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Because, of course, this week in computrid devices was not complete enough, oh no no no. Now we're also having the BSOD Follies! Or we were. Maybe still are. Depends.
Weird thing is, the error message, such as it is, seems to trace to a fault in physical memory. But I have a memory testing suite on this device that runs in safe mode, and it indicates that physical memory is just fine. What I think may be going on is that the disk is so heavily fragmented that it's starting to interfere with function. After running the XP defragmenter twice, it still reports 40% disk fragmentation; I think the problem there is that you can't defragment a disk you're actually running the OS on at the time. Strangely enough, MS has a partial workaround for that; when you try to defragment a disk in use, Defragmenter normally asks you if you want to defragment the disk on reboot, before the OS is running in anything but a very minimal state. Stranger still, that option has so far resolutely refused to appear. It won't come up in normal mode, safe mode, or when I invoke defragmenter through the command option -- it more or less politely declines to run in command mode, because it can't do more defragmentation on a disk in use. Which, of course, I knew.
The other aggravating thing is that I'm getting sometimes extremely long screen redraw times, all of a sudden. Usually -- but not always -- mouse-related. I'll move the pointer somewhere without any problem, but then the computer takes a few seconds to notice where the pointer actually is, a few seconds after clicking to bring up a menu or appropriate options, and a few seconds to do anything once an option's been selected. Which may or may not have something to do with video RAM -- and in this computer, oddly enough, video RAM is on the separate video card/chip/whatever, and not shared system memory. But then, the screen redraw doesn't lag so much when I'm using the keyboard; response time is, for the most part, what I expect it to be. (Though even then, sometimes I have to sit and wait for the system to catch up with me.)
And another weird thing: This system has something called Quick Launch Buttons -- allowing you to do a partial boot of the system without going into the OS so that you can use it as a portable DVD player. Somehow, it gets configured inside the OS -- I guess you select your options and then it writes them to ROM or some such. I don't know; I've used it exactly once, and that was just to see how it worked. Anyway, the last three reboots -- trying to defragment, and reinstalling Spycatcher, which I briefly thought was the problem, since it kept BSODing just a few seconds after Spycatcher loaded -- Quick Launch Buttons has failed to launch. And the system also booted successfully all three times. I do wonder if QLB does something essential behind the scenes, though, that might explain the sluggishness of the video redraw. In any event, I'm guessing that QLB was the problem somehow -- perhaps it's just so badly fragmented that its drivers couldn't load. Before defrag, they BSODed; after defrag, they still can't load, because they're still fragmented, but they're enough better that they can fail gracefully instead of BSODing. That's my guess, anyway, judging from behavior.
This sort of siege has has happened once before. Then, the only way I could get it working properly was to eventually do a repair installation. Since I only just got the thing fully updated, I'd like to avoid that, if possible -- especially since getting it to happen this time was just short of a miracle. (The computer has been almost violently allergic to Microsoft Update for the past year, refusing to download, refusing to install when it does download, refusing to load the pages of the site.)
This computer is only three years old! I don't want to have to replace it! Even more, I don't want Vista or WM11 anywhere near me.
We're going out to do some post-holiday shopping for necessities. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up a CD/DVD version of Diskeeper or some such. (I'll do Norton Utilities if I must, but I'd really rather not.)
(What I would really like to do, in my secret heart of hearts, is to get another notebook drive, and mirror this one. A notebook drive that's, you know, BIGGER. However, mirroring a drive in this state would be lunatic. Besides, I think it also requires an extra computer that I do not have -- you can't reasonably mirror a drive in use, after all.)
Weird thing is, the error message, such as it is, seems to trace to a fault in physical memory. But I have a memory testing suite on this device that runs in safe mode, and it indicates that physical memory is just fine. What I think may be going on is that the disk is so heavily fragmented that it's starting to interfere with function. After running the XP defragmenter twice, it still reports 40% disk fragmentation; I think the problem there is that you can't defragment a disk you're actually running the OS on at the time. Strangely enough, MS has a partial workaround for that; when you try to defragment a disk in use, Defragmenter normally asks you if you want to defragment the disk on reboot, before the OS is running in anything but a very minimal state. Stranger still, that option has so far resolutely refused to appear. It won't come up in normal mode, safe mode, or when I invoke defragmenter through the command option -- it more or less politely declines to run in command mode, because it can't do more defragmentation on a disk in use. Which, of course, I knew.
The other aggravating thing is that I'm getting sometimes extremely long screen redraw times, all of a sudden. Usually -- but not always -- mouse-related. I'll move the pointer somewhere without any problem, but then the computer takes a few seconds to notice where the pointer actually is, a few seconds after clicking to bring up a menu or appropriate options, and a few seconds to do anything once an option's been selected. Which may or may not have something to do with video RAM -- and in this computer, oddly enough, video RAM is on the separate video card/chip/whatever, and not shared system memory. But then, the screen redraw doesn't lag so much when I'm using the keyboard; response time is, for the most part, what I expect it to be. (Though even then, sometimes I have to sit and wait for the system to catch up with me.)
And another weird thing: This system has something called Quick Launch Buttons -- allowing you to do a partial boot of the system without going into the OS so that you can use it as a portable DVD player. Somehow, it gets configured inside the OS -- I guess you select your options and then it writes them to ROM or some such. I don't know; I've used it exactly once, and that was just to see how it worked. Anyway, the last three reboots -- trying to defragment, and reinstalling Spycatcher, which I briefly thought was the problem, since it kept BSODing just a few seconds after Spycatcher loaded -- Quick Launch Buttons has failed to launch. And the system also booted successfully all three times. I do wonder if QLB does something essential behind the scenes, though, that might explain the sluggishness of the video redraw. In any event, I'm guessing that QLB was the problem somehow -- perhaps it's just so badly fragmented that its drivers couldn't load. Before defrag, they BSODed; after defrag, they still can't load, because they're still fragmented, but they're enough better that they can fail gracefully instead of BSODing. That's my guess, anyway, judging from behavior.
This sort of siege has has happened once before. Then, the only way I could get it working properly was to eventually do a repair installation. Since I only just got the thing fully updated, I'd like to avoid that, if possible -- especially since getting it to happen this time was just short of a miracle. (The computer has been almost violently allergic to Microsoft Update for the past year, refusing to download, refusing to install when it does download, refusing to load the pages of the site.)
This computer is only three years old! I don't want to have to replace it! Even more, I don't want Vista or WM11 anywhere near me.
We're going out to do some post-holiday shopping for necessities. Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up a CD/DVD version of Diskeeper or some such. (I'll do Norton Utilities if I must, but I'd really rather not.)
(What I would really like to do, in my secret heart of hearts, is to get another notebook drive, and mirror this one. A notebook drive that's, you know, BIGGER. However, mirroring a drive in this state would be lunatic. Besides, I think it also requires an extra computer that I do not have -- you can't reasonably mirror a drive in use, after all.)
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