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
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?!?