If you happened to read my previous post I received an old but seemily stable Toshiba Tecra S1. I have done some upgrading such as SP2, anti-virus, etc. Plus I have installed Office 2003 and it works fine. All connections including USB ports are in working order as is the DVD/CD-RW drive.

I was using this laptop over the weekend at a friend's house and one time I walked away and when I came back I had an 0x7E error. There has been no BSODs prior to this occurance. I wasn't able to read the minidump until I got home and it pointed to the ACPI.sys.

After researching it could be caused by:

1. Overheating (which was my first guess) as the driver attempts to throttle back the cpu because of heat.

2. Harddrive failing.

3. Driver controllers failing on the motherboard

* I have never had this error before and I was wondering what I can do to determine the exact cause. I have very little knowledge about laptops.

* Also, I have been wanting to diagnose the harddrive fitness since I have gotten it. Toshiba does not provide their own utility but suggests Hitachi's offering. So I burned an ISO disk with no errors but when I go to use the disk I keep getting a search error. Thw windows closes so fast I can't read what else it says.

Thanks.

Hi Route

Since you'll know what the Error Code means I don't have to list that like on other posts and you'll know that the ACPI.sys file is the Windows Power Management File if this is mentioned in all MiniDumps then I believe it is very much Hardware Related.

When testing my Laptop HDD I tried a few Different Tests even though I had Hitachi before that HDD died, I used the WD Test that is pretty good, I tried about 3 but can't remember the other I used after this I built up a Picture and worked out that it was my HDD that had gone.

I think Speedfan has a SMART HDD test built into the Program which seems pretty reliable as well, I found it shows Results that near as makes no Difference are the same as other SMART Tests you could have ago with that as well.

Have you been Monitoring your Temps?

If so could you post them, I have a Good Range set for Laptop Temps having seen Quite a Few.

Oh and Also did you get the New HDD or have you left it for now?

Woody, I haven't purchased a new harddrive yet because if it is the motherboard then it would be a waste of $ purchasing a new one.

I have heard that the WD diagnostics is compatible with many models. I'll try that. If it is the harddrive then I can easily work from there.

Thanks for the heads up on SpeedFan. Can you recommend a good temperature read utility?

Thanks again.

Well just asking about the HDD it was Last Week so just interested, anyway, I've found Everest Home Edition is the most reliable Temp Tool for me so you could try that.

Seagate Tools worked with my harddrive and the HD passed both S.M.A.R.T. and Long Tests. No errors were recorded.

This utility also monitored the harddrive temp. and while running the test it read it at 41C/106F.

Also, I used canned air on the fan ports and fans.

Thanks for the help, Woody. I'll look into the Everest Home Edition.

Sorry about the Late Reply, I didn't get a Email that you posted back on here don't know if that was a Glitch because I got all the Others, I've just remembered about this.

The Temp you listed is Ok mine is around that once running Fully, If Everest Listed that then the Temp is within Limits and if the CPU is around 40-50 Idle then that is Ok as well for the Laptop.