Hardware testing.

[Tony Pursell]

On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 22:17 -0400, 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
> 

My wife has a 3yr old Inspiron 6400 that is playing up - very slow &
blue screens every so often.  I have used a Live USB to do a memory
test.  I've downloaded clamav to the USB to do a virus test, but we have
used both Macafee and Kaspersky already and found nothing.  What I did
go through is Dell's own hardware tests.  If you F8 on boot up you
should find an option to run them if they haven't been wiped of the HD.

Let me know if you find something that works.  Unfortunately she won't
go Ubuntu (which I can tell runs OK) as she is wedded to MS Money (which
is a nightmare to get running in WINE) and Photoshop.

Tony