[Discuss] delete windows user data from dead laptop

[Steve Litt]

0) If you're overclocking, reset the bios to factory, and see if the
   intermittent ceases to happen. Test for several days of hard use
   before drawing a conclusion. Overclocking is tricky and invites
   intermittents.


1) Not nVidia, not a problem. Radeon = good.


2) Run the memtests. The latest System Rescue CD has a boot-up
   memtest86 especially for UEFI.
   https://www.system-rescue.org/Download/ . By definition, bad RAM
   causes intermittents of various rarity.


3) As you mention, if it's a laptop, the risks of messing with the
   start button outweigh the rewards of ruling out the start button.


4) Did I mention that you should do the smartctl disk tests on all your
   drives? Submit to this list your results after doing the short and
   long tests on each, so that the list's experts can interpret your
   results.


5) Intermittents are a bitch. Intermittents in a system with
   inaccessible test points, limited physical accessibility, and
   expensive proprietary replacement parts is the ultimate time sink.
   If you can't fix your laptop, might it be time to buy a new gaming
   computer? And if so, might a mid-tower desktop give you the
   repairability so that next time troubleshooting will be simpler and
   repair will simply be an easy parts replacement. For gaming, imagine
   yourself with a 105 watt 14 core, 28 thread processor running above
   4Ghz, 64 or 128GB RAM, and a nice fast NVMe to serve as your hard
   drive. And of course, the non-nVidia graphics card of your choice.
   Be sure to have lots of fans and do a clean build for good air flow.


As always, if replying via top-post, please refer to the numbers.

HTH,

SteveT

Steve Litt 

Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21


John Hall said on Mon, 26 Feb 2024 04:57:46 -0500

>Steve good ideas even though it's a bit different than imagined.
>1) Not nvidia. It's AMD Ryzen 9 and AMD Raedon. Both have GPUs and the
>Raedon has separate RAM. I believe getting these to dance together
>causes timing issues and the MB falw is related to some frackery here.
>It's long been a problem to run the overclocking / tweaking app that
>came with the laptop. I am using Windows with ubuntu in WSLv2.
>But yes scores of proprietary drivers, and helper processes with
>multiple versions. It's a minor miracle every minute that windows
>systems don't self-destruct.
>2) No I have not run memtests. It's a laptop with no CD but USB key or
>rescue partitions could have the same options. I wonder if uefi bios
>might have mem test. hum.
>3) It's a laptop and that is an interesting idea but without the same
>access I'm reluctant to do it. It quits with a windows stop code of 21x
>which is a crash in the startup process. I should research if this is
>the same as pressing the reset button. Getting to the power button
>would require extensive disassembly of the laptop. I'm not prepared to
>do that but since Geeksquad is a send off for just about any service
>*it may be worth paying a local repair shop before going to bestbuy*
>if that is what the code is for the reset (holding power button down).
>If I could get Debian to boot from the key, maybe I could see a signal
>or even maybe it is a soft reset in windows.... or bios/ufei that
>could be disabled.
>Imaging update:
>I have increased throughput from 11MiB to 80MiB ! Whoo Hoo! and I am
>pretty confident in my command to continue my dd image where I left
>off but with a larger block size. I also got the usb hard drive
>attached to the 3.0 bus but still not getting maximum usb2.0 speed.
>There is a 3.2 hub added that is shared by both drives and is attached
>to the linux 3.0 bus. There may be two 3.0 buses. I have not tried one
>other usb port. I should have tested that before restarting the dd.
>It's fast enough to go to sleep.
>
>
>On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 1:40 AM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
>wrote:
>
>> John Hall said on Mon, 26 Feb 2024 01:18:51 -0500
>>  
>> >Update:
>> >I believe the best thing I can do from linux is to just format C as
>> >ntfs then booting will fail and go to recovery. Seeing the system
>> >reboot randomly in recovery or factory reset mode seems convincing
>> >to me. Maybe I could print my windows error log from linux if i
>> >figure out how to hack that.  
>>
>> I think I came in in the middle of this and don't understand the
>> symptom, but it sounds to me like your computer is intermittently
>> rebooting itself. I'm going to ask you some questions. If you top
>> post your answers, please include the question numbers.
>>
>> 1) Do you have nVidea video? This is known to do stuff like you
>>    describe. This is because nVidea won't share their API. There's a
>>    reason Linus gave nVidea the finger. I've cured problems like this
>>    by replacing nVidea with Radeon, most of whose drivers are already
>>    in the Kernel.
>>
>> 2) Have you performed the memtest86+ memory tester that's a boot
>> option of System Rescue CD? If you have bad RAM, all bets are off.
>>
>> 3) Dirty reboot switches and power switches are known to cause
>>    spontaneous reboots and hangs. As a diagnostic test, remove the
>>    leads for these switches from the motherboard, and turn the
>> machine on and off using a screwdriver to (carefully) short the
>> power switch pins. If it works for several days without rebooting,
>> it was probably those switches. In that case, replace the power
>> switch with a no-light, no-frills $1.99 doorbell switch, and leave
>> the reboot switch disconnected.
>>
>>
>> I've had intermittent problems caused by all three of the preceding.
>>
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>>
>> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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