Windows Vista Business X64 - reliability index 4.3. Help!

[zappb]

Windows Vista Business X64

Problem

No stability, no clear understanding why. Getting many NMI: Parity Check/Memory Parity Error *** The system has halted ***. Before I updated with a patch yesterday the GPU was hanging constantly as well.

Reliability monitor & Performance

Index 4.3
http://www.accachampions.com/wp-content ... onitor.jpg

Spec
Thinkpad T60p – T7400 (2.16Ghz), Flex view, 2 Gig ram, ABGN card, 7k200, FireGL V5200, (Brentpresley’s old laptop who had 0 problems with it).

Temps

Usually around CPU 35C-55C HD 40C and GFX around 50-75C (Temps quite high for Microsoft Office 2007/Vision/Accounting softare.

Device Manager Walkthrough

Device Manager 1 http://www.accachampions.com/wp-content ... er%201.jpg

Device Manager 2 http://www.accachampions.com/wp-content ... er%202.jpg

Device Manager 3 http://www.accachampions.com/wp-content ... er%203.jpg

Device Manager 4 http://www.accachampions.com/wp-content ... er%204.jpg

Progress to date:

I’ve installed all updates through Windows Update and manually installed the following two patches http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=47336 .

I’ve ran Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool which comes up clear with no ram errors.

You can see from the Reliability monitor – I’m getting an index of 4.3. Unfortunately this is my work laptop and it gets brought everywhere. I carry a lot of client data and process accounts, tax returns etc...

You can see from Device Manager pics that almost everything is installed - theres a piece of "unfound hardware" which i'm not sure what it is, and also something with the Ultra nav driver

Obviously it was a mistake for me to install x64 for a work machine that needs to be stable but it’s too late to go back. There’s a lot of time invested getting this machine updated with all the programs I use.

Options/ideas?

Any ideas would be most appreciated, It’s disrupting my work at this stage. I know in my heart of hearts I should wipe - Windows Vista Business X64.

This is a last resort because I’m not sure X32 will be more stable, and It’s a big hassle to copy across all my programs and settings. I would also have to repurchase the x32 version (because I have an OEM copy of Business X64 – this is not really the issue though, its more the time involved in transporting them over.

Thanks a million.
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[SHoTTa35]

how about you take out one of the RAM sticks and run the system and see if it crashes, if it still does then remove the other and run it with that. That's the best way to solve memory problems. If you have 1 2GB stick then buy another 1GB and stick in there and remove the 2GB one.

I think X86 is more stable but that's just my opinion

[zappb]

Shotta thanks for the reply - I'll try the memory. Memtest ran fine though, but its worth a shot.


It's been plugged in all day and has been running fine, once i took the machine off AC - it crashed twice! (Got the Memory parity error) - On AC I can't seem to be able to crash it at all...

any ideas?

[SHoTTa35]

install NHC and see the voltage being provided by the system to the memory when on AC and then battery. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[zappb]

Hmmm

the one item that was showing up as "unkown" in device manager was the Thinkpad Power Manager driver.

Once that was installed (thanks dfumo for the driver list sticky)...
the system seemed to be more stable, but still Blue screened a couple of times, (not quite as regularly, and it hasn't bluescreened yet on AC *touches wood*.'

Shotta - i installed NHC , but it won't run on vista x64 - ran it as administrator it just says "Error! -> Could not load the NHC driver!

Maybe this isn't compatabile with x64 vista?

Thank you for your help man, really appreciate it.


Reliability index is down to 3.72. Fingers crossed I can get that back up to 8 or so.

[jgrobertson]

Reliability monitor & Performance

Index 4.3

Thats pretty good. Mine was back up to 3.86 from a low of 1.07. Yesterday it fell again to 2.34 after several Explorer crashes when I tried to access User\<mine>\Roaming\

The updates of Aug 7 and one since too have made quite an improvement.

[Torque]

Reliability monitor & Performance

Index 4.3

Thats pretty good. Mine was back up to 3.86 from a low of 1.07. Yesterday it fell again to 2.34 after several Explorer crashes when I tried to access User\<mine>\Roaming\

The updates of Aug 7 and one since too have made quite an improvement.

Wow, you must crash all the time then.

Mine's currently at 8,55.

[jgrobertson]

Wow, you must crash all the time then.

Mine's currently at 8,55.

Are you using 64 bit or 32 bit? I have 64 bit and running it on a laptop.

I never saw an 8.55 number. It started as 6.5 immediately after the first install.

Actually some days it will go all day without a crash. Thats much better than before the updated. A lot of the "crashes" are a quiet message that the Explorer stopped and it just restarts.

[Torque]

Wow, you must crash all the time then.

Mine's currently at 8,55.

Are you using 64 bit or 32 bit? I have 64 bit and running it on a laptop.

I never saw an 8.55 number. It started as 6.5 immediately after the first install.

Actually some days it will go all day without a crash. Thats much better than before the updated. A lot of the "crashes" are a quiet message that the Explorer stopped and it just restarts.

I use a 32-bit Ultimate, installed on a T60.

[SHoTTa35]

never really checked mine (32bit Vista Business) but it's currently at 8.60. I guess that's pretty good then huh.

guess 64bit got some catching up to do.