Problems with Vista?

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KiwiCarguy

22 posts

Geek

Topic # 30828 22-Feb-2009 20:59

Hi guys,

I have an ASUS laptop model M51V, 3GB Ram, P8600 2.4Ghz Dual core and its running Windows Vista Home Premium edition with SP1. It's about 6 months old and still under warranty. It's running Norton 360 and is fully updated and I have run all checks.

For the last few weeks it has been "crashing" on me. With the screen going like this...

Also sometimes when I'm on IE my icons have been changed on my Links bar and when I restart the computer they are back to normal???

So is this a common problem? Is it Vista? Any ideas on how I fix it or do i just send my laptop back under warranty? I use it for work so would prefer to not be without it.

paul151

251 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 10

Trusted

Reply # 198525 28-Feb-2009 13:02

Hi,

I don't profess to be an expert on this at all.

With laptops I guess fault diagnosis can be a bit harder given the smaller nature of the components.

My first thought looking at your many screen shoots were either a hardware fault or a video driver issue.

I'm picking if the driver were at fault then you would have this issue all of the time and not from time to time.

1. If it was working fine from a few weeks ago, perhaps restore it back to to restore point when things were known to be ok. You may a loose a few installed apps but then again if it was an app you installed it may resolve the issue and then you just add an app every 2-3 days to see when it breaks.

2. If your prob is intermittant and you want to remove the os as the culprit perhaps you can install XP or similar to see if the probs remain?

3. If it's hardware it could be a heat trigger (things get so warm them wham..?) that pushes it over the edge?

4. If you think it's hardware or suspect so and you are still under warrenty take it back, show them fault and ask for repair or replacement.

Hope these ideas help.

Good luck.

Paul

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stevenz

2785 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 122

Reply # 198526 28-Feb-2009 13:26

Quite a lot of images there...

I'd think most likely causes would be video drivers (unusual for them to crash, but it happens), videocard/chip or RAM. As Paul suggests, heat could be the culprit, I had a laptop last week exhibiting similar problems and it was the GPU which only showed up when it got warm, ran PCBench on it to heat it up and the issue appeared quite quickly. Needed a whole new mainboard to fix it unfortunately. GPU errors usually don't look so "blocky" as those pics though.

RAM is easy to test if there's more than 1 module, take one out and if it still plays up, put back and try the other one out. RAM doesn't usually cause outright lockups though, generally the system either won't boot at all or you'll get BSODs. Still, something easy to check.

Try installing older or newer videodrivers, probably not the issue but easy fix if it is.

Otherwise, go with Paul's suggestions.

KiwiCarguy

22 posts

Geek

Reply # 198543 28-Feb-2009 16:30

Thanks guys. I had tried running the Vista install disk to repair but that didn't work so then I ran the factory restore disk and that didn't work so of to the computer technicians it went of Friday. I'll let you know what the outcome was.