Hey guys,
Thought I would run this by the mind power that is Yota"PC"Tech. I'm fairly competent when it comes to PC troubleshooting but just wanted to check myself before I advise someone to spend money.

A coworker gave me their PC to look at saying it "doesn't work" (you all know how much info they can give you). I take it home hook it up, it starts up fine runs thru the BIOS checks. Then I get the Windows was improperly shutdown last time, would you like to start from last know good config or normal mode or yadda yadda. I choose safe mode as I still have no idea as to what is wrong with it. Windows starts to load and then after a bit blue screen with some sort of error message and the system restarts. This happens no matter which mode I choose normal, safe, last know config. Same thing gets thru the Windows XP splash screen, the num lock/caps lock/scroll lock all flash like its going to start and then blue screen and imediate reboot. The time frame between the bluescreen error message and reboot is a nano-second and I cannot for the life of me read what it is saying or stop it to read what it is saying. I did make out the words "bad physical memory" in with a buch of other text.

So this brings me to my diagnosis. Would anyone that might have experienced something like this say the RAM chip has gone bad and needs to be replaced? I am thinking it is not passing the physical memory test and that is causing the reboot. It only has one chip in it and I don't have any of that type lying around to swap out and test with.
It's an EMachines T1840
Intel Celeron 1.8GHz processor
128MB DDR RAM PC2100 266mhz
Win XP Home

I tried putting in the system restore disks that came with the system but all that wants to do is format the HD and start fresh, there are no diagnosis tools on it.
Like I said it's not mine and they want to spend as little as possible to get it back running again. So a new PC wasn't the answer they liked when I told them that the first time. Heee Heee
Thanks

 

That could be a wide range of things. For some reason microsoft likes to use the "bad physical memory" message on just about any blue screen error code. It sounds like trial and error may be the best thing to do in this circumstance.

For what it's worth. What it sounds like to me is that there is an overheating problem with the way it is rebooting so quickly.

 

"Might" be able to rule out the overheating. It did it from a fresh start after it had been sitting in my garage overnight which is around 40*. I did make sure I cleaned it out heatsinks included and had the cover off to verify all fans were running includding the chip fan. When I looked at the BIOS the CPU temp didn't look high (don't remember the exact number, but didn't raise any flags). But I won't rule it out that is why I said "might". So how would I test for over heating? Thanks by the way.

 

I'd start by swapping out another RAM chip. If that doesn't solve the problem, start disconnecting devices from the board, particularly any "new" device they may have just installed. Reboot after each device is disconnected to narrow down the problem. Reload the OS if nothing solves the problem.

Ed

 

What I would do in this order:

1. Run Memtest86
2. Find out what kinda hard drive it is and run the manufacturers diags.
3. Boot to the Windows install CD if you have it, and from recovery console run fixboot.
4. Also from recovery console, run scandisk /r.
5. Do a repair install
6. Worst case scenario, backup files and reformat

Obviously if one repairs the problem, stop there. Most of this stuff is tailored towards Windows XP, but you get the general idea. If you can't use his disks, use your own assuming you have the same OS. Might even be able to use a different OS, but I haven't tried it.

 

excellent

 

Yes I agree excellent, I was just at another "PC" site and downloaded memtest from a post there and linked myself back to the diagnostics page they have for the HD mfg's. (great minds think alike). Why did I need to visit there to begin with? lol

I have their (her) recovery disks with the windows files and drivers but they are hidden in it and it is crap. No options for repair or diagnostics/recovery console. Pop it in all you get is "welcome to the Emachines recovery center. !Warning this will format the hard drive and restore the system to its original configuration!" I pulled up the cd dir in dos and there wasn't anything on it but "restore.exe". What kind of crap is that?

I am running Win Media Center 2005 on my systems and have tried in the past to use the restore media in a XP home system (have not tried in a Pro) and it doesn't work. Just to let you know, it will give you an error message of "invalid operating configuration files".

I'll run those things tonight and try some others and let you know. Thanks for the help

 

Well, a cold boot will help it some unless it's the cpu thats overheating. The cpu will overheat in no time. Easiest way to check them is with a digital thermometer. If you do not have one then the bios should be able to give you pretty good readings or you can leave the case open and have a large fan blowing directly in it.

You may also want to consider trying a boot disk to see if you can boot into safe mode off of the disk. If these don't work or churnd's list of 1-5. Then format.

 

could also try swaping your harddrive into the pc...would let you know if it is th OS or hardware related.

 

I figure you mean "swap the hardrive into ANOTHER pc...".

The problem with that is Windows XP will throw a halt when it sees that the IDE controller is different, BOOT probably won't get far enough to fail in the same way it is now.


Chris has the right steps at this point.

 

Valuable info on the Recovery console:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307654

Apparently, you can make the 6 XP boot floppies and use the first bootable floppy to run XP's recovery console:

Boot Floppies

I haven't tried it, but it's worth a shot.

 

There's also the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

It's saved my butt a couple of times. It's a bit of work to build it, but it's well worth the time.

 

Just wanted to say thanks for the help guys. I ran both mem test and the "sea tools" utility for the HDD. Both turned out to be bad. Mem test had 10 failures in the first 6 test and the HDD utility found corrupt/bad sectors and also reported instability with the drive itself. The HDD utility also has a built in memory testor and the RAM failed that one also. So she went out today and bought a new HDD and our IS Dept gave her a 1gig stick to use they had.

On a side note once I get all of this done. "Where can I find out/ how do I" create a bootable recovery Windows CD for her, instead of the junk "format all" one that is with her system. This is not for me this is only for her (ok it is for me because she will ask me to fix it the next time something happens. lol), I was going to create it and put it inside of her PC case so it can't get "lost".

 

Cool to know you got it worked out!


Well, technically, you could copy an Windows XP Home CD and give it to her since she has a license for the OS. But... there's a sticky in here that may become an issue.

I THINK MS still runs the licensing such that there are different terms on an OEM license versus a full license. If that's still true, then she's not "allowed" to have a straight CD, only the "format & reload" thing that came with the box. The marketing behind this is that it greatly reduces the license cost to the OEM.

So... _legally_ I don't think you can do anything for her. If you go down the "technically" route, then you'd have to extract the XP Home license number that's used on the machine now - and I'm not quite sure how to do that. Chris may know. But (geez... ANOTHER "but"!), that license number may be locked to an OEM install and may not work with a straight XP Home install. In fact, I'd just about bet on that being the case.

Fun huh?

Given how cheap hardrives are these days, it may just be best to buy a new drive, load the box with the restore CD, image the install drive to the new one, then use the new one as a "known good". If you do that, say, once a month, then you end up with a "boot & go" copy of the machine.