Computer problem, constant freezing, what is causing this?

My friends laptop is having many problems with it. Mainly it will not boot up normally and it freezes quite a bit. (actually it freezes a lot)
:frusty:
HP dv2000
Windows XP Performance Edition Version 3 or 4 (i forgot which)
Came Instlled With Vista

Here is what happens:

When the power button on the laptop is pressed on the computer , the screen is black for a long time. Usually it would show an HP logo when it boots up but it does not show but the
main thing is that the computer will boot. But, it may take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to load because of what happens next.

Once it finally reaches the windows boot screen, it will constantly stop and not load. The light on the lappy (the Hard drive load one) does not blink like it normally does when windows usually loads and it is at this screen for about 30 minutes plus. Once it can finally leave this screen I am at a scren with the mouse cursor and it is black.

Usually it stays at this point fot about 15 minutes and then it loads to the desktop finally. Then when anything is used such as any software it will freeze and sometimes
glitch. for example

Game 1: Maple Story MMORPG (Online Game) -http://maplestory.nexon.net/-
Game 2: Stepmania DanceDanceRevolution for Computer-http://www.stepmania.com/-

game 1 will freeze badly, not lag like a normal online game but actually freeze. and then sometimes the laptop will return back to normal after 15 -30 minutes and then freeze again
maybe 5 minutes later. when game 2 was played the screen actually glitched! that was actually surprizing! it looked like a green screen with many lines with the game in the the
screen it was in but completely distorted. Also the computer froze at this point as well.

We have been trying to figure out what is wrong with the lappy but cant really figure it out We have reformatted many times using diffrent versions of windows xp and it still does the same thing. The problems seems to be when the computer is started up.

This problems had happened before, my friend gave his laptop to somebody and they said a driver was missing. makes no sense to me though. the problem before was that it would just freeze at the windows xp load screen though.
:frusty::frusty::frusty::frusty:
any ideas? any help is aprreciated.:cry:

You need to run hardware diagnostics...specifically, check the hard drive and the memory.

how would i go about doing this

BTW um it just froze when installing windows so there is no OS on the lappy right now

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clocker

You need to run hardware diagnostics...specifically, check the hard drive and the memory.

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Maybe it can be virus or adware do a proper scan on adware that can slow it down and
clean up your Prefetch folder and check if there are to many program starting up in the msconfig i hope this help's a lil


I got HP Pavilion ze2251EA Notebook

there is nothing on the laptop right now, i was installing windows xp up until it froze again

i am doing the hard drive self test in the bios right now

Quote:

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Originally Posted by svk69

Maybe it can be virus or adware do a proper scan on adware that can slow it down and

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T'aint no virus/adware if it just froze during a Windows install.

This is stuff you could do if you run out of options:

I can't promise you that this'll do you any good, but if you feel like experimenting and you're not getting anywhere, try downloading knoppix and booting that from the disc.

If it stops loading, check and see what it was loading last, and write down any error codes. (Knowing something about linux helps with this.)

I've used that to track down a couple of weird hardware errors.

Memtest might also come in handy, if you don't get anything off testing your hardware otherwise. (It comes included on the knoppix disc, btw.)

I guess flipping through BIOS options to see if our friend has done something strange might be a good idea too. And, I dunno, ask if he's had anything added to it after he bought it, like more RAM. If someone did anything strange while mounting something that might be a problem.

It sounds like a hard drive issue to me. A memory issue would most likely result in blue screens or sudden crashes. Slowdowns tend to be hard drive issues. Of course I would test the hard drive first to make sure. If it comes back corrupt or whatever, I would run chkdisk or a similar program to scan for bad sectors. Then I would zero the drive. What zeroing the drive does is basically erase ALL information. Personally, zeroing the drive has fixed some issues for me, I cannot explain it, but it works. Then I would try reinstaling XP on the drive again, if it works, great. If it doesnt work, then you are going to need a new drive.

i will try to do this

i ran chkdsk in safe mode but i do not remember it freezing in safe mode, nothing bad came up just normalness. I alran ran the hard drive self test in the BIOS and the test came back ok. i kinda dont want to erase all data on the drive because there is a recovery portion on it i think erasing that would void the warranty. (even though i think reformattind already did but i can recover the vista portion)

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...=27524&lang=en




could it be something like that, i got bored and searched around and iono what to realy do

im trying to install xp stil freezing...

i also read that it could be something with the bios but the updaters need windows installed...
that is kind of pointless

i ran hard drive self test and it came out with no errors and also ran memcheck86 to check my ram and everything came out ok with no errors. im stuck not knowing what is wrong with it now. i removed he hard drive and put it back in and same with the ram. it is still freezing and still the same problems. neither of the tests came back with errors. i don;t know that much about linux personally so i cant use knoppik because it would proove useless to me