[chsriman]

Hi All,
I am facing the disgusting "windows frequently restarts" problem. I am using Compaq Presario X1028US laptop with Intel Pentium Centrino 1.5 GHZ processor, 512 MB RAM and a 160 GB hard disk with Windows XP SP 3 as the OS. I regularly update the anti virus (AVG) and the Windows automatically.
The most recent change to the system was to upgrade AVG from 8.5 to 9.0 which was done yesterday. Everything was fine until today morning when the laptop started restarting by itself. I first ignored it and continued to work and it became more and more frequent. I have referred several posts on the internet and have done all the things mentioned below in order but the problem still persists. I am not able to pin point to the cause of the problem. It should be noted that the problem exists only in the normal mode of Windows XP and not in the Safe mode.

1) Uninstall AVG 9.0 thinking that it might be the reason for the problem.
Problem still persists.
2) Check the heat at the bottom of the laptop. It is not very hot. The fan is still running at times.
3) Changed the bios setting to make the fan run always when connected to AC power. Fan runs fine but problem persists in Windows Normal mode.
4) Install AVG 8.5 which worked stably for a long time for me without issues. Then ran a full system scan of the machine through the AVG command line scanner while in Windows XP Safe Mode. Nothing Found.
5) As suggested by some people on different forums, I formatted the C drive alone and reinstalled the XP OS. Now it is Windows XP SP 1. Still the problem persists as soon as the setup finished and Windows loaded for the first time. It only became frequent. After Windows was loaded for the first time the laptop restarted itself at least 5 or 6 times within 10 minutes.
6) Downloaded the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool and ran the extended tests in that to see if it has to do anything with the RAM. The laptop didnt restart even once during the almost 1 hour that it took to run those tests. Finally no errors were found.

I am really short of ideas now as to what can be done to trace the error. Kindly advice. Does anyone think that I should format the entire hard disk and reinstall windows again just to try? I am just thinking about that because I dont have enough space in my external hard drive to backup the entire data in my D and E drives.

[etaf]

so you reinstalled windows - are you still using AVG at all ?
I would use an AVG uninstall tool to remove completely

when it restarts do you see a blue screen ?
oto
control panel>
system>
advanced tab>
startup and recovery - settings>
under the title - system failure
untick - automatically restart

run a vacuum cleaner over the vents

sounds like it was AVG connected as AVG9 was the change - but was there any windows updates...

I guess the fact that you have re-installed windows eliminates that

[Jage_b]

I agree with etaf on the blue screen. Are you getting any error messages at all or does it just restart? Does the screen go blank and then turns on again or does windows go through its normal shutdown procedure before it turns off?

I highly doubt it's AVG at this point if you had to format and then it restarts afterwards. In fact in part 5 you don't even have it installed!

My guess? It's a hardware issue. I had constant blue screen restarts and it turned out to be a faulty hard drive. I just bought a new one for my laptop (don't worry, they're cheaper and easier to install than you think) and it worked fine! Of course, obviously this may not be the issue, especially if windows goes through its normal closing operation when it restarts.

If Windows DOES go in to normal restart procedures, I'd say there might be an issue with your battery level recognition. Go to Control Panel -> Power Options -> Power Meter and see if its at the proper battery level and if it recognizes that its plugged in.

Good luck with the problem, I know it's super frustrating but you'll get this figured out in no time. :-)

[chsriman]

Hi,
Actually I had done this at the first even before uninstalling AVG 9.0. I forgot to mention that. Still I didnt get any blue screen nor an errors in the event log. Again I am not at all clear why the safe mode works fine. Infact I am posting this reply from safe mode. Is it some problem with a hardware that doesnt get loaded in safe mode?
After formatting and reinstalling the OS I have again unchecked the automatically restart windows option. Even now I still dont get any blue screen. The laptop just restarts automatically in a second. It doesnt go through the normal shut down process. I checked for the event log errors and the mini dump but couldnt find anything.
I havent connected any external devices. Infact I havent even installed the device drivers and Antivirus also yet after reinstalling windows. I have just installed the Windows XP SP1. Still the problem is happening.
If it is an issue with the heating, I believe it should not happen as soon as I switch on the laptop in the morning after giving it the whole nights rest. I just switched on this morning and it came to login screen and while I was entering the password it restarted. It is so frequent now. If it is a hard drive/RAM issue, should it not happen in safe mode also? I am able to login to this website and write so much stuff in safe mode without any problem. In fact I have changed the hard drive on this laptop only last year. So it is comparitively new.

[chsriman]

Jage_B, how did you find in your case that it is a hard drive issue. what pointed you to that? That pointer is something I am desperately looking for.

[Jage_b]

Well I knew it was the hard drive because my computer blue screened and gave me an error message that basically said it was a faulty hard drive. It doesn't sound like that's your problem, though.

Could be heat issues. It would explain why you can run in safe mode (less programs = less processing = less heat). Also, it could definitely get hot enough right when you start it no matter how long it's been off. A laptop can overheat in less than ten minutes at times!

Whether it gets hot or not, I'd say you should open up the laptop and remove the cover on the fan to see if there's dust buildup. Sometimes the inside of the laptop overheats and you can't feel it from the surface. I had slowdown problems and I popped open the fan and I was surprised at the sheer amount of dust there! Even if this isn't causing the problem you should probably do this at least once a year.

If that's not the problem I'd say it's still a hardware issue. I doubt it's your hard drive but it could be your RAM. I don't have much knowledge with RAM but I do know that if it was faulty, your computer would definitely operate better in safe mode since there would be fewer programs using it up. In fact I think in safe mode you can get away with using just about no RAM.

Another possibility is a faulty driver, but I doubt it's that. Go to your device manager and see if you can disable all of your unnecessary drivers in safe mode and then run windows in normal mode. If it runs properly then all you have to do is go through enabling each one step by step in order to find the trouble maker.

If it's none of those, though, I'm all out of ideas...

Good luck!

[chsriman]

Thanks a lot Jage_B. I will see if I can open up the laptop today to clean the dust. I am sure there will be quite some dust this being a 5 year old laptop and I opened it only once in between.

Even I was thinking about disabling all the not critical devices and then enabling them step by step. I will try that also today.

In between if you can think of anything else, do let me know.

[etaf]

if you dont want to open the laptop, often a vacuum cleaner around all the vents will help (I have doen this on overheating / Fan running all the time laptops and made a huge difference)

If you have just installed windows, then there will be little in startups I suspect
But you could try a clean boot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331796

it may be the graphics - in safe mode you use VGA rather than the full video driver..
Memory as already mentioned - if a higher part of the memory is faulty - it wont be used in safe mode
Run memtest - a good CD is UBCD http://www.ubcd4win.com/
its a bootable CD with a lot of tests on including memtest

Also try UBUNTU
http://www.ubuntu.com/
you can create a bootable CD and run the UBUNTU operating system off the CD
see how that runs...

[chsriman]

Thanks etaf. After I re installed Windows XP SP1, I havent installed the video driver yet. So I think I should be running VGA only in the normal mode also right.

[chsriman]

Today I ran the Samsung's HUTIL tool check the hard disk and found some bad sectors (errors) in that. Now I am not sure how I can use fdisk to format the hard drive in DOS because I use NTFS file system and I think DOS doesnt recognize that. I feel the Windows XP format is useless because it hadnt recognized the bad sectors earlier. What can I do next?

[etaf]

chkdsk /r
can be run from recovery consule from the windows CD

or boot the UBCD CD and you can run from there

[chsriman]

Thanks etaf. I have done the following but the restart problem still persists. There is a Low Level Format option in the Erase HDD option of the Samsung HUTIL. Should I do that?

1) Ran Samsung HUTIL which reported some errors.
2) Went into XP Recovery Console and ran CHKDSK /R on all the drives. It reported that it found and fixed errors on all the drives.
3) Formatted the C drive within the Recovery Console using the "FORMAT C:" command.
4) Reinstalled the Windows XP SP1 OS.
5) Laptop still restarts automatically.

Is it that I should replace the hard disk immediately. I want to be ascertained that this was the real problem before I can invest in purchasing a new hard disk. The one that is currently in the laptop was purchased only an year back.

Please guide me.

[etaf]

OK - In summary then
You have reformated the harddrive - chkdsk /r as well
So all the bad blocks should have been reassigned and labeled on the drive
And with Just the OS (A new install on a formated drive) the laptop still restarts - no blue screens or events in logs (any of the three event logs)

As you can rebuild the laptop software - no harm in

There is a Low Level Format option in the Erase HDD option of the Samsung HUTIL. Should I do that?

Harddrive a year old
Harddrives often have a longer warranty - 3years etc in UK

You could try running UBUNTU from the CD (as posted above) - this Does Not use the Harddrive and boots and runs from the CD - If that runs clean would gve a good sign on the PC , although that would still leave the motherboard Harddrive controller and harddisk.

Have a look at the bios and see what the voltages are doing...
Have a look at event logs - in control panel - Admin tools
also there are some minidumps - I cant read those
and you have cleaned out all the fans vents with a vacuum cleaner

[chsriman]

Yes you are correct. After the CHKDSK all the bad sectors are gone. This was confirmed by the HUTIL also. And I infact did the low level format also and re installed the OS after that. Still I face the same restart issue.

I had bought the hard drive in China and I am in India now. Not sure if I can work out the warranty. But the cost is not a problem here. If it is confirmed that HDD is the problem, I will buy a new one and replace it straight away.

I have started downloading the UBUNTU OS. The internet connection here is slow and only 256 Kbps and so it is taking a while to download the whole 698 MB.

Also I am planning to borrow an external hard drive from a friend and install the Windows XP OS on that to see what happens. If it still restarts from that we can eliminate HDD as the cause. If it doesnt, it can be ascertained that HDD is the cause.

I will let you what happens. Let me know if you think installing the OS in an external hard drive is useless.

I havent seen anything with respect to the voltages in my BIOS. Actually there are very few options there.

Since I have installed the XP OS freshly now, I will again see if there are any events logged.

I have used a small vacuum cleaner around the fans vents but I dont think it would have done much work. I have to open it up. I will see if I can do that also tonight.

[etaf]

I will let you what happens. Let me know if you think installing the OS in an external hard drive is useless.

Only if you have an option to boot from a USB device...

with regard UBUNTU once downloaded will need to burn onto a CD by right clicking and burn which creates a bootable CD - DO NOT just copy the ISO ....
I asume you have a burning application - but if not
http://www.imgburn.com/ will create a bootable CD from an ISO