Hi guys, first of all, my congratulations for this forum - this is my first post here and after having googled around I found this forum to be the most insightful on hardware issues I have a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S7110 and, starting a few months ago, the laptop randomly restarts with regular Windows usage (just like if the power had been cut and then back on again). This appears to be more frequent when the laptop is running on battery power than on AC power, thus appearing to be somehow hardware related. Starting a few weeks ago, the random restarts are sometimes replaced by an odd freeze in which the screen turns black, the DVD-ROM LCD indicator lights up and the Scr Lock LCD indicator flashes on/off. There is no way to recover from this other than holding the power button down and then again to switch the PC on. Once this happens, Windows will freeze on loading (the progress bars stop) and a new power button down/back on cycle is required to start Windows correctly (choosing Start Windows normally on the drop down list that appears when Windows does not boot successfully on the previous run). Again, this occurs under the same circumstances (regular Windows usage) and more often on battery power than on AC power. I’ve attached a photo showing the laptop’s LCD display. I’ve tried everything as far as software is concerned (including malware removal) but in what relates to hardware I’m kinda clueless… Can you guys help me out? Thanks in advance!
At first, I'd suspect the memory being a culprit. What you can do is download Memtest for a bootable CD .iso file or floppy creation program. Once you have a prepared disc, boot off that media and let it run for at least 1 hour (although do this overnight if you can). You don't want to see any errors in the testing. There's also a timer that runs alongside the test so you can see how long it's been running incase you run into restarts. Also, how long have you had this unit? If it's a newer purchase, you might be able to make use of the warranty.
I've downloaded memtest86+ v2.10 (this version is just a few days old) from Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool (not memtest.com: The Leading Downloads Site on the Net) and I let it run with the default settings for over 7 hours (no restarts). No errors were found, but then I decided to check the default settings and when I selected c) configuration, (3) Memory sizing and (2) BIOS - All, I got 278 errors in less than five seconds. This laptop is over two years old now and its warrany is already expired. Should I be messing with the obscure world of BIOS updates now or even that wouldn't fix it?... Thanks
