Help needed please

[kcooke1983]

Hi Guys

Hope all you Technibblers are well.

My current patient is causing a lot of frustration.

It is a Packard Bell IMedia X2415, Windows Vista 32-Bit, 3GB Ram, Core 2 Quad Processor.

It came into me as it was randomly BSODing. Tested the Ram with Memtest and it failed, so replaced the Ram with brand new sticks.

Reinstalled Vista as customer wanted "n+p" as it was going to a relative to use.

Now, despite the new Ram it still BSODs for all sorts of reasons. (Most recent one is a problem with ATAPORT.SYS). New memory checks out with no problems.

I have also swapped out the HDD for one I know to be working. Tried the reinstall again and it still BSODs. I think I am for pulling my hair out with this one.

One odd thing to note and could possibly point towards a failing board is that no Live USB Ubuntu or Mini XP or Vista Installation, with the correct drivers, recognises the onboard ethernet. (Link light is on when cable plugged in but not even showing up as having built in network device.)

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Perhaps I am missing something really obvious.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Hi Guys

Hope all you Technibblers are well.

My current patient is causing a lot of frustration.

It is a Packard Bell IMedia X2415, Windows Vista 32-Bit, 3GB Ram, Core 2 Quad Processor.

It came into me as it was randomly BSODing. Tested the Ram with Memtest and it failed, so replaced the Ram with brand new sticks.

Reinstalled Vista as customer wanted "n+p" as it was going to a relative to use.

Now, despite the new Ram it still BSODs for all sorts of reasons. (Most recent one is a problem with ATAPORT.SYS). New memory checks out with no problems.

I have also swapped out the HDD for one I know to be working. Tried the reinstall again and it still BSODs. I think I am for pulling my hair out with this one.

One odd thing to note and could possibly point towards a failing board is that no Live USB Ubuntu or Mini XP or Vista Installation, with the correct drivers, recognises the onboard ethernet. (Link light is on when cable plugged in but not even showing up as having built in network device.)

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Perhaps I am missing something really obvious.

Do a thorough scan for malware. Make sure you use TDSSKiller and other rootkit scanners because it sounds like your issues could be related to a malware infection of some sort.

 

[kcooke1983]

Cheers, will do. Although I have swapped out for a clean HDD.

 

[DCGPX]

Are you sure its installing correctly?

Try an external DVD. Also given the memory issue, triple check for swollen caps and the like.

 

[kcooke1983]

Are you sure its installing correctly?

Try an external DVD. Also given the memory issue, triple check for swollen caps and the like.

thanks will have another look.

 

[phaZed]

I would suspect the power supply or board. Swapped for a known good power supply yet?

 

[kcooke1983]

I will test the PSU although it seems to be operating fine, it is BSODing as oppose to random crash and reboot.

 

[Encrypted Existence]

Cheers, will do. Although I have swapped out for a clean HDD.

Sorry, I failed to keep in mind that you re-installed on a fresh HDD. Did you reinstall from a Windows install disc or from a backup image? Have you run diagnostic tests on the motherboard?

 

[kcooke1983]

Clean reinstall from Vista media. No board diagnostics as yet. Will check for swollen caps and other oddities when I get back to my bench.

Cheers.

 

[sassenach]

Have you checked the CPU and GPU temperatures, made sure all the fans are working correctly and that the airflow is as it should be. Overheating can cause random BSODs that don't point to an obvious cause.

 

[Techmobile]

Have you tried swapping the SATA cable?

 

[kcooke1983]

Ha ha yes swap SATA cable. Where is my head tonight. Will do that next.

One of the caps looks suspect, with a slight bulge at the bottom.

 

[bsil]

I had something similar to this once. A friend of mine shipped his pc to me from FL, and I went through roughly all the same things you did. I finally got the mobo part number and just started google searching that part. I finally stumbled across a forum, and someone there suggested to another poster to look on the board for a jumper. Now I had looked over the board, and saw one jumper, and assumed it was just a BIOS jumper. Anyway, the post said to pull it off, and try to boot. It said that it should fail the boot, and then put it back on, and boot. It should boot after that, because it will recognize the hardware change.

I was thinking..."WTH is this all about?" So, I try it, and surer than heck it boots with no issues. I guess the long and short of it is, you may have some mobo oddity in front of you. Try any weird thing you can think of because sometimes weird things work.

"Sometimes weird things work." I'm going to use that line more.

 

[kevinjhaag]

It is a Packard Bell IMedia X2415, Windows Vista 32-Bit, 3GB Ram, Core 2 Quad Processor

Holy Smokes...Are you kidding? A Packard Bell. There's your problem...LOL. Just kidding. I thought that lineup was phased out. I'd run a full and complete diagnostics on this computer for sure and go from there. Let us know what you find out tho..

 

[Encrypted Existence]

"Sometimes weird things work." I'm going to use that line more.

Your signature perhaps?

 

[kcooke1983]

Ha ha yea a Packard Bell. A PC World special.

Will check out the weird and wonderfuls tonight.

There is at least one suspect cap. Some of the other symptoms such as faulty network port point towards a failing motherboard.

So as its an OEM build its like a new machine needed.

Sent from my Galaxy S-II using Tapatalk.