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jass 07-22-2009 04:47 AM

Laptop hp nc6220 freezes randomly (Win XP & Mint 6)
 
Hello all,

I bought my laptop, a hp nc6220, about a year ago, it was installed with XP pro, had 2GB DDR2, a centrino 1733MHz cpu, and a 40GB ata harddisk. First thing I did was buying a new harddisk, a Western Digital WD2500BEVE Scorpio Blue 250GB. Then I decided to dual boot XP and Linux Mint 6.

This laptop has always been a loyal comrade, he played music and movies, ran some office applications and school software without any complaints. But about a month ago he started to hang. I did several checks:
-HD Tune: 0% damaged sectors
-memtest: no errors
-AVG: no infections
-I defragmetated the windows part
- cpu & hd temperature are mostly around 40°C

I even vacuumcleaned the interior - I must say the cpu-fan was quite dusty, but I cleaned it all.

The freezing was completely random, sometimes at startup, or sometimes after several hours of intensive work, for both Windows XP and Mint, so I believe it is a hardware problem. Does anybody know this kind of hanging? Is my laptop really dying?

I have here a part of a dmesg (after freezing for more than an hour):

Code:

[  32.858054] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[  32.951329] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[  32.965868] pci 0000:00:02.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[  32.965881] pci 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64
[  32.967974] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20060119 on minor 0
[  396.472024] BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 251s! [anacron:5179]
[  396.472043] Modules linked in: i915 drm af_packet binfmt_misc rfcomm bridge stp bnep sco l2cap bluetooth ppdev speedstep_centrino cpufreq_userspace cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave cpufreq_conservative cpufreq_stats freq_table pci_slot sbs sbshc iptable_filter ip_tables x_tables lp pcmcia joydev evdev psmouse serio_raw pcspkr parport_pc parport container tpm_infineon tpm tpm_bios video output snd_intel8x0 snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_pcm_oss snd_mixer_oss sdhci_pci sdhci yenta_socket rsrc_nonstatic tifm_7xx1 snd_pcm mmc_core tifm_core ipw2200 pcmcia_core ieee80211 ieee80211_crypt snd_seq_dummy wmi battery snd_seq_oss snd_seq_midi ac snd_rawmidi button snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq snd_timer snd_seq_device iTCO_wdt iTCO_vendor_support snd soundcore intel_agp snd_page_alloc agpgart shpchp pci_hotplug ext3 jbd mbcache sr_mod cdrom sd_mod crc_t10dif sg ata_generic pata_acpi ata_piix libata scsi_mod dock ehci_hcd tg3 libphy uhci_hcd usbcore thermal processor fan fbcon tileblit font bitblit softcursor fuse
[  396.472228]
[  396.472234] Pid: 5179, comm: anacron Not tainted (2.6.27-7-generic #1)
[  396.472241] EIP: 0060:[<c01ac997>] EFLAGS: 00000246 CPU: 0
[  396.472254] EIP is at kmem_cache_alloc+0x57/0xc0
[  396.472260] EAX: 00000246 EBX: f6429188 ECX: f89c3001 EDX: c21fcf24
[  396.472266] ESI: f6ab2900 EDI: 00000246 EBP: f63afcb4 ESP: f63afc98
[  396.472272]  DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0033 SS: 0068
[  396.472278] CR0: 8005003b CR2: b7f0d040 CR3: 36376000 CR4: 00000690
[  396.472284] DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000
[  396.472290] DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400
[  396.472303]  [<f89c3001>] journal_add_journal_head+0x71/0x130 [jbd]
[  396.472325]  [<f89be5a8>] journal_dirty_data+0x28/0x210 [jbd]
[  396.472344]  [<f89fc51d>] ext3_journal_dirty_data+0x1d/0x50 [ext3]
[  396.472370]  [<f89fea80>] ? ext3_get_block+0x0/0x120 [ext3]
[  396.472395]  [<f89fccaf>] walk_page_buffers+0x2f/0x80 [ext3]
[  396.472417]  [<f89fd0d8>] ext3_ordered_write_end+0x68/0x1b0 [ext3]
[  396.472440]  [<f89fc500>] ? ext3_journal_dirty_data+0x0/0x50 [ext3]
[  396.472461]  [<c0183b62>] ? iov_iter_copy_from_user_atomic+0x62/0xd0
[  396.472474]  [<c0183ce1>] generic_perform_write+0x111/0x190
[  396.472494]  [<c01858b0>] generic_file_buffered_write+0x70/0x140
[  396.472506]  [<c0186a6b>] __generic_file_aio_write_nolock+0x19b/0x520
[  396.472518]  [<f89f8174>] ? ext3_get_group_desc+0x14/0xd0 [ext3]
[  396.472541]  [<f89fd5c7>] ? __ext3_get_inode_loc+0xd7/0x300 [ext3]
[  396.472563]  [<c0186f13>] generic_file_aio_write+0x63/0xe0
[  396.472578]  [<f89fa8d2>] ext3_file_write+0x32/0xd0 [ext3]
[  396.472602]  [<c01b1df9>] do_sync_write+0xd9/0x120
[  396.472611]  [<c01e251e>] ? inotify_dentry_parent_queue_event+0xe/0xa0
[  396.472623]  [<c01474b0>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x50
[  396.472633]  [<c02353be>] ? apparmor_file_permission+0x1e/0x40
[  396.472645]  [<c0213664>] ? security_file_permission+0x14/0x20
[  396.472655]  [<c01b1fad>] ? rw_verify_area+0x4d/0xc0
[  396.472664]  [<c01b24c0>] vfs_write+0xa0/0x110
[  396.472672]  [<c01b1d20>] ? do_sync_write+0x0/0x120
[  396.472680]  [<c01b2602>] sys_write+0x42/0x70
[  396.472688]  [<c0103f7b>] sysenter_do_call+0x12/0x2f
[  396.472697]  =======================
[  400.215803] psmouse.c: TouchPad at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 2 bytes away.
[  443.209066] ACPI: EC: missing confirmations, switch off interrupt mode.
[  444.907523] ACPI Exception (evregion-0419): AE_TIME, Returned by Handler for [EmbeddedControl] [20080609]
[  444.907554] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C002.C003.C004.C16E] (Node f7019378), AE_TIME
[  444.907678] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C16E] (Node f701bb70), AE_TIME
[  444.907781] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C177._BST] (Node f701bc00), AE_TIME
[  444.907887] ACPI Exception (battery-0360): AE_TIME, Evaluating _BST [20080609]
[  445.652052] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: FGR not stopped yet!
[  448.677980] ACPI Exception (evregion-0419): AE_TIME, Returned by Handler for [EmbeddedControl] [20080609]
[  448.678010] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C002.C003.C004.C16E] (Node f7019378), AE_TIME
[  448.678129] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C16E] (Node f701bb70), AE_TIME
[  448.678263] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C177._BST] (Node f701bc00), AE_TIME
[  448.678393] ACPI Exception (battery-0360): AE_TIME, Evaluating _BST [20080609]
[  456.504015] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: FGR not stopped yet!
[  458.026738] ACPI Exception (evregion-0419): AE_TIME, Returned by Handler for [EmbeddedControl] [20080609]
[  458.026766] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C002.C003.C004.C16E] (Node f7019378), AE_TIME
[  458.026984] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C16E] (Node f701bb70), AE_TIME
[  458.027088] ACPI Error (psparse-0530): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.C177._BST] (Node f701bc00), AE_TIME
[  458.027195] ACPI Exception (battery-0360): AE_TIME, Evaluating _BST [20080609]
[  458.084025] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: FGR not stopped yet!
[  463.141771] ppdev0: registered pardevice
[  463.196074] ppdev0: unregistered pardevice
[  463.272177] ppdev0: registered pardevice
[  463.320054] ppdev0: unregistered pardevice
[  469.294271] ppdev0: registered pardevice
[  469.344171] ppdev0: unregistered pardevice


camorri 07-22-2009 08:51 AM

I'm an old hardware guy, so I found your problem rather interesting. I don't think there is any fast answer here. First off, all you have already done all the right things, memtest, checking the HD etc.

I have some suggestions of things to try. Since this is a laptop, does it ever fail when on battery power only? If yes, then you can eliminate the external power as a source of the problem. I was thinking you could have a noisy power source. If it never fails on battery only, then look into the point you power it from.

There are a lot of ACPI errors logged. I did a google search on ACPI, and there are a lot of fixes for specific ACPI errors. In fact this area of the hardware on some systems is not good at all. However, if the system was stable, and now is not, with two OS's then I wouldn't think this type of fix would help much.

Suggestion, get yourself a live CD, boot the system and see if it fails then. If it does fail, then it isn't anything on your HD. That won't pin point the problem, but will get you away from looking for ACPI fixes.

How about the BIOS level? Check to see if HP has any updates for the system.

Hope this helps...

jass 07-22-2009 10:09 AM

Thanks for the reply. I did already try another adapter and battery only, but the machine still freezes.

I just downloaded and flashed a new bios, and till now no problems... But the weird thing is: I've been working with this notebook for about a year without any problem, and I see no particular reason why it would now suddenly get the habit of freezing. At least I did nothing wrong :)

jass 07-23-2009 07:45 AM

...Again a freeze. This time I was using XP. In the System-eventviewer there were starting from the point of freeze - 10:18 - until 11:04 every minute tcpip-events, with description:
Code:

The system detected that network adapter \DEVICE\TCPIP_{016766FE-D2CF-48DF-8335-37DCBB1A187C} was connected to the network,
and has initiated normal operation over the network adapter.

I'm not sure this is relevant, but the event viewer is kind of stacked with these tcpip-events, mostly during crashes, so maybe this could be the culprit?

camorri 07-23-2009 08:06 AM

Does this system eventually resume some type of operation? Or are you forced to hard boot ( power off and boot the system ). ? It well could be the nic that is locking things up. What type of card is it?

I don't know if it is possible, since this is a laptop, could you try running it with another nic? There are wired and wireless nic's that plug into your PCMCIA card slots. If you can find one, for linux, see if you can find one with Antheros chip set, if you need a wireless card. There are a lot of them around, and they work with linux. They will work with windoze as well. Almost any wired card should work with linux and windoze.

jass 07-23-2009 01:25 PM

The laptop always resumes after about an hour, and since I know that, I always leave him alone for that period of time when the freezing starts.

The laptop has ethernet and wireless, but I only use wireless.
Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 11)

I have a D-Link DWL-G122 usb adapter, I will try thisone and disable the built-in controller. Anyway thanks for the replies!

jass 07-24-2009 02:12 PM

Ok, it has nothing to do with the wlan: I just started windows, turned the wireless off, launched songbird and ... hanging started!

I'll give my puppy live usb a try, but I think that's my last option. What else could it be than the harddisk?

jass 07-25-2009 02:34 AM

Now something strange happened: I found out someone formatted my puppy usb, so I decided to make a new one. I booted from the puppy 4.2 cd to my hp laptop. All went well: I installed puppy on my usb without errors. I wanted to reboot and suddenly the screen went black (with little dark gray rectangles) and it stayed that way. I was forced to hold down the power button for a while to power off. A little later when I started the laptop, it hang at the Hp Invent startup screen.

camorri 07-25-2009 02:21 PM

Sounds ugly. The symptoms are changing. Have you got any warranty left on the laptop? If yes, then I would let the hardware support have a look. I think you will need some parts to diagnose, fix it.

FWIW, I have never seen a HD casuse this sort of symptom. Usually you see errors reading files.

jass 07-25-2009 03:22 PM

I don't have waranty on the machine, I got it from someone else.
I've found the original harddisk (40GB) and changed it for my new 250GB WD-harddisk. I've been able to boot two times without any hanging or freezing. I hope it continues, we'll have to wait.

r00tb33r 07-25-2009 09:54 PM

Well sorry if I'm unhelpful but I'm in repair business and recent (last 4 years) hp/compaq laptops are frequent motherboard replacement candidates. In machines in question the freezing time shortens as the problem progresses and eventually machines fail to POST and produce any video.

Here's a thing to try though, you mentioned that you have a lot of NIC related events logged, and you said you only use your wireless NIC. Your NIC is probably a mini PCI Express type, so pull that out and see if you are still having the problem. If you don't have the problem, go from there (new NIC perhaps?).

jass 07-28-2009 07:04 AM

Thank you, r00tb33r, I detached the wireless card (I found it underneath the touch pad), but the machine froze after a while. I also tried my old 40GB hard drive, but again a freeze.

Is there anything else I can check? Or is r00tb33r right, is this a motherboard problem? If so, could it be repaired or should I buy a new motherboard?

r00tb33r 07-28-2009 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jass (Post 3622835)
Thank you, r00tb33r, I detached the wireless card (I found it underneath the touch pad), but the machine froze after a while. I also tried my old 40GB hard drive, but again a freeze.

Is there anything else I can check? Or is r00tb33r right, is this a motherboard problem? If so, could it be repaired or should I buy a new motherboard?

I couldn't figure out the sources of random lockups if there are no obvious problems such as overheating, so I just replace the motherboard and it has worked for all the misbehaving hp/compaq machines I've repaired.
I have visually inspected the motherboards but there are no obvious clues as to what the problem is. Most likely some chip has a bad connection underneath from heating and cooling cycles, however that's almost impossible to repair.

jass 07-29-2009 09:58 AM

So I guess I have to throw away this laptop? Where would I find a motherboard for this (old) model? And if this freezing is a common problem on hp machines, a new motherboard could crash too...

It is really a pity. I used this laptop for a long time, it was well-suited for me, and now, out of the blue, there is this hangingproblem without a solution. I guess I'll have to buy a new laptop - any suggestions? And could I clone my system - there are several licensed programs which I really need - with Clonezilla or something?

r00tb33r 07-29-2009 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jass (Post 3624323)
So I guess I have to throw away this laptop? Where would I find a motherboard for this (old) model? And if this freezing is a common problem on hp machines, a new motherboard could crash too...

It is really a pity. I used this laptop for a long time, it was well-suited for me, and now, out of the blue, there is this hangingproblem without a solution. I guess I'll have to buy a new laptop - any suggestions? And could I clone my system - there are several licensed programs which I really need - with Clonezilla or something?

Well if you find your machine adequate in power and have the skill, you can find yourself a board say on eBay for like $100-$150 and replace. In that case you won't have to reinstall any os or software.
Could this happen again? Yeah.
HP/compaq places their part# labels on the board so you should be able to find the right part# to buy once you open your laptop.
If you go with a new laptop your old one is still good for a good bit of money in parts if its in good condition. People break screens and lose keyboard buttons all the time, its just what they do.


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