trying memtest tonight

Hello just read the Try This First post and downloaded the binary boot of Memtest. I take it I should run it at night since it takes a long time ?

I surmise I can figure how to analyze the results and-or post them up in this thread tomorrow if I can't understand what to make of it.

I have a Gateway Laptop that I bought in 2005 that has run flawless for 6yrs now. I don't treat it rough but sometimes do use it quite a bit. Within the past 2 weeks I started having blue screens and serious system err recovery messages on boot. I ran chkdsk after each occurance (on both the main C drive and the formatted 2nd data partition). And the problem would not return for say a day or so. Additionally I ran full virus checks with Norton and SuperAntiSpyware, and only found tracking cookies which were deleted. But I kept having about 5 or 6 occurances of the blue screen in the past week and a half. I ran chkdsk on boot about 3 days ago and I have not had a problem since.

One other thing, most times right before the system crash I noticed some failure to repaint the current screen properly and some tracks would be left on the screen.

Anyhow I will run Memtest tonight, I was thinking either memory or the hard drive is failing ?

 

if you can tell us the message you get from the blue screen it would be more helpful.
if you have 2 sticks of memory installed try removing one and working off just one to see if you run into any issues still.
alternate the sticks and try the same as typically when ram goes bad it usually happens to one of the two sticks and not both.
besides that run hard drive diagnostic software to see if your drive is failing. seagate offers one that is pretty good and usually compatible with most drives out there.
also does your laptop get hot to the touch on the bottom as your using it? overheating can cause issues with graphics crapping out, freezing, and even blue screens.

 

Thanks I will check into Seagate's dianostic. My laptop has been doing ok the past few days and I haven't ran Memtest yet because I wanted to do a short backup of my recent emails first. Last time I did a full backup it crashed so I'm kinda wondering if the same thing might happen on Memtest. My Laptop doesn't feel any hotter than it always had.

The error I'm getting is the blue screen that says The System Has Encountered A Serious Error And Needs to Reboot.
And then on reboot it says The System Has Recovered From A Serious Error And You Should Run Chkdsk To Check For Disk Errors.

 

i would skip the memtest and run a hard drive test first.
make sure to do a thorough/full test and not a simple/short one.

 

Thanks I think I have a Paragon Disk manager I'm looking now. If not I will find the Seagate. I've already located me a replacement drive is needed. Boy those old IDE drives are pricey now.

 

i never heard of paragon, but it may be good software.
i would recommend using the seagate's seatools.
i've had good luck with it and it was the most compatible for different make hard drives.
here's a link to it. http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=480bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
they have windows version and dos which requires to burn a bootable cd from an iso.
it might be best to isolate from the windows environment by running it from dos.
things to mainly look out for would be bad sectors from a thorough scan and if smart test fails.
also in the event that it's your hard drive, you could save from having to backup everything and reinstall windows by cloning your drive (with software like norton ghost) to the new one.
just wanted to add that just in case you weren't aware.
reinstalling windows is always best imo, but it can be a hassle getting things transferred, settings, installing programs, etc.
let us know how it goes...

 

I just download both versions of SeaTools and plan to use them soon. Ironically laptop is running without any issue for 4 days now.

Wonder if I decide to install the windows version now, and then in the future decide to run the dos version on boot, are there any complications to that ?

 

it shouldn't matter which one you run.
i just thought it might be best to isolate the laptop from windows to avoid any hiccups during the test.

 

Well my laptop ran for days without issue but then all of sudden started up again so I installed SeaTools for Windows. I ran the Smart Test and got this error -> STX_STEE has encountered a user-defined breakpoint. When this dialog is closed the app will close.

So I closed the app and it in fact did close and will not restart. I have no idea what that error meant.

 

have you tried burning the bootable cd version?
what brand is your hard drive?

 

I'm gonna try to burn it, may have to install a burner on desktop, not sure how much longer my laptop is gonna run.
My drive is a Seagate drive. I went into my current project on VC 2005 and set ALL breakpoints off. Not sure if that had anything to do with the error message but can't imagine what other User defined breakpoints it could mean ?