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General discussion

HP Pavilion Woes - the hang ups never stop

Mar 22, 2004 7:07AM PST

Ever since I bought this HP Pavilion (8700?) a couple of years ago it has hung up continually. Now that I've upgraded from Me to XP Pro it's even worse. Any body else experienced the same thing. Fixed it?

It seems to happen more when browsing but now happens with apps as well (still not as frequent as browsing).

HELP!!

Discussion is locked

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Re:HP Pavilion Woes - the hang ups never stop
Mar 22, 2004 7:15AM PST

This can be software or hardware, and is difficult, even impossible, to diagnose from a distance.

The best thing to do:
1. Set the BIOS to default values.
2. Remove all hardware you added yourself.
3. Reload the HP recovery CD.

If machine hangs with default BIOS and initial software and hardware, have it repaired by HP. You should have done this a few years ago when you still had warranty on the machine. Now it might cost you more than the machine is worth at eBay (in a pessimistic situation).

If the machine works flawlessly now, gradually add hardware and software to see where things go wrong.

Hope this helps.


Kees

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Re:Re:HP Pavilion Woes - the hang ups never stop
Mar 22, 2004 7:35AM PST

Thanks but I've been through the mill with HP support. I bought an HP from Future Shop in Canada and had problems right away. After talking to their support I found out that I had a computer that had been sold to someone else and that it had a damaged chip that could not be repaired.

I brought it back and they gave me another that had the same problem - hang ups.

Called support again and was told the reformat the whole thing - which I did and still had the same problems - hang ups!

Called again and they put me on to Microsoft support who got me to partition my drive but advised me on too small a C Drive partition - you can guess the results.

Now I'm on to XP and still the same problems.

Should I nuke the whole thing and buy an OS that is not an upgrade from HPs version of ME?

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Re:HP Pavilion Woes - the hang ups never stop
Mar 22, 2004 7:21AM PST

I bought a HP Pavilion 8670C back in (1999?) and had my share of problems with it. It came with Win98SE, and I upgraded it to Win2K as soon as HP's 1 year warrantee expired (they supported ONLY win98SE on that box).

Have you upgraded drivers to NT compatible on your machine?

On mine, the Conexant Modem / Soundcard and the USB 'Multimedia' keyboard were grief-stricken, but MOSTLY the keyboard. I finally replaced the USB keyboard with PS2 mouse and PS2 keyboard and voila! MANY fewer crashes.

I also bought an external Zoom v92 modem (and Creative Soundblaster) to replace the &*^%# Conexant... but, wouldn't you know, ever since I replaced the d**n USB keyboard / hub, the Conexant hasn't acted up!

USB 1.1 is pretty flaky, I would NOT reccommend using a mouse OR a keyboard with such.

Incidentally, I bought an external USB 2.0 hard drive for backups (and a USB 2.0 card), and EVERY time I reboot with the external disk connected, I get a BSOD!

So, I disconnect it before rebooting!

BTW, I updated the memory to 384 MB, also.

I hope this helps.

Barefootboy