Hardware testing.

Patton Echols p.echols at comcast.net
Sat Sep 18 19:42:44 UTC 2010


On 09/18/2010 07:33 AM, Tony Pursell wrote:
> 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.
>   

Hmmm, I had forgotten that Dell put that stuff on their boxes.  I want 
to use something that does not load windows first - so the OS does not 
get the chance to filter the results.

> 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.
>   

You might try VirtualBox.  Not the one in the repositories, but the PUEL 
version from the VB website.  (Because it supports thumb-drives).  Once 
you have money working, you can make it seamless.  Photoshop could be 
done the same way, but it is more resource hungry.  Has she tried GIMP?  
It does just about everything PS does.  The one issue is that it's 8 bit 
for now.  (That has a very small effect - basically in limits how often 
you can fiddle with curves, color balance etc.)
> Tony
>
>
>
>
>   





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