laptop guru required

[alan888]

hello all im ok with desktops but laptops is another story.

Just need some advice with my freinds sony vaio vgn-fs315b laptop

was using msn then the screen went a green colour then blank.

Now everytime i try and restart it restarts in safe mode but just as it gets to windows it restarts again...


Anyone know whats wrong with it?

 

[creospace]

Virus?

Have you tried running it in the mode where you boot up step by step by clicking enter to see how far you can get?

 

[alan888]

yes its been ran in safe mode however it just restarts again

 

[leemason]

It could be a problem with video memory. If it restarts when trying to go into a higher graphics mode is could well be connected this this. Does the graphics card have separate cache memory or does it use main memory?

 

Had exactly the same problem with a laptop this week.
Turned out the Hard Drive was kaput.
I run CHKDSK on it and found more errors than not.
New HDD & reinstall of XP and all is well now.

Worth a run of CHKDSK or something to check if it has a HDD problem - that might be why it keeps restarting rather than loading XP.

 

[asonda]

Had a similar problem, I think what happened was the video chip crashed just as the HDD was trying to do something, XP has the "Critical Recovery" syndrome now and again which I have seen many times. Try doing the manual start up, like mentioned above, if XP thinks somethings up it still wouldn't let you boot in safe mode. follow advice given above, if nothing helps pop in the XP Cd or Recovery CD and start fresh, when installing XP if it hangs or resets itself just as it's installing drivers, it'll be the video chip, Motherboards are noted for failing in Laptops.

 

[alan888]

Hmm maybe it is the hard drive where do i run chkdsk would that be in dos? is there a place where i can create a bootdisc with chkdsk on

 

[bg]

It might be a hard drive failure. Download Drive Fitness Test Create a bootable CD for Windows.
Start your Laptop with the CD. Run Quick Test, if no error is detected then run the advance Test.

Hope it helps.

 

[leemason]

If you end up having to re-install Windows XP from scratch make sure that you have a backup of your data firts if you can. Otherwise you are going to loose the lot. I can see that this will not be easy to do without a GUI.