Nootbook contantly freezes, help please

Let me start by saying I don't know if this is a hardware fault or software, my first thought was hardware because I only formatted Vista about a month and a bit ago, now onto the problem haha

Recently my notebook has started to behave odly, say I go to move it to somewhere else in the house, then by the time I get to wherever im going, everything will of frozen on screen, i've also noticed that the hard drive activity light on the side of my notebook stops "blinking" everytime the problem happens. Now it doesnt just happen when im moving it, a few minutes ago it was on the table facing away from me, i swivelled it on the spot and it happened.

Im at odds about what the problem is and it's starting to happen more regularly, I ran an error check using HDTune because I thought mayde i'd damaged the hard drive or something but that turned up nothing at all.

So does anyone have any ideas?

 

might be a virus..

 

I didn't think of that but im hoping Avira would of stopped it before it infected anything, i'll run a full scan though

EDIT: I've done a Full System Scan using Avira and it found nothing

I might take my notebook apart and see if anything is loose/too tight/broken

 

dying hard drive maybe?

 

I really do hope not! I didn't want to spend any(more) money on this notebook as I have my eye on on the Clevo W860CU from Kobalt (but it costs what i consider to be serious money, so need to save a bit)

I have my copy of Windows 7 arriving on Monday so my plan right now is to install that and see if I have the same issues, if i do then i'll look to get a new hard drive.

 

What is a "nootbook"?

Since your issue seems to be affected by motion, and you have a mechanical hard drive, that very well could be the issue.

 

Doh!
I didn't even spot the spelling mistake, my bad
I thought I was doing so well too

 

Don't worry we won't hold a spelling error against you.

Besides motion, what programs are running at the time of the anomaly?

 

Oh you say that now but one day in the future you'll see a topic by me and decide not to go in it because of my appalling spelling, then my notebook (not nootbook) will stay broken causing me to lose social interaction with friends and family (over vital instant messaging) resulting in me becoming an outcast of society...

Ahem

Back on topic, I can be running anything to be honest, a couple of times FireFox has been open, once just Live Messenger another time I was on the loading screen of Team Fortress 2 and it's done it when no programs have been open aswell

 

How often do you move your machine around with it running.

Other than dropping it, moving a hard drive whilst it is running is one of the worst things you can possibly do.

 

Hmmm, I move it around a bit i guess, but usually only small distances (desk to bed to side table to desk etc, occasionally into the living room) and I always leave the lid open and carry it as if it's sitting on the desk (does that make sense?); so i guess movement could be a factor? My problem is it's so random, it happened twice about 2 days ago but not once since and i've been using it "as normal"

I've never dropped it luckily

 

Amen to hp.. Hp laptops like my Dv5 comes with hard drive protect smart.. saves my hard drive when i move my comp while it is running.

 

It could be a faulty hard drive or maybe a loose connection or solder joint on the motherboard. A lot of these sorts of random problems may be hard to repeat.

That sort of protection, where the drive parks the heads, is used if it detects acceleration over a certain threshold, and wouldn't come into play by simply picking the notebook up and moving it around. Otherwise the OS might freeze on you if you don't keep the notebook perfectly still all the time. Now if you dropped the computer while moving it, that would be a different story.

 

So I installed W7 today, hoping that the problem would go away, which to a degree...it has, but I noticed this freezing only ever happens when the battery is plugged in, if I take it out and run purely on AC power, move it around etc then everything is fine but the second I go onto battery and move it everything stops. So im a bit at odds with it all

EDIT: I had my battery in when I typed that first message, I took it out after posting and got a BSOD (Stop code 0x000000B3 "i think"), according to Google that means a corrupt registry? But this is a brand new, freshly installed version of Windows, it only has 3 programs installed (Steam, Firefox and RMClock)

EDIT2: Just got another BSOD 0x0000001A, im starting to think this is more than just a problem with the battery, my notebook appears to of broken itself somehow

 

hows your ram?

Maybe also update the BIOS?

 

What do you mean? At first I thought the RAM was the reason for the BSOD's (because I had one straight after I installed the RAM) but I ran Vista's memory tool and it told me that both sticks were fine (I ran the test with one stick at a time)

As for the BIOS, i'm already using A09 from Dell which is the latest BIOS they released.

Im really stuck about what to do, I just hope i've not broken anything when I took the notebook apart (unlikely but not impossible)

 

Maybe you should take it apart again and re-seat everything.

Check for bent pins. Check the CPU. Check everything...

 

Hmmmm, yeah I suppose it won't do anyMORE damage than whatever has currently happened lol. I just hope im "skilled" enough to spot any small problems, if there are any.

 

I've had 6 BSODs in the past 15 minutes, each one with a different code (0x000000B3, 0x000000D1, 0x00000050, 0x00000101)

Is it safe to assume something is very broken? New laptop time?

EDIT: 0x0000000A this time

EDIT2: I've noticed that when this "freezing" happens, when I go to turn it back on the caps lock LED flashes, quick google tells me it's quite a common problem with the 1520. According to the Post Codes i've found I have:

The memory has encountered an error.

Action:
1. Reseating the memory.
2. Replacing the memory.
3. Replacing the system board.

I've reseated and replaced the memory, twice in fact and the problem is still happening so i'd imagine it's a motherboard issue...are they expensive to replace? Is it even worth it? I know i've been a real big pain in this topic but um...help! I'll give you an e-cookie?