[ewy]

My HP Compaq nx6130 is over two years old. I'm pretty sure I've overheated it a few times (blocked the vent by leaving it on cloth surfaces, etc). About 8 months ago it started crashing occasionally under WinXP, and would not reboot -- the power would come on but after a few seconds would die again, or just remain suspended on a black screen after the BIOS loaded fine).

I reinstalled WinXP Pro, and took the opportunity to set up a dual boot system with Ubuntu 7.10. Both seemed to work fine (Ubuntu needed a lot of tweaking) and they ran ok.

Recently I installed some new RAM, which checked out fine, and cleaned out the fan -- this helped with system stability and heat IMMENSELY, or so it seemed. In the last few weeks the system has started to freeze up again:

In XP, it would load up to the Windows XP splash screen (with the blue boxes moving around) but would freeze before the logo was fully lit. This did not happen on every boot, just sometimes.

In Ubuntu, the most common cause of a freeze would be plugging in a network cable to the ethernet jack -- regardless of whether or not the cable's other end was connected to anything.

I got fed up with this inconsistency, wiped the hard drive, and installed Ubuntu 7.10 only. It showed the same freezing problems, and in addition it would freeze sometimes during boot -- an endless loop of ohci1394 fw-host0 transmit failures. I discovered through trial and error that holding the power button on the case down for a few seconds, but not the full 8 required to shut down, would break this endless loop and allow Ubuntu to continue loading.

I have since wiped the hard drive again, reinstalled XP as the sole OS, and tested both the Fujitsu hard drive (no problems) and the memory (memtest86+ ran for 13 hours without finding anything wrong).

When checking out my system using the PCI program on the Universal Boot CD, I noted the following unexpected output:

ROM PCI IRQ routing table checksum 00h
ROM PCI IRQ routing table appears to be faulty!

I have no idea if this is relevant. After installing all the HP patches I could find from their website, I'm now at a point where XP system doesn't seem to freeze very often. However, I tried running GParted from the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop CD, and it froze while I was setting options (I can still move the mouse, but Ctl+Alt+F1 and Ctl+Alt+Bksp, etc have no effect).

I still have one remaining problem: In XP, occasionally when I touch my keyboard after being away from the computer, a static discharge occurs and the system immediately reboots. This did not happen for the first two years I owned the laptop, but now it is predictable and repeatable.

I fear I have a motherboard problem, but I don't know where to start to diagnose this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TI OHCI compliant IEE-1394 FireWire Controller
ATI Mobile Radeon X300 64MB
Intel 82801FB(ICH6)AC'97 Audio Controller
Inet Pro/Wireless 2200BG
Broadcom BCM5705MA2 NeXtreme Gigabit Ethernet
Texas Instruments PCIxx21/x515 Cardbus Controller
MoBo: HP Model 0A0C (KBC Version 51.02) Chipset 82915PM/GM/GMS, 82910GML Host Bridge

Cheers.

[lotuseclat79]

Hi ewy,

A static discharge problem can only mean one thing - a grounding problem! Either discharge yourself before touching the computer, or look for what is causing a lack of grounding with the computer. The first action will help a lot. Not sure and don't know much about the second.

-- Tom

[veribaka]

I felt compelled to say it could be a difference in ram frequency problem, but kind of sounds like there's something bigger behind it.

[RobLinux]

Diagnose RAM problems with memtest86+
It it is not unknown for capaciters on mobo's to go bad after 2 years, so it may be the mobo itself.

There's no point in re-installing software for hardware problems, you need to troubleshoot with diagnostics.
If it's the irq routing there's kernel options to turn it off.

If you're getting jolts off the machine, it sounds dangerous to me. Static builds up, due to friction and are you really sliding your laptop around on a synthetic carpet?

[ewy]

To all who replied, thank you very much. I look forward to really beating this problem. It has evolved.

Update:

I replaced the power cable for my laptop, and the static discharge problem disappeared. That is, the laptop no longer reboots on being touched. So it seems it was definitely a grounding problem.

That said, there are still some issues, which are major in their severity but annoyingly unpredictable.

The main issue revolves around the Texas Instruments ohci 1394 host controller. Sometimes when running my laptop for many hours, the shut down process hangs during the blue "Windows shutting down..." screen. I wait ten minutes, then I simply unpower by holding the laptop power button down for the required 10 seconds. On powering up again, the TI ohci 1394 host controller will show problems (yellow exclamation mark) in the Windows Device Manager, along with my Intel/PRO Wireless card and the SD controller. Just these three. If I attempt to uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the 1394 controller, the computer hangs on detecting the new hardware. Rebooting brings me to an seemingly endless loop of the 1394 controller being detected as Windows is starting up -- then hanging. Ad nauseam.

This has happened a few times. Sometimes I solve the problem by not touching the computer for 24 hours, thinking it has something to do with overheating. On the cooler boot it seems to recover itself. The last time it happened I plugged the computer into my network via ethernet, and that seemed to fix things on boot.

I know this sounds flaky, and it is. I'm experienced with computers but I can't figure out exactly why the computer is behaving this way. Any ideas?

Again, many thanks for the thoughtful replies.