Laptop from HELL!!! a.k.a. Presario 700

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January 27th, 2004, 10:38 AM
ironwill99

Laptop from HELL!!! a.k.a. Presario 700

First off this laptop is lucky I'm not armed because I would have shot the thing 13 times and buried it in a shalow grave in the desert by now.

Some background info:
The PC came in last week with some spyware and virus problems. I discovered that the hard drive was bad while doing a backup of the system so I replaced it with a new one and reinstalled his OS, misc. data, and software. A few hours after the customer picked it up he called complaining of frequent lockup problems.

Here is the deal:
It is a compaq presario 700 with Windows XP home edition. The system locks up everytime I try to do anything network intensive. When I say "lockup" I mean the whole thing is frozen and I have to kill the power to restart it. I have tried the internal NIC (realtek 8139) with default drivers and updated realtek drivers and my 3com PCMCIA NIC. All failed at different points in my test. As long as I am not doing anything network related the system will run sysoft sandra's burn-in test for hours on end. I think AOL9.0 might be the cause of the problem but I am not sure yet. I am going to blow the system away and reinstall XP and try testing the network again and go from there until i find out where it locks up at.

Has anyone else encountered a system that freezes when copying files over the network?
January 27th, 2004, 02:35 PM
NooNoo

what irq is sharing with the nic?
January 27th, 2004, 06:58 PM
ironwill99

Sorry Daffy but I already looked there and I didn't see anything usefull but thanks anyway.

NooNoo, the NIC uses IRQ 11 and is shared with the cardbus controler.
January 29th, 2004, 04:55 PM
NooNoo

so whats using the cardbus when the nic is active?
January 30th, 2004, 06:15 PM
DonJ

Compaq Presario notebook PC 700us drivers & downloads for WinXP. It has "Presario Notebooks NetBEUI Protocol Files for Windows XP" available. It just might work for you.
January 30th, 2004, 06:23 PM
ironwill99

Actually I fixed the problem by not installing AOL9.0. DonJ's solution might have worked but I mentally ruled out the network card being the problem since I tried different ones with the same result. My customer said he didn't use AOL on the laptop anyway so I suggested that we keep it off. Thanks for the input!
May 2nd, 2004, 10:36 AM
tompatterson

Presario 700

Quote:

Originally Posted by ironwill99

First off this laptop is lucky I'm not armed because I would have shot the thing 13 times and buried it in a shalow grave in the desert by now.

Has anyone else encountered a system that freezes when copying files over the network?

This particular machine freezes when you look at it. It freezes when you don't look at it. Network has nothing to do with the freezing. Do what I did, and chunk it. I bought another laptop, but NOT Compaq. Never again!

Tom
May 28th, 2004, 10:18 AM
ry333

Quote:

Originally Posted by tompatterson

This particular machine freezes when you look at it. It freezes when you don't look at it. Network has nothing to do with the freezing. Do what I did, and chunk it. I bought another laptop, but NOT Compaq. Never again!

Tom

I've been using one of these laptops for a long time [and in fact am posting this from one] and never have resolved the freeze problem (even resinstalled the OS, and tried XP Pro) Tried various different drivers and have updated everything from Compaq's site.

Here my theory on what its problem may be based on lots of personal observation....

I think it is due to a thermal management bug. If you'll notice, when the processor is not under load and the unit is cool, the internal fan doesn't run or runs more slowly. Under load, the processor warms up and the fan comes on to cool it. I think the threshold for starting cooling is too high. If it gradually warms up, it can get into a zone where it is too hot for reliable processor operation, but not enough to start the fan. If it warms up quickly, the time spent in this zone is short before the fan comes on and the chances of it hanging during this time are less.

After a freezeup, if you cycle the power, you'll note that the fan comes back on during the reboot and puts out very hot air meaning it was probably too hot.

I notice that it generally doesn't freeze up if it is sitting there doing absolutely nothing. And, if the battery is charging (orange light on), it seems to run the fan regardless of processor temperature, and it doesn't freeze up. (As soon as the orange light goes out though the fan slows, and then freezeups are possible.) As a trick, to prevent freezeups are crucial moments, like when typing this and not having submitted it yet, I'll pull the power cord momentarily and put it back. This restarts the charging cycle and it takes a few minutes for it to realize that it is already charged, during which the fan runs.

I'm sure there are exceptions to the above where it will freeze anyway, despite the fan being on, etc. but, as they are few, I just count that as normal Windows flakiness.