Laptop BSOD

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nobardin

Posts: 256   +2
Hello techspot community,

I am fixing a laptop for a friend and it is BSOD'ing on me. I know how to read minidumps as I have helped a few people on here with theirs. The problem is I just moved to the UK and my pc is in the states still, so I can't use it to read the minidumps.

System specs of this laptop:
Sony Viao PCG-FX501
1GHz amd duron cpu
256MB ram
removeable floppy
DVD-rom drive
20GB Hitachi hard drive

I believe it is the DVD drive that is making it BSOD. I have taken this thing apart and put a fresh coat of thermal grease on the heatsync, cleaned all the dust and such from it. I have ran mem test for a total of 10 passes and have gotten a hard drive health checking utility from the hitachi support site. There aren't any errors with the memory or the hard drive. I don't believe it to be a heat issue either as \i have put a fresh coat of thermal compound on it, which helped it a lot. I also had a nice fight with it reinstalling windows on it with it shutting down a time or 2 while installing it.

The reason I believe it is the DVD drive causing the problem is:
Before I reinstalled windows on the laptop when I would try to open the DVD drive the computer would shut off..I thought odd...so after I got windows installed and did all the updates and such without any problems I can now open the drive without it shutting off. However, when I went to install norton from a disc the computer shut itself off no BSOD. I finally got norton installed then put an audio CD in the drive and was listening to music while surfing the net for possible causes/fixes because I didn't have a minidump at the time. I took a break from surfing the net trying to find the causes/solutions and just had the audio cd playing when it BSOD'd and created a minidump..yay!! now we have a piece of information to troubleshoot this problem.

I thank you in advance for your help and am hoping to have my PC shipped over soon so I don't have to bother you all with minidumps. Thanks again for your help

*edit* It's running windows xp professional SP2
 
Your error is 0x04E: PFN_LIST_CORRUPT

This indicates that the memory management Page File Number list is corrupted. Can be caused by corrupt physical RAM, or by drivers passing bad memory descriptor lists.

In fact your minidump cited the cause as memory corruption. I know you ran memtest for 10 passes (which is good) but corrupted memory has been known to pass this test. Do you have another stick of RAM that you could switch out to see if you get any more BSODs?

Secondly, is there a way for you to update your DVD firmware?

Third, try running it without Norton. it is a major system hog.

Keep us up-to-date.
 
thanks

Thank you for your reply and taking the time to look that minidump over Route44. It is greatly appreciated. The laptop has 2 sticks of RAM in it, so I will take one out and see if I can get it to blue screen again. I will post back with the results after doing what you suggested.

Not sure if it matters or not, but in the event viewer it has a lot of red x's and yellow triangles all citing the CdRom.

The yellow triangles read: "An error was detected on device, \Device\CdRom0 during a paging operation

The red x's read: The device, \Device\CdRom0, Has a bad block.

There are 9 red x's and 5 yellow triangles all citing the CdRom.

I will post back asap with the findings after doing what you suggested. Thank you again for your help!!
 
no blue screens yet

After I read your post I did a bit of searching on the internet for firmware and came across a page that stated "video card drivers are usually the culprit for this error if memory passes memtest and the hard drive passes a health check utility"

I then uninstalled the video card driver that I had gotten from sony's website. Turned off the laptop and took one of the sticks of ram out of it and turned it back on and let it run overnight with the audio cd it bsod'd with in it on repeat all. Woke up this morning and it was still running and playing the cd. I then turned the laptop off and switched the ram chips out and have had the same cd playing now for 3 and a half hours and it hasn't bsod'd or shutoff as of yet.

I am hoping it was something that simple. However, I can't say anything for sure as of yet. I am getting ready to start a "stress test". Going to install the other memory chip then a simple game and let it run in the background while the audio cd is playing while I surf the net and download files from various websites (freeware files of course) Not going to install any of them. The last time it blue screened on me was after I had been browsing the internet, downoading drivers and researching the problems I had with opening the cd drive and having the computer power down. I then took a break from browsing and inserted the audio cd that is currently playing.

I will post back with the results as soon as I know something one way or the other.

*Edit*

Well it is going on 8 hours now with the laptop running, and it has yet to blue screen again. I am hoping that the problem has been resolved. I will continue testing it and will report back if it should blue screen or power down again. Again, thank you for the help Route44. It is appreciated. Cheers!!
 
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