Whilst out at a client yesterday to setup a new PC and a wireless router, I discovered that the new laptop was a replacement for a machine that had “died” a few weeks previously. The offending laptop had been taken to a small computer shop/repair place where it was left for investigation. The outcome for my client was a potential bill for £800 to fix whatever they thought was wrong with it and they charged them £50 for the pleasure of that info. So, because that sounded VERY expensive, I said that I would have a quick look whilst I was onsite and see if the problem was really that serious.

The machine wouldn’t boot fully so a quick trip into safe mode showed the restore points had all been erased and the networking stack was corrupt and irreparable. I have come across this a few times and it is usually the result of a virus that has been cleaned but the machine is left crippled. Previous trawls of the Microsoft Knowledge base have shown that a full re-install is the only solution – so that is what I did. The Packard Bell notebook has a recovery utility so the rebuild was straight forward. It was what happened next that was the interesting bit.

Whilst downloading SP3 and other utilities, the machine powered down without warning – and I don’t mean it shut down gracefully like a low battery but it just switched off like turning the mains off on a desktop machine. Five seconds into pressing the power button it did it again, before BIOS POST so either it was overheating or something was definitely wrong with the hardware.

I opened the chassis and cleaned out al the vents, reseated the memory and hard disk – just basic checks to eliminate loose connections. Once it had rebooted, I checked the error logs but there was nothing of interest. I then ran Memtest from a bootable CD and it failed to finish because it shut down again. Now the question was – is this memory related or heat related. A quick download of BurnIn from PassMark later and I was running a CPU stress test to raise its temperature – it passed! I then ran the RAM test from the same app and the machine died again. I am now starting to see a pattern and it is pointing at the memory. Replacing the memory with some from another laptop that I know works has allowed all tests to run and it has been streaming BBC news for the last 4 hours without problem.

So, my client has their old laptop back which they are happy about – they can relegate it to their daughter as they have a new shiny Dell Studio. The question really is: What should be done about the little computer shop that quoted 800 pounds and who, when my client said that they may as well buy a new one, also requested to keep the irreparable laptop? In my mind, they are either incompetent or shady – either way people should be warned not to use them. However, it could be an isolated incident so I would need to see further evidence before taking any action. So, the moral of the story is: Ask your friends and family for a recommendation or ask for testimonials rather than pick the nearest randon computer shop – everyone should know a good PC expert….and now you do!

Gary Atkinson
Mediaholix Ltd.