HW faults problems in Windows but not in Linux ?

[sauli]

My Asus A6000KT laptop started to behave strangely with Windows XP this week. It stays up maximum 5 minutes after which it shuts down. The time varies from 5 sconds to 5 minutes. Often the shut down takes place before Windows comes up. Quite often Windows gives error messages about lsass.exe and also proposes disk checks.

I have restored the registry and even installed the Windows XP again. But nothing seems to help. During two days I have rebooted the PC maybe 100 times and the irregular behaviour does not seem to have any clear pattern. To me the symptoms suggest to a HW failure.

Now the strange part. When I boot the laptop with Linux the system works ok, no shut downs. Not even once. I have a dual boot system in the laptop. One hard disk partition is for Linux. Both the Windows and Linux paritiions are VFAT.

How can it be that the problems come only in Windows? I have not restored the windows on this laptop before so in principle it could be that I had a registry problem in the first hand and then also the supplied windows installation CD was faulty, but that doesn't seem likely to me.

I have run long diagnostic SMART programs for the whole hard disk, that comprises both the Windows and Linux partitions, and no faults were found. The battery in the laptop has been very poor so I wouldn't be too surprised if the power supply were causing the problems. But why only in Windows? And after all, I have had the PC with power supply connected all the time.

I have tried to find log files from Windows in hope of them telling something about the shut downs but so far I haven't found a single record. Seems like the shut downs come so suddenly that the system don't have a chance to write anything in the logs. I have to admit though that I'm not an expert. I may have omitted some obvious logs that could have revealed something.

My questions:

1. Which windows logs do most probably reveal something about the shut downs.

2. What can I do to find more information what may cause the shut downs.

3. What could be plausible explanations for the different behaviour in Windows and Linux,

4. I did install the Ubuntu Linux partiion one week ago. Could it be that Windows has gotten upset about it and refuses to run because of it.

Sauli

[Alan2273]

DId you have this problem before you installed Ubuntu?.

To access the information you require, click Start/right click my computer/click Manage/click Event viewer/click System, and have a look in there.

[sauli]

DId you have this problem before you installed Ubuntu?.

To access the information you require, click Start/right click my computer/click Manage/click Event viewer/click System, and have a look in there.

Thx for the answer. The Event viewer gave STOP code c0000021a and status of 0x00000402.

No I didn't have the problem before I installed Ubuntu Linux on the second partition. I did install Ubuntu on Sunday, I did use the Windows side a lot every day after that without any problems until on Thursday evening the system suddenly shut down while I was using it. I find it hard to believe that the problem is related to the Linux partition. The problem seems to persist even after I reinstalled Windows. Which btw removed the option to boot to Linux.

I did run also the memtest86+ but it didn't find any errors.

I have now removed the option to automatically restart the system. This helps me see the Blue Screen Of Death messages. The messages seem to vary.

So, this still looks like a HW fault. If the memory and hdd are not faulty it has to be some bios settings or power issues where Windows is more demanding than Linux.

I'm still wondering how can I sort this out.

Sauli

[Alan2273]

As this problem still exists after reinstalling Windows, have you been into Disk management and formatted the Ubuntu partitions.

Two questions, do you use compact flash cards at all, and have you got Norton antivirus installed.

You can reinstall GRUB to get back to boot Ubuntu but unless you are familiar with boot loaders I would advise against that.

[sauli]

As this problem still exists after reinstalling Windows, have you been into Disk management and formatted the Ubuntu partitions.

Two questions, do you use compact flash cards at all, and have you got Norton antivirus installed.

You can reinstall GRUB to get back to boot Ubuntu but unless you are familiar with boot loaders I would advise against that.

I began to doubt myself after reinstalling Windows. It was clear that I had a problem in Windows. But because of the Windows reinstall I couldn't boot Ubuntu and I couldn't verify that the Linux side really worked so well as I have told. Instead of reinstallng only GRUB I decided to reinstall whole Ubuntu 8.04 beta and this time I installed it on the partition where I had haft the Windows. As before Ubuntu installation required the boot parameters noapic nolapic pci=noacpi acpi=off. Otherwise the Ubuntu installation was without problems. The result: my previous observations were confirmed. After couple of hours testing the Linux side really does work ok. I checked also the kernel and system logs for any failure or error messages. There was some about missing firmware files but nothing hinting to a HW problem that Linux would have noticed.

About your questions.

No, I do not use any compact flash cards.

Yes, I do have Norton antivirus installed. As a matter of fact, after reinstalling Windows Norton gave me a new period for free virus updates. Why do you ask about Norton? Do you expect my PC is infected by a virus or do you expect Norton to cause problems? I have been pretty cautios and to my knowledge have never gotten viruses to the PC. If I recall it right I didn't even have the internet connection after windows reinstall but still got the shut down problem. Well, in principle the BIOS of my Asus laptop could be infected but I don't know how probable that is.

Unless I get new ideas what to do next I think I will once more reinstall Windows and this time I will reformat all partitions first.

Sauli

[Alan2273]

I asked about CF cards and Norton because they are both known causes of the error code you posted.

If you are going to reformat all the drives, when you reinstall Windows try it without Norton, use the free version of AVG or Avast.

Then reinstall Ubuntu, but do not install 8.04 as that is still in BETA and will have bugs.

Try 7.10 instead.

[sauli]

My plan was to reinstall Windows once again. Plan it was. Only a plan.

In principle Asus offers users two alternative ways how to reinstall Windows. Either from the recovery partition in hdd or from the recovery CD/DVD,

1. The user is supposed to be able to choose hdd partition recovery installation by pressing F9 at boot. And that is how I did it first time. Now, to my surprise I can't do it anymore. Maybe my second installation of Ubuntu Linux overwrote some boot sectors and removed the option for F9 recovery. I can see that the actual recovery partition is still on hdd but obviously that is not enough. In my first Ubuntu installation I installed LInux on the partition numer two, in my second Ubuntu installation I installed Linux on the partition number one

.

2. The user is supposed to be able to choose CD/DVD Windows recovery by setting the proper boot priorities in BIOS and then booting. Booting priority still works because I can boot from the Ubuntu LiveCD but for the ASUS Windows Recovery it doesn't work. I don't know has it ever worked because this is the first time I have needed it. I have never tried it before.I can see that the files in the DVD are

HOMENEU.002 HOMENEU.003 and HOMENEU.pqa and that is all, not even any additional hidden files. Is this ok or does the content look suspicious? Maybe my second Ubuntu installation overwrote some crucial info on hdd for the CD/DVD recovery to work, or maybe the DVD has been faulty from the beginning

First Windows does not work properly on my laptop and now second, I can't even reinstall Windows on it. Linux camp must be smiling now.

Microsoft and ASUS definitely seem to make using Windows in my laptop pretty challenging.

If I can not resolve this I have no other choice than use the laptop as a Linux only PC. Unfortunately I foresee lots of problems in using WINE Windows emulation with my WIndows applications. I'm not ready for that yet. I'm still optimistic that someone can help me to get WIndows working.

So, I appreciate any help on 1) how to recover the WIndows to my Asus laptop and 2) how to find the reason for the frequent shut downs with Windows.

Sauli

[Alan2273]

I have limited knowledge of recovery disks, but provided you have a legitimate key you might want to try borrowing a OEM windows XP disk and doing the install from that.

It must be an OEM not a retail disk and it must be whatever you had on originally, IE, Home or Pro.

Whether this will work or not i cannot say, as some manufacturers modify the BIOS to only accept their installation, but it is worth a try.

If it does not work try this, go into bios and change from ACHI mode into IDE compatability mode.

The files you listed on the install DVD are the standard files for an Asus recovery DVD.

[sauli]

Thanks for a good advice. I indeed could start the recovery with an OEM Windows CD from an other laptop, a four year old HP nc8000 laptop with Service Pack 1 Windows XP Professional. No modifications to the BIOS was needed. That was good because I didn't even find the ACHI and IDE modes your mentioned from the BIOS setup.

Unfortunately the system shut down before the recovery had reached the point where it asks the first questions. I did start the recovery again and it is ongoing at the moment. So far the system has stayed up almost 30 minutes. It asked in to which partition I want Windows to be installed. I decided to write on top of the previous Windows version. This time I format the disk on NTFS, it used to be FAT32. Let's see how this goes. I didn't select the quick format and this seems to take a while before it is done.

Just in case I coudl't install Windows back on the laptop I decided to try Ubuntu Linux + Wine translation layer in my other PC. To my surprise Windows applications worked there pretty well. I could even run World of Warcrarft with it. So, there is hope that I can use the laptop even if I can never find a way how to get Windows back to it or get Windows working with it. In that case it will be very interesting to see how well the laptop works with Wine, will Wine emulate the shut downs too.

Sauli

[sauli]

Well, the NTFS formatting didn't complete due to yet an other shut down.

But the try was not totally in vain. At boot the PC now did recognize the hdd recovery. It selected the hdd recovery options as if I had pressed F9 which I didn't. Obviously the boot sector got repaired in my failed WIndows recovery.

I did try to do the recovery from hdd, I selected the option to do the recovery on the first hdd partition only. The recovery program did complete everything but the recovery was not good after all. Booting to Windows didn't proceed more than couple of seconds after which it restarted, restarted ... I guess that the interrupted NTFS formatting may have messed the hdd partition.

I decided to take a look at the hdd partition by running the Ubuntu Live CD. In Gparted I can see three fat32 (vfat) partitions, the 1,9GB recovery, the 55GB WIndows partiton and the 36GB Ubuntu partition. I could browse the Windows partions and I didn't notice anything obviously broken there. I attached a screenshot about the GParted, System Monitor, File Browser displays as well as listing of /etc/fstab file and mount command output.

I tend to believe that I'm waisting my and your time with this problem. Troubleshooting the Windows problems is too time consuming. I will install the Ubuntu + Wine on the laptop and see how well it works. But that has to wait a couple of days now.

Thx for your help. It didn't solve my problem but taught me valuable things.

In case you do get new ideas feel free to give them. I will come and check the site and if nothing else is broken in my electronic devices - which I doubt - I may give the Windows one more try.

[Alan2273]

Looking at your G-Parted picture , I am not sure what you have done.

I see you have a SATA drive, but on looking at the partitions the native one for Windows should be NTFS not Fat 32 and your Ubuntu partition should be ext3 and there is no swap patition either.

Just one more suggestion, as you have an OEM Cd, have you tried a Windows repair, there is an excellent guide on how to do it at this URL.

http://www.windowsforum.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10455

[sauli]

I agree it is a good starting point to assume that I have done something wrong and caused the problems by myself. To say the least, I am confused how the various recoveries seem to work, not to work and what side effects they have on each other. What it comes to the partitions there may be a natural explanation though.

By the way, what makes you suggest the drive is SATA, I think it is Ultra- ATA 100?

Why is the Windows partition NTFS? It was originally vfat (fat32) by Asus factory installation. When I tried to recover WIndows using HP Windows XP Professional CD I also tried to format the partition to ntfs. Due to a failure it didn't complete. It is unclear to my why in the GParted display it looks like vfat without any trace of my ntfs-formatting try. and also the files in it seem to be ok.

Why is the Ubuntu partition not ext3 and why there is no separate /swap partition? Ubuntu can be installed on various filesystems and it is not necessary to make a separate partition for the /swap. Ext3 has better performance than vfat and so it is often the preferred format. In my case my original intention was just to test Ubuntu, so I didn't bother to reformat the existing vfat partion nor to create a separate partition for /swap.

About the Windows repair. Thx for the link, nice instructions. Actually I had tried the repair already before but I now gave it one more try. Not a surprise any more, the PC shut down during the procedure.

One potential culprit came to my mind. I guess that in Windows the X1600 graphic controller is used by drivers made by ATI. In Ubuntu I have not yet installed ATI drivers but have instead used the default drivers. If the hardware problem in in the GPU the different behavour might be explained by the different drivers. Let's see, I will reinstall Ubuntu and the latest graphic drivers. I will let you know what is the outcome.

[Alan2273]

The fact that your drives are showing as sd made me think it was a SATA drive as PATA drives normally show as hd.

ATI GPU drivers and Ubuntu are flaky at best, you could have more fun with them.

When I installed Ubuntu,(I do not use it know), it installed a swap partition by defaukt and formatted the partition to ext3.

Keep us informed of how it goes.

[sauli]

I installed on my ASUS A6000KT the Ubuntu 8.04 beta Linux distribution, Wine 0.9.58 release of the Windows compatibility layer and xorg-driver-fglrx ATI graphics driver.

Comments on the installation:

I installed Ubuntu 8.04 beta from the LiveCD. I had to use the boot options noapic, nolapic, pci=noacpi, acpi=off, otherwise the installation froze after first "loading window". Next I run theUpdate Manager to get the updates.

Wine 0.9.58 I downloaded from

http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/index.html

instead of 0.9.59 due to shift-click problems reported for the new release. Before installing Wine I had to install first libldap2 which I found from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/libldap2

.

The option for installing graphics driver for the ATI X1600 was notified by Ubuntu in the menu bar. It was emphasized that it is proprietary though.

Results:

No shut downs during a test run of one hour. I had expected that I would have faced the problems after installing the graphics driver and latest after I start using some 3D application. As a test program I run World of Warcaft. I installed it according to the instructions on

http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine

. The graphics were not working properly in the game. I did manage to log in the game but I could see only the shadows of other players and the game GUI windows for user input. I didn't have time to sort out what was wrong. I believe the graphics driver or 3D graphics settings are wrong. I have managed to install the game in an other NVidia PC, where it runs ok. Well, the Wine and WoW were not the original topics of this message thread and I will try to sort them out in different venues. What is important here is that I didn't get shut downs even when using the 3D application.

So, from the point of view of this message thread, result is that

what ever I have tried, Windows has kept on shutting down the PC every few seconds or minutes at best and I can't even recover Windows back to it, whereas in Linux I don't have the shut down problem at all

.

[Alan2273]

Sorry to hear that your original problem has not been solved.

Glad to hear you have Ubuntu up and running.

I did try 8.04 beta but had trouble with the Nvidia graphics acceleration so I reported the bug and changed to another distro, only to find out later on that the problem was with the chipset on my motherboard.