My Chirping and Randomly Restarting V6j

This has happened to me several times before, but this morning was the worst and really set me off. I woke up and my V6j was chirping. Thats the best way to describe it, and my mom came in and asked me what the chirping was, so hopefully someone knows what that would be. It seems to be a software issue, though. I had my speakers hooked up to the computer and I could control the volume of it from the speakers, and when I unplugged them, it came from the laptop speakers. The screen was turned off on the computer, but the computer was still on. Pressing shift or any other key didn't make it turn on, and the only way I could shut it off and stop the chirping was to press and hold the power button, which has been the only way to stop the chirping everytime this has happened. To the best of my knowledge the only program running on the computer was Windows Meida player and the computer was set to Super Performace, and I had some USB devices hooked up to it, my speakers, a phone cord for the modem, and the power.

The other problem I have is that the computer will randomly restart. It has happened as much as twice a day, and seems to only happen on weekdays (while I am at school). I use the computer a ton at home and never have trouble, but I do at school. Usually it happens within five minutes of turning the computer on (resuming from Hibernation) and you see the bluescreen for less than half a second, then the computer restarts, usually with no error message (I don't ever recall getting one from Windows), though Trend Micro Internet Security 2006 has come up and said that the computer crashed and it reverted to a previous setting because of the crash.
I have been thinking about rebuilding the hard drive. I am not sure if this is a driver issue, or what would cause that. I am using a 7200 RPM 80 GB Hitachi drive right now, but it also crashes when I run a backup and use my original drive. I haven't noticed any peripherals connected everytime when this happens, or wireless being on or anything of that nature. I think it might be driver related, because I had mostly similar issues with my previous computer, but what is the best way to figure out what is going on? Thanks.

P.S., if any more details are needed, I would be glad to add, but I just didn't want to clutter this up more than necessary.

 

it could be overheating if u're leaving it on for long periods of time at super performance..although usually when laptops overheat they'll restart on their own i think. try leaving it at a lower performance setting and see if it still continues, or u might wanna send it in to ur reseller to let them have a look at it.

 

I assume you are talking about the chirping then...I don't think it would be overheating, because I played F.E.A.R. for 5 hours straight the other day on Game mode and it didn't do anything but chug along. Sitting like that, the hard drive would time out after 30 minutes, there would be little for the processor to do, and the GPU would be sitting idle, I don't see it overheating, and if it was, why would the software chirp for hours on end? Thanks for the suggestion, though.

 

Well i getting chirping sounds offend now, but it happened to me after I undervolted my laptop. sorry but I dont know why it would happen to you

 

Hmmm, I also get random 'shut downs(complete shut down sometimes 7-8 times a day, sometimes once a week)' which I believe are now overheating, but the temperature never goes over 59~ degrees, which is low for auto shut down.

It's either that, or my wireless card or something.

 

But see, the shut down would stay off, right? My computer is just restarting and doesn't go through the shutdown process - its suddenly at the ASUS screen, then booting Windows. Interestng that a similar issue on the V6j and V6va...wonder what is causing it?

 

Caleb: That could be a windows setting thing. go into system properties (control panel or right click on My Computer) and go to the Advanced tab, then press the Startup and Recovery button. Uncheck the box beside Automatically Restart and see what you get next time it does the crash thing. If I recall correctly, the bsod should stick around, and if not, at least it won't restart.

Coriolis, your problem sounds more like overheating, but that temp seems way too low. I dunno.

Jay

EDIT: Caleb, I'm referring only to the fact that it restarts immediately in my above message. I think that when you see the BSOD, you'll have a better idea of what the problem is, or at least you'll have some more info to give us. The chirping, I have absolutely no idea.

 

That chirping is just the parakeet that comes standard with the V6j, nothing to worry about.

 

Yea, that's what I thought...

Another thing is that my fans never go to max. I never hear em on, even when gaming!

 

Killerjay_47 - I set it and we will give it a shot. I am also downloading the newest drivers for my keyboard, which could be part of the problem (my external, Logitech SetPoint 2.6), so we will see if those do anything differently.

 

Oh, I thought the cat already cought it, guess I will have to work on that...

 

1) download Microsoft Memory Diagnostic tool ( http://www.systemomega.com/download/mtinst.exe), create Boot CD and check your memory with default test.
2) If you installed something with StarForce protection, randomly restarts are ok.

 

I don't know what the settings on these new boxes are for auto shutdown in the event of overheating, but I know that my old P4 (block heater) runs up to 70+ degrees without shutting down; I never monitored temps back before I was taking preventative measures and I was getting my overheating crashes, but my fan usually wouldn't spin up to max until somewhere around that temperature zone.
Now I've got a fan control and temp monitor program installed (specific to the Dell Inspiron lineup) and I keep it around 40 degrees idle, 60-70 under load and the fan stays on it's maximum speed whenever I'm doing anything on the computer, even if it's just solitaire. The poor girl isn't very mobile these days and she's soon gonna be replaced with my new darling, the W3J, when they get here.
Anyway, the other point I was going to make is that the fact that it just shuts down without BSOD and doesn't restart on its own suggests to me that it's having a very bad hardware problem in some way shape or form. If you restart it right afterward, does it come back up? Cause if it's too hot, it should kill itself right away again and make you wait a bit before it'll go again. Maybe have a look at the system logs, but I suspect hardware and not software or drivers...
My 2 coppers.
Jay

 

Does anyone ever listen to what i say? An i know i have said this hundeds of times. The chances of your new asus notebook having problems becuase of heat related issues are one in about 10,000. This basically means you guys can stop blaming everything you dont understand on heat related issues. There is no possible way his new v6j has heat problems unless the fan is simply not working and the chances of that are extremely low. He would have a better chance of the notebook becoming self aware and trying to commit suicide then to have it overheat doing nothing. I hope everyone remembers this and in the future does not blame every problem on heat. Run a harddrive diagnostic.
http://geared2play.com/store/support/support/dft32_v405_b00.iso
http://geared2play.com/store/support/support/isocreate.htm
I do belive that is a hitachi drive in there. The links above will help you do that

 

Never seen anything like this on my V6J; of course it's only a few weeks old, so you never know.
Worrisome problem; hope you manage to find a fix...

 

i had that issue with my w2v. It kinda went away for the most part. at first i thought it was centrino hardware control. happens every once and a while still but rarely.

 

Agreed. The fact that he gets a blue screen for a half seconds before it reboots says drivers to me, at least regarding the shutdowns. Long shot says maybe it's bad memory, but most likely drivers. Let's just wait for him to report back once he gets another crash and see what ths BSOD says.
Jay

 

If you are responding to what I said, it does restart on its own (I switched the setting mentioned earlier, so I don't know what it will do next time), but we will see what happens next time, I will keep you all posted, and get started on the different stuff you guys gave me. Just give me a little time.

 

What is StarForce? How would I know if I had installed something with this? Thanks.

 

Update:

Hard Drive tests in HDTune look good. The Benchmark is giving access times around 15 ms with rates at 20.2 MB/s (low) and 45.7 MB/s (high) with about 36 MB/s as the average. The information page looks fine, the health page reports "OK" in every test and an overall "OK". The drive scan reported a 0.0% error rate, with every block showing green (good). I have the Hitachi HDD tools on CD and will try that soon as well, but I doubt the trouble lies in the hard drive.
I don't know when I will be able to perform the memory tests (I will try the one suggested and also give MemTest a try), but I will also work on getting my drivers updated in the next few days. One of my suspected culprits is Logitech SetPoint. I had to run the version from my CD, which was quite a few generations old, because the version I had downloaded would crash everytime I turned the Bluetooth on. I found the newest version today, but haven't had much time to test if everything works yet. One other major suspect is the driver for my Wacom Pen Tablet. I downloaded the newest driver and have had fewer crashes and trouble with the computer/tablet, but I really do suspect it the most (if the trouble is being caused by drivers). Unfortunately, I can't really get rid of the driver (or don't want to) because I use the pen tablet to take notes at school for Statistics (In about 2-3 weeks that will be done, then I can uninstall the driver and watch for troubles). Thanks for the help so far. I will keep you updated with what I find soon.

I ran MemTest X86 and had it run one test, it passed with zero errors, I doubt there are memory troubles (maybe sometime I will leave it on overnight, but not for a little while). I also ran the Hitachi HDD Utilites disk I had and did its check programs, and it said there were no problems, so it is starting to sound like a software problem to me. Any other suggestions from here, or do I just need time?

 

To rule out software 100% - download and make a live CD of Ubuntu Linux and load it up (Live CDs do not erase hard drives, they run off the CD) and let it run in Linux for a few hours. If it reboots, you have a hardware issue.

 

Thats not even a good test. i had a friend who had an acer. **** thing would lock up every 5 minutes. tried everything then i i formated. Same issue. so im like its got to be hardware so i ran suse live i think it was for days. **** problem never happened in linux. So then i booted windows again 5 minutes bam froze. I sent to acer and it needed a new motherboard. im not sure if windows users instructions to the hardware that linux doenst. i find problems in hardware dont always show under linux even if they do under windows.

 

Here's the newest news:

It crashed this morning (a good thing for now)! I was trying to get my pen table to work (my first suspect) and got the blue screen, which, thanks to you all, stayed up long enough for me to get a picture with my Camera phone. It said this:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I wasn't really able to get the rest, but that was what looked important. If someone thinks they can get more if I redo what I did to make it crash, let me know and I can let the memory dump run and do whatever with the results. Thanks, if this tells people something, even if it just means that its a driver or hardware issue, post away.

 

I really havent been keeping up on this thread. Did you try removing memory to see if its that.

 

I ran MemTest Last night, I only let it run the whole test once, it passed, I can let it run longer if people really think thats the problem, but there is only one stick of RAM, so removing it wouldn't work so well, and I might be able to get some other RAM to throw in for a while, but that would be a pain.

 

This is almost definitely a driver issue. Next time you see the BSOD it should give the name of the driver that crashed it, it will look like drivername.dll or something similar. Alternatively, you could try to see if the log caught anything. Right click My Computer and select Manage. Click the plus beside Event Viewer and select System. See if there are any Warnings or Errors in the list from around the time that it crashed. If so, open the event properties and see what the message is.
I would suspect the tablet if it's been giving you problems. Especially if you were playing around with it when the crash happened.
Jay

 

It looks like an overheating issue, it just happened and the CPU was at 84 degrees, last I checked.

Hmmmm - the fans seems like they never want to go on

 

You're referring to your problem, not Caleb's, right?
Can you turn the computer on right after it dies and get a full boot up, or will it die right away again (ie you have to wait a bit for it to cool before turning it back on)? Can you find a program that controls the fans and crank them up? If they do spin as fast as they should, then the fan controller logic is flawed. I don't know if there's an easy fix for that other than returning it for factory repair. But you could try to blast into the vent with some compressed air to make sure the heat sink isn't clogged with dust.
Good luck!
Jay

 

I guess nobody read my comment above? Dude its a V6J. Out less then a month.

 

Could it be that ATI inifite loop problem? ... Try the new ATI catalyst drivers

 

Cori's using a V6Va... Caleb, with the V6J, is having driver issues. Kinda two threads mixed into one, and not so easy to follow all the time.

 

Sorry, it was my problem, not Calebs, sorry for hijacking lol!!

And yea, my bad

I guess I'll take my leave on this thread, and KJ, I already did the things youve mentioned, SpeedFan isn't compatiable with the V6 motheroard I believe.

 

OK, I am going to crash it again. The Windows Manager didn't yield anything, so I will see what I get when I crash it one more time. Give me a few minutes here. Thanks for the help...

Cori - don't worry about "hijacking" the thread. 1, it isnt an airplane, and 2, were all here to/for help, so in the end, it doesn't matter.


Update: So much for trying to crash it. I got out my tablet and went through the process I did this morning. I restarted the computer (I had restarted it last night), then played music for a few minutes (WMP was open this morning before I hibernated it), then I hibernated it, plugged the tablet in just the same as this morning, and the stupid thing is working. I did a little reading on the IRQL... Errors, some other forums as well as some Mirosoft stuff, and it might still be the tablet - but I have a hunch that it might also have to do with my external hard drives.
The long and short of the story is that the error is caused when the computer tries to write to something that isn't their (RAM or hard drive). When I hibernated at home, there were three external hard drives plugged into the USB ports. After the system was shut down, they were unplugged. When I was at school, I went into my computer, and the drives were all still listed there, even though they wren't hooked up. The system might have been trying to write data to them, but then they were gone. I will test that in an hour when I get home, checks with how I unplug my USB devices. Does this make sense to anyone else?

 

Success! I made my computer crash and got about 15 good pictures of the BSOD. I am looking up what it says right now. I will update this soon. The driver was atinyvxx.sys. I'll be back soon.

Update: That driver is related to my ATI USB 2.0 TV Tuner...I wonder if it is just caused because the TV tuner is disconnected after the system is off, then the computer is expecting it to be there, but its not. I will continue investigating, and I will get some screen shots up, but does anyone else have input on that?

Here is the Blue screen:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer

DRIVRER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this appears again, follow
these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardwared or software is properly installed.
If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer
for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware
or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing.
If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart
your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup options, and then
select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x00340035, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0xB6610E9A)


*** atinyvxx.sys - Address B6610E9A base at B660E000, DateStamp 41f70216

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further
assistance.

 

If you're experiencing this after you disconnect the tuner while in hibernate, then this is most certainly the problem. My computer used to do this if I removed my wireless PCMCIA card while in hibernate. When you go into hibernate, the computer basically takes an exact image of what's in the RAM and dumps it into a file on the hard drive. Then when you wake it up, it simply blasts that image directly back into memory. So when it continues whatever thread it was last communicating with the tuner (or any other peripheral) it expects to find it right where it was a mere moment ago (from its perspective). It never heard from the hub saying that the device was no longer in place.
Now, having said that, I think they've come up with some solutions to problems like these for a lot of peripherals, specifically USB, but if the tuner card driver isn't written with the proper code to deal with it, then it could possibly be confusing Windows and causing enough flags to flash the BSOD. It sounds like this is the case. Are you using a recent driver? How old is the tuner card itself?
Beyond updating drivers, I can't suggest much more than taking the precaution of disconnecting the hardware only when the computer is on and awake, or when it's off completely. Avoid the cause, you avoid the effect.

Now, of course, if this is happening at other intervals or comes up showing different driver names, then there may be something bigger at play, perhaps a corrupt registry or fouled system32 directory, which could have a thousand causes behind it but should be fixable by a fresh install of the whole machine. But for starters, I would do a complete uninstall of the tuner card drivers and then reinstall the latest driver.

Good luck.
Jay

 

Along the lines of what I was thinking, so now we will try with having the TV tuner not hooked up to the computer and watch for a different driver to crash. If no other crash, its the tuner. I just updated its drivers tonight, but they aren't working, so I will just leave it unhooked until this weekend. Thanks for all the help. If anything changes on this, I will be back.