire last journal entry, and start this one. It bluescreens again for no good reason, and I lose the post. So, I yanked out one of the memory chips. We'll see if it runs all night now. Later on, when I have a chance, I will put it back in, and run memtest against it. Why does everything have to break on me? Ugh!
Archive Entry 67: Laptop woes..
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Loctite makes a toothpaste tube style/size clear epoxy that may also do the trick here. You will probably have to head to a Lowes or Home Depot for it though.
Comment by: Jerry
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Well, I got two new 256M DIMMs installed, and so far so good. 512M on the system feels good. Now, I gotta fix the dang lid AGAIN. Contact cememt no good. This is a tight pin in a hole situation - where the pin cannot even rotate in the hole it is posted in. I actually went as far as to think to solder it. It has pissed me off to the point that I will take it to Dad's and play with soldering it or really using liquid nails. He was even playing with Corian epoxy the other day, but that is no good on anything other than Corian. So, now that it is functioning once again, I can look forward to fixing the screen once and for all, and be done with a happy laptop. Oh, and it got the chance to piss me off when I bought one 512M stick, and it refused it. 256 or less for this machine!
Comment by: Kelly
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I was going to suggest "Liquid Nails" but that may be a little too semi-permanent. Contact cement may be better. It's hard to remove Liquid Nails once it hardens. You should really do a burnin for a couple of days straight with a O/S independent diagnostic as you have tried various memory already in differing combinations.
Comment by: Jerry
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Well, I put another chip back in. See what happens. This time, I put in the 128M chip that was running my I-opener. Also, I fixed the lid. Again. This time, also, I gummed up the post with contact cement, and wedged some foam between the hinge and the plastic housing, hoping that will keep it from sliding off, towards that direction. We'll see...
Comment by: Kelly
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memtest is not the best tester, tufftest relocates itself from lomem to himem which I believe memtest does not, so you cant always trust the results
Comment by: Jerry
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I put both chips back in again. It crashed again. It always crashes in the middle of my typing journal posts. Not because I leave it running all day when I am at work... But this time, the positions were reversed. I'm back to running on one chip again. We'll see what the problem is. I may go order a 256M chip to replace a 128 and get some more memory out of this thing. Anyway, the saga continues...
Comment by: Kelly
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btw: Jerry, if you're reading this, send me your contact info! Would like to talk to ya! Just email kelly at this domain. Thanks...
Comment by: Kelly
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Stupid laptop... I tried all memory again, ran memtest against it for nearly 10 hours. No problem, did quite a few iterations. Rebooted, crashed in Windows. Took out a chip, once again, (slowly) works. Now, I swapped the chips, so I am running only on the one that was previously taken out. So far, so good, so it does not look like a bad chip, just a bad pairing of them. ugh... And if that wasn't enough, the hinge busted AGAIN, and the USB port is getting really loose. My connection to the hub cut out today by knocking the wire a little. (audio, and network were severed). So, when I win the lottery, I can get me a new car and a new laptop. :) Wait, don't you have to at least play in order to win? Nevermind that anyway...
Comment by: Kelly
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Get a copy of tufftest or some other heavy duty diagnostic (preferably something written in assembly). Run the machine through its paces for several days and see what comes up.
Comment by: Jerry
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That's the same shit that happened to me a few weeks ago. It bluescreened on me, wouldn't boot up, finally tells me memory configuration changed, and only has 128M, booted slow. I rebooted, was still 128M, took the memory out that was loose and wouldn't let laptop boot when I had problems a few months ago, bought a 256 meg stick, and everythign has been fine since then. But yea, I was liek wtf when it blue screened. Damn computers.
Comment by: Jeff
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