Potential Uses?

[[SiK]Demiveil]

I have recently acquired myself a 3 year old laptop with an unknown ailment causing it to not work. I have no idea what it would be causing the problem...I can tell you it starts, but does not go any further then a black screen....the screen however does work, so I was wondering what potential uses of this laptop there could be? I was thinking I really could do with a second screen, and was wondering if its somehow possible to use the LCD screen of the laptop as one? or if not anything else I could do with the laptop?

[[SiK]Demiveil]

Latest Developments**

On boot never makes it past the XP loading screen, regardless of how I boot it, and cannot install or repair windows, just get a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Error and then it shuts down.

I made a memtest disc and ran it and it has failed everything. EVERYTHING

I would guess thats not a good thing...

[[DRuG]Shane0]

it seems most likely the ram is fauilty see if u can find a suitable so-dimm to test it with, if that module passes memtest there is ur answer the memory was faulty. If not its your memory controller on your motherboard which wouldnt be worth fixing since the motherboard for the laptop would cost u about $150~$300 alone.

If thats the case then possibly use the screen from the laptop to make a elecrtronic picture frame, it might be a lil of work and money ($200 or under if u know what ur doing) but you get at least a 12inch~15inch frame compared to the 8inch frames

[[DRuG]NikT]

One thing you could try is flashing the BIOS.. perhaps it is somehow corrupt or has a setting wrong - flashing it to the latest version should, at least, restore it to a default failsafe setup that should work.

Also, given the errors could relate to the hard disk or installation of XP itself, have you tried booting off a bootable CD, like a windows setup CD or better still, a live CD like BartPE or something similar.. that should help to at least tell you if the thing works ok in a different software environment.

Removing or trying different memory is definitely a wise suggestion - it is the most likely cause.

One other thing you might consider, depending how technically capable & flawless you are at disassembly/reassembly of complex electronics, is the old army gun approach - if you're pulling something apart and putting it together properly regularly, you are more likely to have the thing in good working order... perhaps something has come unslotted that this approach would resolve?

That's my 2c. If I billed you, trust me, it'd be a lot more.

[[SiK]Demiveil]

Well I'm not entirely sure how I can manage to actually flash the BIOS without having access to the rest of the computer.
I have tried using a Windows XP Setup disk to reformat. However it still has an error during this process and fails.

Unfortunately I am unable to find and of the required RAM type lying around at myself or a friends house, so it would seem I will have to buy some RAM on the gamble that it is the problem.

So is there not away of utilising the screen alongside my current one?

[[SiK]Demiveil]

Right, well. I was able to run the laptop seemingly fine when running off a DSL Boot Disc, however just now I attempted to therefore install full size linux, and was unable to do so.
I've no idea what is causing this, not only could I not install Ubuntu I could also not run straight off the Disc, so there must be something fundamentally different about DSL and Ubuntu. (I would hazard a guess size)

But I now have no idea what to do next.

[flongdong]

blow it up