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Drivers causing laptop blockage or more likely fried IGP

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Drivers causing laptop blockage or more likely fried IGP

Postby trancedrift » Sat Jul 01, 2006 3:28 pm

I have an realtively old Amilo A AthlonXP2400+, not sure about the correct model, I think A76** something, anyways - darn old but still fast enough for me with its 1,8ghz.

Yesterday my latop.. died :cry:
I have had numerous problems with finding suitable driver update for the Ati IGP320. A couple a months ago I resorted back to the original driver which date back to 07.2002, about a yaer before I purchased the laptop back in 2003... They still give very nice flawless video playback, and amazingly awful game experience. I dont have time to play games anyways :)

So I had hose drivers on, however with GART and IGP drivers from ATI (modded) from january this year. As Ati radeon IGP 320M is also a memory controller on the mainboard I started encountering strange memory lockups when the system was to freeze for some reason. If I have to restart the laptop the next time i start it it would not find one or both memory modules I have (256 and 512). After a second restart everything worked fine.

So now, the problem - yesterday I had my laptop on, a I had an external monitor hooked to it and I was watching a WC2006 game between Italy and Ukraine on the external monitor (VLC Hardware Overlay... blah blah), on the laptop flat panel I was writing something on a web page, and I had some music on in the background - in short normal working conditions, absolutely no lagging or anything, all going nice and smooth... Until suddenly both screens froze and a strange sound of a beginning of an error came. It hanged.

This type of hang up is typcal for a driver induced failure, quite known to me, so I did the onlything I was left to do - held the power button until it shuts down. when I tried to start it again it would not - checks hdd, checks optical devices, cpu cooler on and then goes even higher ... and nothing happens - usualy the next step is the flatpanel start. Wel, not this time. Everything simply stopped then.
Stopped it again, started it again, nothing, the same situation. As far I know this is a typical situation when the system fails to load either the cpu or the memory (thus the video too, as the memory is in fact the same controller as the video).


I dont know what can I do now. I openned it, everything seems ok, no signs of overheating or anything. What could be the problem - the IGP fried/blocked, CPU fried, or hopefully some blockage so that the memory cannot load??

I am not able to take it to a FSC authorised dealer now, I will do that in a week, but I was wondering if I will have to buy a new cpu/mainboard (as the graphics are integrated when they go wrong everythings goes wrong...)? And if I have to buy new stuff, is it possible to find such parts second hand?

Thanks in advance :)

PS: Now When I come to think about it - It is most probably a question of a fried IGP, maybe laptops are not to be used with an external monitor... huh, Then why the heck do they put port for a monitor?!?
Last edited by trancedrift on Sun Jul 02, 2006 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby aspettl » Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:18 pm

Did you try a hardware reset as mentioned in the FAQ?
BIOS- and Hardware-Reset (The standard solution for many problems!)
- Load in BIOS the "Setup Defaults", quit with "Save&Exit"
- Switch off the notebook, remove batteries and AC adapter, press the power button for 10 seconds


In your case of course without loading BIOS defaults. I'm not sure whether you had removed your battery when opening the notebook (of course this should be done every time one opens the notebook, otherwise it would be risky...)

Regards
Aaron
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Postby trancedrift » Sat Jul 01, 2006 7:08 pm

Unfortunately that did not help. I did remove the battery yesterday, didnot help at all. Today as I had it put together again, I tried the trick with the BIOS reset too - No change :(
I also tried to play around with the memory modules, with them, without them, then try again with them, nothing at all...

I dont know, I guess it was simply time for it to go. It is strange beacuse it didnot overhear or something, it was working normally as usual, and then suddenly froze, the screen stayed static, no mouse, no keyboard. As far as I know when it overheats you see either blue screen, or it goes directly to restart, or shutdown. And in my case it looked like a driver failure, I am really confused.

Other than that, I have used the laptop extensively through these 3 years, I became really attached to it, and it was performing quite fine most of the time, only with minor flaws in the ati IGP driver support...

When I think about it now, it is possible that the CPU has failed, although, as it would have failed during worktime, the whole system would have simply restarted, or shutdown. I guess that would have been the case if the IGP failed too, I still see some hope for it, but I dont have any clue what can I do.
I have worked on a normal pc mainboard with some cpu issues a couple of weeks ago, it was failing to shutdown properly, and thus after a restart could not start - the same way, fails around cpu or memory test. Luckily I did fix it by totally unpluging everything, including the battery on the board, then I used the provided jumper to shortcircuit the hole system for 5 seconds, and return it back to normal, amasingly all errors and flaws were gone and the cpu was working like new.
I dont know, however if that is possible with the Amilo mainboard, well there is definately no such jumper provided, even the battery is solderd to the board, and that makes it almost impossible to shortcircuit it safely (or completely discharge it...)

I dont know, I will be happy to hear any suggesions :(
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Postby trancedrift » Sun Jul 02, 2006 1:48 pm

As I gave this problem a bit more thought, I think the GPU (ati igp320m) is gone, fried, roasted and so on. The reason for that should be some overload, overheat, bad carma caused by the simultaneous work of the laptop with the external monitor. I am really pissed on ATi, FSC and the world as a whole because if such lame GPUs are to fry if used with an extenal monitor, why would they put a port for such a device... hmm I guess to be used with old projectors but I am still pissed, now I will have to do the impossible to find a new or used mainboard for my 768mb ram, 1,78 GHz athlon xp cpu, 40gb hdd, of course full to the top with important info and so on and on...
And yeah, of course when I go to the dealer I will be told something like - It is going to be soooo difficult, I dont know, dont you want to buy a new laptop, I have this one, it is very good!.. what cpu, oh 2,1ghz very fast... uhhh yours was fast too? Shit happens, this will cost you 1200euros, have fun... You hdd has important info? Oh I cant sell you a laptop without the hdd...
What a fun...
Btw, Is eBay a good place to look for a replacement mainboard, I guess it will be very hard to find an exact same mainboard...
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