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+---- Thread: Hewelt frakin Pakard (/showthread.php?tid=3966)
Hewelt frakin Pakard - Gamazson - 09-22-2007
Ok about 6 months ago my mother bough this Hewelt Pakard prebuilt system. The darn thing has been one headache affter another. It is windows vista so we have had to deal with the usual problems there. But the bloddy thing has also been giving us the blue screen of death at least once a day. (I was under the impression that wasn't supposed to happen with vista)
Last week the darn thing started looking up during start up. I would have to hard boot it from time to time just to get it to progress. Then it once in a while it will either blue screen just affter windows boots, or it will give us this window where it would attempt to repair itself.
Finally mom got a black screen that said "Hard drive failure imminent." naturally we sought local help at a computer store. Where the computer promptly worked when they tried to see what was wrong. I am at my wits end. With this off and on working/not working and inconsistent error messages I am afraid to send it to HP for its warranty for fear that a lazy technician will think it works just fine and send it back to us un-repaired.
Any of those better inclined have any advice for me?
(I have attempted to re-install windows but the computer asked me to insert the disk with the drivers for my hard drive (Which I don't have, or know where to even find). Is that normal with Vista? Because I have never been asked for a driver for a hard drive. I was under the impression that those were very plug and play and held the drivers for everything else.)
Hewelt frakin Pakard - RonG777 - 09-22-2007
I'm FAR from being a computer expert, but one thing I noticed with my computer is that I had to make a restore disk from the hard drive, the disk should have all the computer's divers. I don't know why there needs to be special divers for the hard drive, unless since it is a refurbished computer that needed special drivers for Vista..:unsure:
If it is still under warranty, It would be best to send it back to HP. If the hard drive needs replaced, at least you won't have to pay for it. (better read the fine print though)
Hewelt frakin Pakard - McNeo - 09-22-2007
That computer sounds like more a pain than my new one...
And it certainly shouldn't be happening to a pre built system.
First of all, time how long it takes for your BSODs to come up. If it is completely random, then its probably a hard drive defect. The dust filter might be faulty and allowing dust into the HDD cavity, which is bad, as the reading head is only a few micrometers from the surface of the disk (and dust particles are a lot larger than that).
Try it with an older Hard drive if you can (I hope your motherboard has an IDE drive port...) to see if the computer still kills itself.
If not, then it may be power fluctuations to certain parts of the computer. To be honest, there are so many things that can go wrong with a computer, its quite hard to pin down unless you have a clear pattern.
Any more information, and I may be able to help you.
Hope this helps a bit.
Hewelt frakin Pakard - I_m_rdy - 09-22-2007
You can just expect the worst from pre-built versions. My new computer had a different problem, but it was one. Its boot sequence was awfully long. Gladly I now have installed a new Windows (XP, of course) and all works great now. I'd go with McNeo's advice first, if it fails, either buy a new hard drive or even another new computer.
Hewelt frakin Pakard - zethis - 09-22-2007
1) Don't buy HP / Compaq totally blows.
2) What type of hard drive is it? ATA, SATA, or SCSI?
3) Is it attached to the motherboard or to a PCI card?
4) Do you know what brand and model your HD is? Western Digital and Maxtor/Seagate are the big 2,3.
If it is ATA/SATA attached directly to the motherboard 99.9% of the time you shouldn't need drivers for it.
Hewelt frakin Pakard - Vaporlinx - 09-22-2007
im that fellow at dell that you (lovely) bunch of normal people call when your computer does something you think it ought not. Get the blue screen error code (0x00(a bunch of zeros) then some letters and numbers) That will shed a bit of light on the problem. And hte best hting you can do, is call in then the blue screen is up. And stay on the line. As far as i know HP techs are not suposed to hang up on customers (under any circumstance) THeyll probably go through some troubleshooting steps, and depending on the blue screen either send out part(s) Reinstall the OS, or have you type a bunch of stuff into a black screen with white writting (msdos ftw). IF you get some fellow from india, just hang up and call back, eventually youll b e talking to someone who speaks (passable) english. O and btw i didnt say any of this.
Hewelt frakin Pakard - 13CentKiller - 09-23-2007
Ahhh, Hewlet Pack-up*Cough* Packard
Yea It does blow, and when you get the dreaded Blue Screen, write down that weird looking number and google it. It helped me. Also, go to www.tune-up.com
There, download the trial and do the repair stuff....usually Blue Screen is related to Registry issues or bad Hard Drive sectors, or Hard drive errors.
Also try Virus Scans, if you havn't already, I doubt it is the prob though. If you can, instead of re-Installing Windows, try a Windows Repair. Im not sure how to do this with Vista.
Personally, for now I would go back to Windows XP Professional/Home for maby another year or maby 2 and wait until Micro$oft fix all the little bugs.
Hewelt frakin Pakard - onca - 09-23-2007
(Whatever happened to the good old days when you turned a computer on and it just worked??? Then 20 minutes loading a blocky game from cassette....)
@NeXuS, to answer one question. No system since Windows 95 has ever required drivers for hard disk (except in the case of SCSI, which you will not find in a pre-built home system). This sounds like either a faulty hard disk (logic board probably), or faulty motherboard.
It's also possible some BIOS settings are set incorrectly -- if some smartass HP techo has overclocked it, for example, that will cause intermittant problems and BSOD. Suggest this when you call to the helpdesk and have them talk you thru getting the right settings (usually setting to "factory defaults" and going from there.)
And, what vaporlinx said. Call HP helpdesk and don't let them go until the problem is sorted, or they will give you an exchange.
Keep us posted.....
o.