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Vista hangs intermittenly on Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop

I have had Vista Ultimate installed on my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop for 1.5 years. Several months ago it started hanging in different situations (never the same program or situation). It 'seems' to have gotten worse as it hangs now more than 50% of the time when I use it.

I have reduced the number of programs running at start up time to the following list;
ZoneAlarm Client
Windows Mobile-based device manager
SunJavaUpdateSched (it seems to come back even when I remove it from the startup list)
msnmsgr

I can supply a list of services that are running if necessary.

I would like to have some help developing a systematic approach to this problem that hopefully will lead to the cause and a cure ;-)

Thanks in advance for ideas.

i would start by testing ram and disk.
easiest is to download ubcd, boot from it, and run the diags : http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

yup, memtest is what to do first, also make sure its not overheating.
might be worth going through the dell diagnostics aswell.
if it persists and if its still under warranty phone dell

ASKER

Hej, sorry for the delay but the weather here in Sweden has been fantastic. One just doesn't want to miss those few days here that the weather is good sitting at the computer ;-)

Dell diagnostics gives the following error when I run it from the Vista command prompt in safe mode, "Abnormal program termination: Memory protection fault CS:EIP=01FFh:0000799Ch"

I am uncertain which of the UBCD files to use for Vista as they don't seem to support Vista.

it must not, - You boot from the cd !

it must not, - You boot from the cd !

You need to boot from the cd.
Once you burn it, leave it in your cd/dvd drive and reboot. When you see the bios screen press F12 a few times until the boot menu comes up then press the down arrow key to select to boot from the CDROM drive instead of the local hard drive.
After that select memtest from the main board tools using the arrow keys.

and burn the cd with an image burning tool, or ISO burner
then run ram test memtest86+
and the disk test for your brand !

ASKER

Hej,

I am a bit confused here. I have a Vista operating system and the UBCD mentioned above is for XP.

How do I create a CD disc that will boot and contains the files to check memory and other operational aspects with a Vista operating system? I have been looking for a boot solution for Vista but thought I would get someone's opinion before I proceed.

no, thats ubcd for windows. you want just http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ which is a bootable CD so its OS independant. You want to make sure its not a hardware problem before trouble shooting software

did you read the ubcd page ? it tells you what it has, and how to burn it (use an image burner)

ASKER

Actually, it tells you how to burn an ISO image. I have tried several cd burners but their 'boot files' don't work...

it always works for me - what do you use ? Nero? find it in the backup section

ASKER

If you could explain what happens with the UBCD ISO image and how it is supposed to get the boot files required to boot an Intel PC perhaps I can figure out what I am doing wrong. I have tried several burners that are supposed to support boot functions and ISO images. I don't have Nero.

download imgburn it is a free burner, you can open the downloaded iso with it, and click burn

http://www.imgburn.com/

after that, boot from the same CD instead of booting vista it will load from the cd.

have you made 100% sure you have no warranty left from dell? if you turn over your laptop you will see a white sticker. it will say "dell service tag" and have a string of letters. Put the letters into:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/details?c=us&l=en&s=gen&~ck=anavml

if you have any days left on your warranty, phone dell they will guide you through how to fix it

ASKER

Droyden,

Thanks for the new CD burner program but still no boot files (see the results of burning the ISO file on the attached screenshot). It is same as the others I have burned. The CD burner MagicISO says it will create a bootable CD but it doesn't in the trial version.

As I remember from school there are a number of boot files required to boot an Intel PC to the point where one can use it.

So the problem remains that I can't seem to create a bootable CD even after trying a number of solutions on the the internet.

My Inspirion 9300 is long ago out of warranty. Also I ran Vista's memory test and it was negative.
UBCD-DirectoryListing.jpg

OK, dont worry about what you cant see on the cd, just reboot the laptop and when you see the bios screen press f12 until you get a boot menu, then select to boot from the cd

you must not make a bootable cd; the ISO IS BOOTABLE already !

ASKER

Again, that disk will not boot my PC. Nor will the other CDs I have created that look the same.

Could there be a problem with the CD? Mine is a TSSTcorp CDRW/DVD TSL462C ATA device

test the cd on a working PC then, to be sure it boots

ASKER

Ok I got it to boot on my laptop and other PCs.

Which tests should I do?

i would run memtest86+ for at least 1 full pass, then pick the disk diag for the disk brand you have, and do the long, or extended test

btw - what was the problem with the booting of the cd ?

ASKER

Ok both the memory and disk diagnostics for my HDD passed after several runs. Next step?

I was expecting all the standard boot files and when I didn't see that on the CD I burned I didn't run it after the first few failures. Yesterday, I did pick up the stack of 'coasters' that I had made and found one that worked.

>> I didn't run it << lol.. but we all learn from our mistakes...

ASKER

Ok, a laugh at my expense....anyway next step to check why I get these intermittent hangs?

how many passes did you let the memory check run for?

i suppose there are no errors in device management?

you checked if its overheating ? you may monitor with : http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
then you can run some diagnostics :
windows : http://www.passmark.com/download/index.htm

self booting :
http://www.pc-doctor.com/                                    PC doctor
http://micro2000.com/                                    Micro 2000
www.tufftest.com/tt01-lite.htm                              free      TuffTest lite

other tests :
also, if you run from a live cd, like knoppix, it can give indications :
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso

does it hang in safe mode as well ?

ASKER

Answers to the questions....

1. Several passes for each of the memory checks = no errors
2. Speedfan shows 49C for CPU and 40C for the HD. The SMART tests are excellent for both Extended and Short tests (neat tool!!!) Here is what the results said:

NOTE : your hard disk has 3 offline uncorrectable sectors. Those are sectors that an offline scanning found as unreadable. Offline scanning is a process that can be automatically started by the hard disk logic when a long enough idle period is detected or that can be forced by some tool. Those unreadable sectors are identified and the hard disk logic is waiting for a write command that will overwrite them to try to remap them to spare sectors (if available). According to the Reallocated Sector Count attribute, your hard disk seems to have available spare sectors. A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.
The overall fitness for this drive is 99%.
The overall performance for this drive is 98%.

Passmark showed no problems

I only ran TuffTest (lite) and nothing

I loaded the Knoppix environment but it only produced a mouse pointer.

when I have run in it in safe mode I have not noticed any problems. On the other hand, when I am in safe mode I am generally not there long.

Any suggestions?

boot from the ubcd, and run the disk diagnostic for your HDD brand

ASKER

I did run the disk diagnostic for my harddisk and it found no faults.

I am beginning to suspect that a program is causing these occasional problems...

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ASKER

The problem was Force Field from Zone Alarm. I re-installed it and have not had any problems.

good to hear that !