Hardware testing.

[Patton Echols]

On 09/17/2010 07:17 PM, Doug wrote:
> On 09/17/2010 09:21 PM, P Echo wrote:
>   
>> I've been asked to triage a laptop running windows xp   I know that my
>> problem is off topic, but the question is "on" I think.
>>
>> /snip/
>>
>> If it matters, the symptoms are multiple, repeated crashes of things
>> like MS Word, especially when trying to cut and paste from MS Excel.
>> (WinDUHs not even playing nice with itself)  I assume the normal bloat
>> and crap-ware on the system, but want to exclude hardware problems
>> first.  It is a Dell Laptop, @ 3 years old.  No model or other yet.
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts.
>>
>> -- Patton
>>
>>    
>>     
> Have you done all the usual things, like defrag, etc.?  Have you run
> some good anti-virus program(s)?  Windows even has some of its own
> security stuff now, but I'm not sure it's available for XP.  Also, I'd get
> and run a registry checking/fixing prog, like Registry Mechanic. And
> tell the owner of the machine to never run any kind of Outlook or
> Internet Explorer.  They're magnets for trouble from the outside.
> Only then run your tests.
> (You probably knew all this, anyway.)
> --doug
>
>
>   
Sure, All the usual stuff.  I planned on doing the hardware checks first 
because I'm hearing things like "this laptop is crap, it's old and 
dying"  Until I do the HW checks, I'll never convince anyone that it's 
just the OS needing a cleaning.

I don't know what's been done yet, I'm volunteering for a small 
non-profit and this machine is in production over night, then I have one 
day (tomorrow) to get it up to snuff to go out of town on business next 
week!

Thanks for the thoughts (I had forgotten about Reg.Mechanic.)

-- Patton