Geek pop quiz.

[theweaselking]

A weird-assed one today.

Acer Aspire 5100 laptop, originally running XP Media Centre. Needed a wipe and rebuild, so I booted to the system restore partition, told it to restore to factory defaults, and it started copying files.... and then shut itself off. Hard. Wouldn't respond to *anything* for almost 30 seconds.

Reboot, the system obviously hasn't completed the restore, so I try it again: same thing, same spot or close enough.

I boot to a Ubuntu LiveCD, and it works just fine. I can see the disk, and the Windows folder, and where it got to in copying files.

Reboot and restore from system partition, same problem.

Okay, I think, the disk image is bad.

Boot from XP Media Centre OEM CD (I have one of those in my toolkit), re-format the destination partition, try installing from there.... boom, shuts down hard, same symptoms, while copying system files.

Huh.

Try the OTHER partition: Same deal. Wipe both partitions and try XP Pro: Same deal. XP Home: Same deal. I'm not going to install 7 on an Aspire 5100, and I'm not going to install Vista *anywhere*, so I try installing Ubuntu 10.4: Works perfectly.

At this point I'm thinking there's SOMETHING wrong with the hard disk, so I tell Ubuntu to run a detailed in-depth scan of the disk for errors and flaws. Nothing.

Ubuntu Hardware Test: Uh, everything shows good.
Boot CentOS LiveCD just to test: Works.

So, I have a machine that shuts off, HARD, while installing Windows XP. Installing Linux? No problem.

Where do I even start *looking* for this one? Bad HDD that hates NTFS? How does that work? How do I test that without a spare laptop HDD?

EDIT: Apparently "only overheats when installing Windows, not when working the machine hard on anything else, but overheating". Crack the case, blow out the dust, put it back together, and Windows installs. I hate computers.

Comments

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

Spontaneous hard shutdown sounds to me like "thermal problem". Can of air on the fans?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I thought that too! But it never had this problem before I tried to wipe it, it always does it *when copying Windows install files*, and it doesn't do it when running pretty hard out in Linux.

Still, it's worth pulling it open and checking the fans.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

Memcheck, too - installers can put things in specific places in memory when they know they're working with a virgin machine, so can't hurt to see if you've got bad RAM.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Successful windows install after blowing out the fans. What the *hell*, people?

(Of course, by now it's harder to reinstall since the default image no longer matches the disk configuration and Acer's restore thing is stupid.)

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Where do I even start *looking* for this one?

1. as with all such mysterious problems: memtest86(.com) for at least a night.
2. If that doesn't show anything, run 2-3 parallel processes that shovel the harddisk to /dev/null, also for a couple hours (dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null bs=16M - use with skip= so that the other dds can't read from the cache).
3.Then there's cpuburn as a last resort, parallel to the harddisk churning and glxgears to create real thermal load.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Looks like it was heat, despite the overheat happening at the same place and time during the install over and over again, and not while installing something else.

Which is just weird.

I blame Java.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Minecraft would do this to me, too. Memtest came back clean, I run BOINC/WCG all day and night (which uses all four of my processors and the GPU), that prime thing would run all day, all other games would run for hours just fine, but Minecraft would cause my laptop to overheat in seconds.

Re: I blame Java.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

A BOINC client is actually a very good alternative to cpuburn+glxgears, thanks for the tip.

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

I hate computers.
As I frequently observe, it is quite all right to hate computers; they hate you, too. Furthermore, they hate you with considerably more force than the mere passive orneriness of most inanimate objects.

[tyoko.livejournal.com]

And yet, a computer is currently keeping me on the right side of sanity, as my demanding month old old baby girl is needing feeding every three hours, and hasn't let me sleep in as long. Few things would keep me company at one o'clock on a Thursday morning but the endless patience of a silicon chip.

[maelorin]

my son was like that, until my then wife was taught how to breastfeed 'properly' (completely). [antenatal classes had glossed over a few things ...] suddenly he was sleeping 8 hours a night. apparently he wasn't getting the heavier components and thus was getting hungry on a short, fixed cycle.

hope she settles soon!

it took us both about two months to recover once he started sleeping prpoerly >.<

he's a ridiculously tall eleven-year-old now.

[nsanity-au.livejournal.com]

Windows installs have been LONG known to be a test of stabliity of overclocks - for whatever reason.

If you are at all concerned about a 24/7 overclock stability, you should install windows (alternatively, Prime95/LinPack/Furmark for an hour or so).