11 days later....

[ell]

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?

oh, I just pasted it into excel so it was easier to read, then made a jpeg of it. Just got it back, and it booted fine then while I was reading the logs it BSOD, win32k.sys crashed.

 

[ell]

Whats the current blue screen error?

Ok, I just got it back and was reading in the logs, Avira free(I installed after uninstalling Charter security suite) had some red X issues, he did say he saw a avira warning about security conflicts, anybody have issues with Charter security? and looks like IE8 too but they were all fairly recent, wouldn't explain the original crashes. Anyways then it BSOD, the stop error:

STOP: 0x0000008e (0xc0000005,0xbf801fff,0xf7830a64,0x00000000)
win32k.sys address
BF801FFF base at BF800000

So I just booted from a diagnostic cd and it crashed after 10 minutes with the same error! So at least that means its not a software issue right?? I took out one of the memory sticks again and restarted it.

 

[MrUnknown]

The information I find about this error online is relating to 2 things. RAM or the video card. Either the drivers are bad or it overheats. With the RAM, people have replaced it and it worked fine eventhough memtest tested just fine before the swap.

So, I'll recommend swapping the ram for known good ram and just trying again as there isn't much you can do for the videocard if it isn't driver issues.

It is definately hardware though if it happens from a Live CD.

 

[ell]

The information I find about this error online is relating to 2 things. RAM or the video card. Either the drivers are bad or it overheats. With the RAM, people have replaced it and it worked fine eventhough memtest tested just fine before the swap.

So, I'll recommend swapping the ram for known good ram and just trying again as there isn't much you can do for the videocard if it isn't driver issues.

It is definately hardware though if it happens from a Live CD.

I agree, I put one of the sticks of ram in one of my bench laptops and have left win memory test running on it. The stupid thing is running fine again, I removed avira, and running sfc now. So if its video, wouldn't that show in the mobo scans cuz its integrated? I looked in add/remove programs and it showed he had installed a windows feature pack for storage-IMAPI update for blueray, the day before it started blue screening again. I thought I'd uninstall it, but a message popped up that Picassa needed it. HP does have a bios update for it, but it doesn't seem to mention any serious fixes.

 

[CoffeeBean]

Got to evaluate the machine again. He could have run into a virus in the past 11 days that generates random BSODs - there's no way of knowing without having another look at the machine.

 

[amorangi]

I had one like this this year - bad hard drive (using WD tools to confirm). Replaced HDD. 3 months later that hard drive fails. Replaced it. 3 months later that one fails. Figure bad batch and replace it. 3 months later THAT hard drive failed. So far 4 failures that take 3 months to manifest themselves. Did a lot of research and found rare instances of motherboard thrashing the HDD causing premature failing. Everything else checked out though - checked voltages and everything.
So, I I were you, first check logs, second check voltages, third suspect motherboard.

 

[ell]

Got to evaluate the machine again. He could have run into a virus in the past 11 days that generates random BSODs - there's no way of knowing without having another look at the machine.

I had one yesterday that produced a great fake bsod, then a bogus XP boot screen, these guys are really talented, wish I knew how to write code, that will be my next project if I ever get the time! Well, I decided to do a system restore to a day or two before he installed the blueray thing. By looking at the system logs it looks like he was messing around with some kind of player installation before it started crashing again. Now the stupid ethernet card won't connect. He even told me it was working perfectly until he saw a pop-up from avira about a security conflict 2 days ago. He's not telling me the whole story, at any rate I also installed original keypad drivers from the hp site (I said it was a dell by mistake earlier, its a old Compaq Presario 2190) and did flash the bios and cd drive. Its been running fine all afternoon since I popped one stick of ram out, I put it back in 3 hrs later, I don't think that was it, I'm still waiting for it to crash again, I'm leaving it on all night...............