11 days later....

[ell]

I am up in arms with this guy. I worked on his old Compaq 2100 laptop with bsod problems, it had a bad HD, everything else came clean in pc-check, mobo,ram, cpu, but it kept bsod after the install of the new drive, I took it back and did a repair reinstall of xp and updated video drivers, it was running perfect when I returned it 11 days ago, (in the minidumps it showed he had installed a corrupted wifi driver and a hp printer driver that crashed after my install) anyways, now he just emailed me with a "mini sized" blue screen now and can't start it, (occurred on 12/2) what should I do? its been 11 days! Heres the minidump, if you can help me shed some light on this, I got it back and it blue screened with a win32k.sys error, even blue screened in ubcd4win. I popped out one of the ram sticks and then it booted up fine, but the ram is back in now after 3 hrs of memtest, no errors and everything is running fine, I did uninstall Avira too when I saw this and flashed bios and cd drive too...

 

[NickCat11]

When you put in the new drive did you do a clean install of XP or did you clone the two drives?

 

[ell]

When you put in the new drive did you do a clean install of XP or did you clone the two drives?

It was a clean format install, all drivers looked fine in device manager, I suppose I should just take it back-AGAIN and do another format and install.

 

[NickCat11]

I would try to troubleshoot it a bit more before you do that because you may end up with the same problem all over again.

 

[ell]

I would try to troubleshoot it a bit more before you do that because you may end up with the same problem all over again.

I don't know what more to troubleshoot, I ran exhaustive tests already, guess I'll just pick it up, geeez

 

[NickCat11]

Whats the current blue screen error?

 

[ell]

Whats the current blue screen error?

he didn't tell me, sounds pretty mad, but why is it doing it 11 days later????wouldn't anything i did have surfaced right away?

 

[NickCat11]

Most likely. Unless there was a random hardware failure. Let us know what the blue screen error is when you get it.

 

[ProTech Support]

Yea, I would DEF. stay away from another N & P. Really sounds more hardware related, which means it will just show back up again.

 

[Mushin]

What about some software update? something that is getting updated later or he installs after the system seem ok.

 

[ell]

What about some software update? something that is getting updated later or he installs after the system seem ok.

I betting it is something like that, I forgot to mention he also has a ipod he connects to it too.

 

[ell]

Most likely. Unless there was a random hardware failure. Let us know what the blue screen error is when you get it.

Heres a copy of all the minidumps prior 11 days ago before I did the repair install and updated the video driver: clues?????

 

[MrUnknown]

a few of those seem memory related. try memtest

 

[NickCat11]

I agree with MrUnknown that a lot of those are memory related. I would test the ram again and maybe alternate sticks to see if that makes any difference.

 

[mortaltech]

I'm having a similar problem with a xps m1730. I'm thinking video card, I talk with customer in the morning to see if he wants to replace it ($550) parts and labor.

 

[NickCat11]

I'm having a similar problem with a xps m1730. I'm thinking video card, I talk with customer in the morning to see if he wants to replace it ($550) parts and labor.

You're thinking video card? For $550 repair you better be 100%

 

[vr6rafal]

very possible its a windows update might be causing blue screen. See if it boots into safe mode then see for any new updates installed, remove them and then do system restore see if that helps.

I had similar problem with IBM laptop, I would fix it, let it run, everything is perfect, next day I turned it on, and BSOD!!!

 

[arrow_runner]

What model Dell is it? I've seen 2 Inspiron 2200s with BAD Celeron CPUs that would cause the laptop to either BSOD or not boot correctly.

 

[ell]

I agree with MrUnknown that a lot of those are memory related. I would test the ram again and maybe alternate sticks to see if that makes any difference.

I thought that was it too, so I ran memtest for 16hrs! even swapped it out, it never crashed. This is nuts, I'm thinking its either a win update or the video is going, (but I ran tests on it) which he won't fix, he doesn't want to put any more money into it, he was reluctant to put the new hard drive in, I just know hes going to want his money back for the hard drive if I can't find the culprit. I'm almost wondering if the new hard drive has a issue with its logic board, could that be possible?

 

[ridgefieldpc]

That sucks ell

This is one of those nightmare scenarios that I know I will run into sooner or later after I get started. It will be some obscure problem and it will make me look like a moron.

If it's the windows update you should disable them along with security center so he doesn't update his computer.

Also after you install windows make sure you get all the updates and keep it running. Get whatever else he installs at home like printers, programs (everything) and install it for him and see of that breaks it. Don't charge him. At this point his trust in you is gone and it's up to you to reinstate that trust. That is if you want to keep him as a customer.

My guess is that it's a software problem. He obviously installs something at home or does something to cause the problem you just have to find what it is, or remove yourself as a culprit in his eyes.

If installing all the programs updates etc doesn't break it then bring it over and show him that it runs and the problems couldn't be reproduced in the shop. You may lose him as a customer anyway but at least try, you may learn something. After all you will run into problems like these again, so you better get used to dealing with unsolvable situations or learn to solve hard problems.

Sometimes it's just the fact that you try and stick with the customer that will regain their trust. Don't leave them out to hang.

What program did you use to get those minidumps like that?