Gateway MD2419u Media Test Failure

[Paul678]

With no hard drive, this unit displays this on bootup:

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

Here is a picture:




Then I tried to boot to a Linux-Live CD, and although
at first it boots up fine, it ends up with this garbage on the
screen:




Jesus, I hope this isn't a motherboard issue!

Any advice greatly appreciated, Thanks!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by Paul678

With no hard drive, this unit displays this on bootup:

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

That's the network cards' BIOS trying to boot. It's normal.

Originally Posted by Paul678

Jesus, I hope this isn't a motherboard issue!

Looks like it unfortunately. However, does this have onboard graphics which steal from the RAM? If so, it could be bad RAM and the motherboard could be okay. Garbled characters in text mode is something integrated GPUs do when the system RAM is bad. Edit: Just googled it and it's a HD3200, so yes it's an IGP. Try changing the RAM, you may be lucky.

[Paul678]

Originally Posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

That's the network cards' BIOS trying to boot. It's normal.



Looks like it unfortunately. However, does this have onboard graphics which steal from the RAM? If so, it could be bad RAM and the motherboard could be okay. Garbled characters in text mode is something integrated GPUs do when the system RAM is bad. Edit: Just googled it and it's a HD3200, so yes it's an IGP. Try changing the RAM, you may be lucky.

Ok, I changed the RAM, and still the same problem.

What I don't understand, is why during most of the BIOS
bootup, and the LINUX boot-up, the graphics look perfectly
normal. The Linux Knoppix Penguin looks absolutely fine!

Then it takes a shit as soon as the Linux desktop is supposed
to show.

And when I'm not loading Linux live, what are all the
"happy face" characters you can see in the picture?
I'm anything BUT happy!

There should be a proper: "No bootable disk" message....

I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this one....the motherboards
were $100 on Ebay!!!

If it is the motherboard, I'll try baking it first......

[artois7]

I get that second screen fairly often on laptops using an old ubuntu 6.06 liveCD. Try some other liveCD's, or even boot a windows install disc and see if the graphics are normal.

[Scenic]

The garbled up screen can happen if the live-CD uses the wrong resolution. Had that happen a bunch of times before.

Try a Vista or Win7 install DVD if you have one.. They have a graphical installer (not DOS mode). If that's messed up as well, it might mean trouble.
Other Linux Live CDs/DVDs might be worth a try too.

My bet is that the Live CD you used auto-detected a wrong/oddball resolution, the LCD can't display it and you end up with that garbage on the screen.

edit: Check the RAM with Memtest86+ too. That might be the cause for those weird "happy faces" when it tries to boot up, as the onboard/integrated graphics "card" uses the system RAM as video memory.

[Paul678]

Originally Posted by artois7

I get that second screen fairly often on laptops using an old ubuntu 6.06 liveCD. Try some other liveCD's, or even boot a windows install disc and see if the graphics are normal.

Ok, JOY! I was able to install Windows XP
pro. Graphics look perfect.

But now I have new problem: The laptop is
shutting off by itself, as it's getting pretty hot.
I scrapped off the old grey thermal grease, and
installed new white thermal grease, and it still
shut down on me. The fan is definitely working.

The AC adaptor seems to be getting hotter than
any other adaptor I have seen before. Maybe someone
has overclocked this motherboard? Or at least something
is overheating the unit......

[Paul678]

Oh, great! Now I'm getting a blue screen of death:



I pray to the Laptop Gods that it's a
problem with the hard drive, and not
the mother board.

This happened as I was extracting a Windows 7 packet......

[999999999]

During installation of the OS and applications you'll have the CPU at a higher load than during regular use so it isn't necessarily a sign of a problem if the AC adapter seems hotter than the typical laptop adapter would.

See if you can get temperature readings with software, either something already on the laptop or perhaps Notebook Hardware Control: http://www.pbus-167.com/

When redoing the thermal grease, are you certain the heatsink is making good contact with both the CPU and the chipset? The bluescreen could just be the result of current overheating or a past instability that caused file corruption while installing the OS or apps.

If you have not checked the system with Memtest86+ as Scenic advised, do that after checking temperatures (do not leave it running if it really is overheating).

[Paul678]

Originally Posted by 999999999

During installation of the OS and applications you'll have the CPU at a higher load than during regular use so it isn't necessarily a sign of a problem if the AC adapter seems hotter than the typical laptop adapter would.

See if you can get temperature readings with software, either something already on the laptop or perhaps Notebook Hardware Control: http://www.pbus-167.com/

When redoing the thermal grease, are you certain the heatsink is making good contact with both the CPU and the chipset? The bluescreen could just be the result of current overheating or a past instability that caused file corruption while installing the OS or apps.

If you have not checked the system with Memtest86+ as Scenic advised, do that after checking temperatures (do not leave it running if it really is overheating).

Ok, a ray of hope!

I put this 250Gig Western Digital into another laptop, and
I got an immediate SMART "your hard drive will fail
soon, back up data immediately" message.

And then Windows XP boots up, and the blue screen
of death shows up very quickly.

This means the Gateway's motherboard may be
good!

I'm trying not to celebrate too soon.....gotta find
a good used laptop SATA now.....not easy in Tucson.

Has anyone here ever repaired a bad hard drive? I've
read it's not an easy fix, unless it's only the PCB board.

But yeah, it's best to buy new when it comes to
hard drives.....

[999999999]

Consider the hard drive non-repairable if it's more than a PCB component or entire PCB swap. At best someone repairs it to get valuable data off, then replaces it with another one since reliability is important, yet fleeting if a drive has mechanical problems... and yet by "someone" I mean usually a data recovery center.

I wouldn't bother trying to find a good used laptop SATA drive locally, unless you already had a source/supplier known for low prices. Generally anything remotely modern will cost too much locally, possibly even as much as a new one except that right now HDD prices are still artificially high due to the Thai flooding. Best price for used HDDs is probably ebay, perhaps a seller who parts out laptops, or the For Sale subforum here or at Anandtech, etc.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=12

http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Originally Posted by Paul678

Has anyone here ever repaired a bad hard drive? I've
read it's not an easy fix, unless it's only the PCB board.

SMART reporting failure usually means bad sectors. Happens on laptop drives frequently, due to them being moved around a lot and dropped quite often. Even if the laptop is in a protective bag, a drop still means high G forces which are bad for the HDD.

Since the drive is still being recognized, there is software that can fix the bad sectors temporarily - HDD Regenerator is one example - but it's intended for fixing them long enough for you to get data off the drive. Since this isn't the case and there's no data to be recovered, i would strongly advise throwing away the drive. Once bad sectors start to develop due to a mechanical reason (drive suffered shocks), they quickly multiply. There are very few exceptions to this.

[artois7]

Originally Posted by Paul678

And then Windows XP boots up, and the blue screen
of death shows up very quickly.

This is because it will attempt to load the drivers for the other laptop's motherboard. You can't generally swap XP installations like that unfortunately!

[Paul678]

Originally Posted by Th3_uN1Qu3

SMART reporting failure usually means bad sectors. Happens on laptop drives frequently, due to them being moved around a lot and dropped quite often. Even if the laptop is in a protective bag, a drop still means high G forces which are bad for the HDD.

Since the drive is still being recognized, there is software that can fix the bad sectors temporarily - HDD Regenerator is one example - but it's intended for fixing them long enough for you to get data off the drive. Since this isn't the case and there's no data to be recovered, i would strongly advise throwing away the drive. Once bad sectors start to develop due to a mechanical reason (drive suffered shocks), they quickly multiply. There are very few exceptions to this.

You are correct. The drive got worse and worse, slower and slower,
until eventually, the Windows XP installer couldn't even see it anymore!

Into the junk parts bin! I found someone who supposedly has a 320Gig
for $30, and says he will install Windows 7 on it, while it's on my laptop, just to prove that it works.

And another triumph: Gateway put black tape between the
fan and the heat sink fins, which effective hid the thick carpet
of lint that was hidden there! Once I got that shit out, the
laptop ran way cooler! Surprise, surprise! haha!

This is great news......hopefully this will be a working laptop (with
just a bad hard drive) for a measly $20!!!

[Paul678]

Ok, bought a 650 Gig HD for $50, and it works great
on this laptop, thanks to all for easing my paranoia!



The guy installed Windows 7 64-bit just to prove it worked,
but he didn't partition the HD, so I'm gonna re-install it.

But my question is: Will I really notice a speed difference
between the 32-bit version I've been using, and the 64?

I read on Microsoft's website that you only really notice
a difference with large amounts of RAM, at least 4 Gigs
or more. This unit has 3 at the moment, but i plan
to make that 4 Gigs.

Also, I know it's best to make about an 80Gig partition
for the OS, but what about the rest of this larger drive?
Would you recommend dividing it up a bit? To improve
the seek time?

I'm gonna be using this laptop for digital audio recording.

[Scenic]

Unless you have 4GB RAM or more, a 64Bit windows install won't be any better.

About the HDD partitioning.. get HDTune and check the performance of the drive (not necessarily in the laptop itself.. you can connect it to your main rig if it has SATA ports). The neat little function called "short stroke" lets you simulate a small partition.

i.e., if you have a 640GB HDD and you set short stroke to 120GB, it'll only benchmark the first 120GB of the drive (as if you benchmarked a 120GB partition). That way you can test out up to what size the HDD performs best, and then partition it to that size later in the laptop (system partition).
Example is in the attachments (full 320GB vs. same HDD shortstroked to 120GB)

edit: if you plan to use it for audio stuff, stick with the 3GB RAM you currently have and go for XP. Vista and 7 tend to have audio latency problems (dropouts, clicks and stuttering).

[Paul678]

Originally Posted by Scenic

Unless you have 4GB RAM or more, a 64Bit windows install won't be any better.

About the HDD partitioning.. get HDTune and check the performance of the drive (not necessarily in the laptop itself.. you can connect it to your main rig if it has SATA ports). The neat little function called "short stroke" lets you simulate a small partition.

i.e., if you have a 640GB HDD and you set short stroke to 120GB, it'll only benchmark the first 120GB of the drive (as if you benchmarked a 120GB partition). That way you can test out up to what size the HDD performs best, and then partition it to that size later in the laptop (system partition).
Example is in the attachments (full 320GB vs. same HDD shortstroked to 120GB)

edit: if you plan to use it for audio stuff, stick with the 3GB RAM you currently have and go for XP. Vista and 7 tend to have audio latency problems (dropouts, clicks and stuttering).

That's a cool tool, I'm using it now, thanks.

I'm shooting for the "short stroke" partition that will
give me the highest AVERAGE MB/s, right?

I haven't heard too much about Windows 7 having
audio problems.....I'll do more research....but I can tell
you that Cubase 5 32-bit so far appears to work well in Windows
7 32-bit, at least for me on one of my laptops.....

Maybe people were having problems with the 64-bit version
of Windows 7 ?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I have 64-bit Win7 on two laptops (2GB RAM each) and one PC (8GB), zero latency problems. No clicks, no pops, no dropouts, no nothing. The original HP Vista installs on the laptops did have issues indeed, but it ended up being wireless drivers at fault on the DV5, and the nvidia powermizer on the DV9000 (which nvidia has finally fixed now, after 3 years or so... i ran with powermizer disabled till i bothered to install new drivers this year and found out it works fine now)

I use 12ms latency in ASIO4ALL with the onboard soundcards of my laptops, and 8ms on the main PC with a lame old Audigy SE (i blew the onboard). I do recording on my main PC with the Audigy, and i *never* had a digital glitch. Plenty of glitches made by the performers tho...

Latency problems have nothing to do with the OS, they're caused by crap drivers. XP isn't any better in this regard. Never had any issues with Vista 64 either... a few years back while everybody was complaining about the 32-bit version i was cruising just fine with the 64-bit one.

Stop spreading FUD, support for XP will be soon dropped and drivers are getting scarce already, for a current-day media production machine either use Win7 or get a Mac... Or whatever, but don't complain when things stop working. Getting XP drivers for a recent laptop is an adventure in itself. Getting stable XP drivers for a recent laptop is a shot in the dark.