Where to begin troubleshooting

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motero99 · #1 Post by **motero99** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 2:36 pm

My daughter's T30 has just started spontaneously rebooting. There are no beeps at boot to help with diagnosis. It will run for awhile and then reboot. I have had some issues with anti-virus, so I am going to rebuild the OS. I would like to verify if there is a hardware problem before I re-don the OS. The box is a 2366-41U running XP. It has 2 x 256 MB memory. The bios shows 512 MB, so I would guess the memory is not the culprit. Any suggestions?

#2 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:04 pm

Try getting memtest86 and running it for 24 hours. If the hardware is at fault it will surely reboot by then. If it does not reboot I would say it is a software problem.
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.3.iso.zip

motero99 · #3 Post by **motero99** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:16 pm

Does memtest test all of the hardware processes or just memory? Does it create a log of some kind to show what failed?

#4 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:41 pm

Just the memory but it is a good starting point. If it reboots running memtest I would go get PC Doctor and it will find the culprit.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... iagnostics

Kaervak · #5 Post by **Kaervak** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:50 pm

I definitely second running Memtest on it. Failing memory can cause all sorts of weird problems. I also recommend downloading the Ultimate Boot CD, http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ It has a ton of diagnostic software that tests pretty much every hardware aspect of the system.

egibbs · #6 Post by **egibbs** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:13 am

You didn't mention the OS, but assuming it's WinXP go to Control Panel, System, and click on the Advanced tab on the System Properties dialog. Under Startup and Recovery click Settings.

Make sure that "Write an event to the system log" is checked, and uncheck "Automatically restart."

Next time it happens it should stop at the blue screen. Write down the complete stop error message including the parameters after the hex number, and any drivers or software listed as running.

This is a good place to start troubleshooting stop errors, as is the Microsoft knowledge base, and of course Google.

Ed Gibbs

motero99 · #7 Post by **motero99** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:59 pm

I am confused now. I ran MEMTEST and except for a hiccup on the overnight run, it went well. The I ran PC Doctor. The box passed everything. I figured it must be my XP load. I tried to reload XP. It got to the basic download of code, the would not reboot. I tried to restart fromscratch, but it does not seem to want to boot from the CD. I select CD for alternate boot and it goes out and tries tostart but ends up rebooting. I thought it might be a hard drive, so I put in a spare, but I get the same problem. I know if I leave it for awhile, it will start up again. I will try to put artic grey on the cpu and see if that makes a difference. WE had problems last spring, then it ran great all summer as my daughter did AIM and email. Now that we are trying to do work again, ti is causing problems. I did try it with only 1 memory stick and it did work fine if I had a memory stick in the second slot (closest to the center of the case), I then added the second stick before running my tests, which it passed iwth both sticks. I tseems that whatever takes control immedialtely after I select a boot device (PR12 then selct the device) might be the same thing that is causing the overall problem. Any new ideas. Agaom, there are no beeps at power-on.

Where to begin troubleshooting

Where to begin troubleshooting

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