Please Help me

[niloys]

Hi,

I have a HP laptop ZT1170 (with windows XP Home as OS) which I have been using for more than couple of years now. It has an adequate memory of 512 MB, but lately it has become extremely slow. I have tried to use all the tricks and tips that I can lay hands on but still the performance keeps degrading. It has a USB 1.1 port and when couple of days back I accessed a External Harddrive through USB, it suddenly gave me a blue screen. Then when I tried to restart it, it just gives me a blank screen (not even the Windows XP logo screen). It seems to shut down itself. When I keep it unused for long time, say 10-12 hours and then when I try to restart, it gives me the logo and asks for different modes to start with... and when I select anyone, it hangs and then when I try to restart, again the same blank screen. Today, when I got that option and tried to have the Safe mode, it gave me the following error:
"A problem has been detected and windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer
If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Disable or ininstall any anti-virus, disk defrag. or back-up utilities. Check your hard drive configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run Chkdsk /f to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your machine.

Technical information: *** STOP: (0x00000024 (0x001902F8, 0xF7C47778, 0xF7C47478, 0x804E518E)

Currently, my laptop seems to completely dead and I am not able to use at all.

Please help.

Niloy.

[meatwad]

Welcome to WD.

Does the computer still power on? Do you get anything at all on the screen?

[niloys]

Well, I am not able to boot or go into the Windows at all. It's not booting, generally it's a completely blank screen when I turn it on. But if I give some time totally not using it (say, 10-12 hrs), then it starts with a XP logo screen, asks for which mode to start with, and whatever I select, it hangs after sometime, and then when I restart it again, blank screen.

I have tried to use the original XP CD's, etc. but no result. I have even tried to remove harddisk but no effect.

Pls help.
Niloy.

[meatwad]

Well, I am not able to boot or go into the Windows at all. It's not booting, generally it's a completely blank screen when I turn it on. But if I give some time totally not using it (say, 10-12 hrs), then it starts with a XP logo screen, asks for which mode to start with, and whatever I select, it hangs after sometime, and then when I restart it again, blank screen.

I have tried to use the original XP CD's, etc. but no result. I have even tried to remove harddisk but no effect.

Pls help.
Niloy.

When you say you tried the XP CD's, did the computer boot to those CDs but wouldn't install windows or would it not boot from it?

[niloys]

Well, currently, it's not booting at all. In fact, it's not doing anything, when I switch on the laptop, with or without any CD's, it just sleeps or hangs. Nothing happens after that.
Have no idea, how to go inside, at least.

[futuretech]

Unplug the USB devices and see if it starts then.

[leezer3]

To me, this points to something pretty major going- In view of the stop error & the fact that it often won't POST, I would guess motherboard or RAM.

[digitaldragon]

I would guess motherboard or RAM.

I ran into almost exactly the same senario you're describing and it turned out it was the RAM of all things. If you're familiar with the placement of the RAM chips it was the internal one that was causing my problem. I had to swap the one from the underside of the laptop to the internal spot or else it wouldn't boot up at all. After I isolated the problem and had no more issues I replaced the memory in the underside area and it's been running fine for about 6 months now. Hope this helps. It's at least something easy to check. Getting to the internal memory takes a little time and patience because you have to actually open the case up and so forth.