hi.

[ 5-year-old gateway laptop - wxp - all latest MS patches ]

i started getting hard-locks today. ctrl-alt-del doesn't work/help.

can only reset by holding down power-key for 4 secs.

restarts no problem.

since lock-ups are ofter related to hardware conflicts, i searched around in device mgr.

once i saw 3 yellow exclamation points .. 1 at wireless broadcom controller, 1 at unknown pci device and 1 at Texas Instruments flash media controller.  But all exclamation points went away upon normal restart.

also, during 1 reboot following hard reset, i saw error at bios start up saying:

resource conflict - PCI on motherboard Bus:06, Device:09, Functions: 04

Never saw THAT error before.

But that too disappeared upon reboot, and never appeared again.

any ideas what's happening and how i might troubleshoot this wierdness?

Seems like ~ 1/2 hour following boot-up, I hard-lock and can do absolutely nothing but hold down the power buttton for 4 secs. The screen stays the same. No blue screen of death.

twice i was working in dreamweaver when it locked. another time dreamweaver wasn't even open, and i was just opening a folder. another time i searching in google in ie8. twice while i was away from laptop, doing nothing. so no clear patterns.

hope my pci controller is not dying.

Normally this little laptop is quite the trooper, if not the fastest thing around (Celeron). I've put a lot of hard miles on it.

At first I thot it might be related to the new NOD32 anti-virus 4.2.42 cuz it gave me a warning upon update saying something about stability problems due to no Windows logo testing, but i installed anyway.

Have since gone back to 4.0.474 and same problem.

Tho I've been working for ~ 45 minutes now with no problem.

more info.

seems like there's a problem with my wireless broadcom 802.11g network adapter.

all these problems began after i started having trouble connecting to the net.

thot it was my isp, but after a while i 'repaired' my wireless connection and everything worked fine.

now, i've been noticing a yellow exclamation point over broadcom wireless 802.11g network adapter when my internet goes out.. after it has been working for a while.

windows cannot repair. no way to fix.

sometimes a reboot works, other times not.

err, now i was able to restore internet connection by 'repairing' the wireless connnection, by right-clicking on the wireless icon and selecting 'repair'.

very weird. must be an alien in my machine.

whenever i get the yellow exclamation point over broadcom wireless network adapter, i also get another one over 'security digital host controller standard compliant.

and sometime the boroadcom goes away entirely and shows up as an unknown pci device.

i am having to repair wireless network connection more, but it is working now, where before it wasn't.

been up a couple hours no lock.

dang gremlins.

another 'repair' required. but worked.

maybe my isp or their router is on the fritz?

1 time it locked at the desktop, after load.

that sux.

maybe if i disable onboard wireless and try a pcm-cia nic?

i pushed back the start of the start-up virus checks to the END of the boot process .. to give the wireless adapter a little breathing room to get properly assigned.

after lock i can hear cpu fan kick into high, like when usage = 100%.

so maybe bad infinite loop?

but i can never recover. need to hard reset. infinite loop should clear, eventually, right?

i have a month-old image.

downloaded and re-installed broadcom drivers. can't hurt, right?

repaiing the wireless connection is easy. hard-locks sux big-time.

if this doesn't help, i will try running the laptop with the wireless adapter disabled, and see if that is able to stop the hard-locks.

if it does, i could try a pcmcia wireless card, or even go wired.

i am on wired connection now. works fine. the wireless is not even SEEN by the computer. it calls it an unknown pci device.

question now > will the hard-locks continue?

does it seem odd the wired adapter works fine while the wireless is failing? i mean, aren't they both on the same chip? or not?

now the wireless adapter is nowhere to be found, not even unknown pci device.

tho now i have yellow exclamation point at 'secure digital host controller' .. does that sound normal? it's the only yellow i have in dev mgr.

so far, no hard-locking on wired connection.

now the secure digital host went away and all i have is yellow exclamation point at "other devices - pci device'

i am using this:

http://www.asokausa.com/Ethernet-Adapters/Products/residential-pluglink/menu-id-64.html?idx=1&prodId=35

no software. just plugged it in and it worked automatically. tho they DO have an installlation cd.

no lock ups in a long time. think the lock problem was fixed by eliminating wireless adapter.

seems like my onboard wireless adapter is toast.

So, you had a month old image but did not revert to using that, right?  That might help diagnose whether the problem is failing hardware or a software problem.  (I'm assuming you had no problems a month ago.)

If you rolled back to that image and the problems went away, that would suggest some recent software update went awry.

If you rolled back and still had problems, that would point to a failing wireless device.  If it's on a miniPCI card, that's an easy replacement.  Or just leave it disabled and add a USB wireless adapter.



Rad wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 2:49pm:

no software. just plugged it in and it worked automatically. tho they DO have an installlation cd.

We've previously discussed those powerline adapters here.  I've used similar devices from other brands, and found them to be reliable and drop-dead simple.  None of them require drivers because everything is done externally--conversion to/from ethernet is all done outside the laptop, so as far as the laptop is concerned it's just like any other ethernet cable coming in.  What the "installation CD" is for is probably only to install an app that provides password control to those boxes, so that only boxes with the right password can talk to each other.  (Imagine you're in an apartment building... you don't want the neighbors to be able to plug one of those into their wall outlet and gain access to your network.)

Dan Goodell wrote on Apr 18^th, 2010 at 9:55pm:

So, you had a month old image but did not revert to using that, right?

yeah. first i would have to create a current image .. in case the old one did not fix the problem (which i don't think it would).

and i wasn't getting stability long enough to do that.

now i keep images from at least 2 different software programs .. including ghost, clonezilla & ifw.

coulda also ran a linux boot cd. a wireless hardware problem would've affected that too.

thanks for filling in the blanks on the install CD.

this cable is faster than my wireless. out here in the guest house, my signal strength was not great.

Quote:

first i would have to create a current image [...] and i wasn't getting stability long enough to do that.

But with the wireless device disabled, that shouldn't have been a problem, right?



Quote:

this cable is faster than my wireless. out here in the guest house, my signal strength was not great.

Yeah, I think powerline adapters are underappreciated devices.


Where is the wireless device on the laptop?  Is it on a miniPCI card?  If so, those are often cheap (around $10-30), and as easy to replace as a ram module.

@ Rad

Saw you posting all those reports about the problems you were having--I didn't have anything to suggest to help--sorry I couldn't reply with something at the time.


Quote:

yeah. first i would have to create a current image .. in case the old one did not fix the problem (which i don't think it would). and i wasn't getting stability long enough to do that.

Seems like a good argument to have at least one *cold* imaging solution available in case your Windows based *hot* imaging solution can not be used because of Windows stability preventing enough time to create a backup image!

TeraByte's group of Image for Windows, DOS, and Linux would give you two non-hot imaging options with the DOS and Linux versions--and their image files can be used with all three versions of their program.

I think Ghost 15 now has a cold imaging option from the Recovery Environment when booted to the installation disc.

ShadowProtect Backup and Disaster Recovery Software I think has a DOS option--I can't remember for sure--I've not kept up with that software.

And, Corp Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 would have DOS Ghost 11.5--or older DOS Ghost versions, if compatible with your current hardware and OS set up are other possibilities.

Dan Goodell wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 5:48am:

But with the wireless device disabled, that shouldn't have been a problem, right?

The wireless device disappeared, and showed up as 'Other devices - PCI device'. But after disabling that, I think the controller sometimes 'remembered' it was a Wireless adapter .. and came back and locked the system. I now have it disabled, but still having occasional problems. Will post another thread.


Dan Goodell wrote on Apr 19^th, 2010 at 5:48am:

Where is the wireless device on the laptop?

Onboard. Motherboard. One of the Rad readers sent me one. I have it here.


NightOwl wrote on Apr 24^th, 2010 at 12:48am:

Seems like a good argument to have at least one *cold* imaging solution available in case your Windows based *hot* imaging solution can not be used because of Windows stability preventing enough time to create a backup image!

I think the locks go beyond Windows to affect system at hardware-level. Cuz I get problems in/at BIOS boots (returning from standby) IRQ conflcit - 2 beeps - F1 to continue. F2 to BIOS settings.

I really need to find a way to disable the controller on the mobo, bu I don;t think there's a way, without killing the who newtwork adapter.

Rad wrote on Apr 25^th, 2010 at 1:04am:

I really need to find a way to disable the controller on the mobo, bu I don;t think there's a way, without killing the who newtwork adapter.

A high quality BIOS would have that option, but some of the early on-board wireless adapters were left out of BIOS.

@ Rad

Not sure I understand:


Quote:

Onboard. Motherboard. One of the Rad readers sent me one. I have it here.

If it's *Onboard*, how can one of your readers *send* you one--is it a plug-in *card*--or is it *hardwired*--not sure what you're saying here!

I disabled the onboard Wireless adapter, in Windows, tho not in the BIOS, which is causing me boot problems. Coming out of standby is cool, cuz that goes straight to Windows. But many times I get *nothing* after a restart. The CD and HDD lights stay on for 10 or 15 sec. Then go out.

Can't even boot to Ghost CD.

Anyway, the adapter he sent is USB. Better than pcmcia cuz i's hot-swappable.

Broke out the old Rad rig and started rippin' everything out. Pretty dirty. SCSI drives galore. Getting ready to install this other mobo, dual-CPUs. Not sure how much RAM i have, tho. I use lots RAM.