Hi Francis,
Interesting thread you have here. In your post #5 you mention that you did a Stress Test. What software did you use to conduct the Stress Test with? There are Stress Tests and there are Stress Tests. We use several different ones; but when you are trying to determine whether a computer has been thermally damaged (Cooked!) and it overheats intermittently as in your case, you can't reproduce the BSOD again on one of the laptops you randomly picked out of the lot.
We suggest that you use the Passmark BurnInTest software that is free from here:
PassMark BurnInTest software - PC Reliability and Load Testing.
The key to using this software however, is to really stress it, you'll have to heat up the ambient room temperature where you are conducting the test on the laptop. If this is at your workplace you may not have access to Thermostat control for your workspace room, so you should consider taking it home if you can or can get permission to do so. You'll need to run the
Passmark BurnInTest for at least 24 hours continuous time on. That means that you'll have to go into the laptops Power Settings and disable all auto-sleep, auto-hibernate, all battery-saving settings. Make certain, that all those options are set to happen with the
"never" setting, otherwise windows will disable the laptops hard drive and other internal components, and the stress test won't work as well. When I test PCs or laptops here in my Home office, I turn my thermostat up to 87 degrees F which is hot as it goes. This is no problem in the winter when we have snow on the ground, but in the summer when I do these and it's 90 degrees plus outside it's very uncomfortable. Especially for 24 hours as I mention. It's even better if you can leave it going for 48 hours. I don't have pets but if you do, this may not be possible as it may injure them so you'll have to find another way. You can use another free program to monitor your CPU core temps during the 24 hour Stress Test period such as
REALTEMP from TechPowerUp we also like you can get for free from here:
TechPowerUp.
This will allow you to watch your laptop CPU core temps heat up. What you are looking for is if
REALTEMP reports temps in excess of
72 deg C or 160 deg F. If you can heat up that test laptop to about 73-75 deg C you are above the rated temp of most CPU processor chips, and if you don't generate a BSOD during that period, the CPU chip and other Motherboard components probably are not thermally damaged and the BSODs are coming from corrupted or out-of-date drivers, or apps that got installed incorrectly, or a virus infection etc. I've worked for a number of computer and server manufacturers and we have special Industrial Temp Controlled Ovens the size of a Hotel room to do this in. You'll need to be careful and be physically there when the laptop gets close to that max temp of 72 deg C. and you need to shut down the test and take the laptop outside of your house or apartment (
assuming the outside temp is less than your inside temp!). If it's 108 where you live, you need to get that laptop cooled down in a hurry--I will often put laptops into my fridge for 15 min. or so to get them back under the Max so I don't overcook them! This works great. Just make sure not to leave it in there if your roommate or family member throws a pizza box on top of the laptop and you leave it in there overnight by mistake!
I did this once, and interestingly enough when I took it out of the fridge the next morning and turned it on--it still worked!
I think it was a Dell.
Running a true Stress Test program such as the BurnInTest along with having the heat turned wayyyy up in your house or apartment will definitely get that laptop to
BSOD if there is anything hinky in the components from being thermally damaged. Of course, if it turns out to be a driver or registry issue that's correctlable you wouldn't need to do this to the other laptops. Chances are however, if the
BSODs come back with a vengeance on during the 24 hour Stress Test period, and do not come back after you bring the laptop back down to normal temps, you could have an overtemp situation with all the laptops, and you'd have to take the rest of them all home with you and repeat this test with all of them to see.
Hope this proves useful to you.
kemical will continue helping you with software repair attempts.
Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>