Hi guys. Can you please try and help me figure out what went wrong, can it be fixed etc.

The machine is:
Toshiba Satellite M30
Pentium M 1.6GHz 2MB cache
FSB 400MHz
1 GB RAM DDR (2×512) PC4200
DVD RW
Nvidia FX 5200 with 64MB
etc.
OS... WinXP Home with all sevice packs applied

I will try and be as detailed as possible in describing the problem.
Laptop is neary close to 5years old, I'm the first owner, paid big bucks for it and it served me fine as my only PC for work and at home. I know its time to get the new one (I'm lurking around for a good deal), but I'd really like to fix this one, if possible.

Here goes:

Physical state of the machine:
had the battery charger replaced with the new original one, optical drive sometimes refuses to work (reports IO error) and sometimes it works fine (had to get me an external slim drive because of that), facing the laptop front, the left hinge holding the cover is a bit loose.

The problem in detail:
I left the laptop running overnight as so many times before. In the morning it worked just fine. I left for work leaving it on, at home. When I got back home from work, I found it still running, the screen was black, and it did not react to mouse move or a keystoke. I had to turn it off holding down the on/off button. When I turned it back on it loaded the bios and then prior to loading OS, prior to displaying Windows boot screen, displayed the following content in a DOSlike environment

After that I can only shut it down as it wont react to anything at all.

Now I can enter the BIOS, and I noticed that there are tiny "glitches" when displaying the bios screen: some vertical lines are "broken" as a couple of pixels that are forming the lines are misplaced a bit to the right, other than that everything looks fine.

Now what I have tried so far: checked the disk drive via usb on another desktop pc and it works fine, tried all combinations using one memory stick with both slots and still the same message appears. I guess this could mean either the memory is not the problem or both sticks "died" simultaneously.

I got my hands on Hirens boot CD 9.9 and will try to boot from it and perform memory test. However I'm growing sceptic because the Exception is trapped just after finishing the POST I guess.

Is it RAM, is it the motherboard (i.e. onboard memory controller or something), could it be that the graphic card got it (overheating or something), or is the problem somehow related to the loose hinge I mentioned earlier.

I hope I gave you enough insight to problem at hand.
Please guys, help me.

Tanks in advance.

The hard drive or memory is bad... Hopefully not the motherboard. Remove the hard drive and reinstall it. Do the same for the memory. Leaving laptops on all the time, is not wise. They run hot even in standby. Because of its age, anything goes. It really has served you well. Don't spend too much money on it

got to agree with T- magic. take the HD out, put it on a USB to extract any important data. Get a new computer. This one has kicked the bucket.

Thx for your replies. Funny thing is that laptop is working like a charm. All I did was disassemle it and put it back togather again. Beats me what the heck happend but now its working just fine...

Maybe it started acting like all microsoft programs do... erradic. But I will buy a new one, thats for sure.

Thx again.

Hi guys its me and my Toshiba again. As you may have read my troubles I have mentioned in my earlier posts, this time I will be brief. The darn thing went bananas again!

Two nights ago I played Ice Age for my nephew to watch on aforementioned Toshiba laptop. I've noticed him pressing a whole bunch of keyboard keys at once, using his feet, as all 3 years old kids so naturally do! Anyway, the laptop, or should I say, Windows just waited for something like that to happen and immediately froze (aka stopped responding)! The kid wasn't standing on the keyboard, but rather sitting close in front of the laptop and used his feet the best way he could have.

A hard reboot was necessary only just to see the ugly "TRAP C0000005" error you can read about in my first post here!

Now what the heck could have gone wrong here! Is there a limit to a number of keypresses a PC can process or what?!?? I'm joking here of course, although I don't freakin' believe this is happening! Again!!

Any new ideas you guys! Thanks in advance.