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General discussion

UNABLE TO OPERATE LAPTOP COMPUTER.

Sep 13, 2012 3:18PM PDT

MY GIRLFRIEND'S COMPUTER SYSTEM IS MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP. THE BATTERY WILL CHARGE NORMALLY BUT WHEN IT IS TURNED ON ALL YOU SEE IS A BLUE SCREEN.HOW CAN I REPAIR THIS?

Discussion is locked

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No CAPITALS please
Sep 13, 2012 7:25PM PDT

It's like shouting. No need to shout.

Needed information to assist you in resolving your problem(s):

--Make, model of laptop
--Version of XP and service pack version
--Any antivirus and/or firewall?
--Exact description of symptoms. For example, is this the blue screen of death you're seeing? If so, what error codes are you seeing displayed? Does the system begin to boot into windows, and then this happens? Do you see the blue bar scrolling across and then what?
--Was the system running hotter than normal just before this failure to start? Do you hear the fans running, or the hard drive making any unusual noises?
--Does it seem as if the system is booting fully, but the display is not working correctly and you cannot see the login screen?
--Did you just replace the battery?

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WINDOWS XP BLUESCREEN
Sep 14, 2012 7:28PM PDT

When the computer is turned on we get a blue screen without any error messages.She once used the unit without adequate protection. The computer is with her in California and i am in New York so i have to walk her through any corrective fix.It is a Microsoft Windows XP with service pack 1

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Re: blue screen
Sep 14, 2012 7:43PM PDT

If the first thing she sees is a blue screen without anything on it, it's a hardware issue. Normally she should see the BIOS messages or the makers icon hiding that.
If the machine passes the POST, but just hangs on an empty screen after starting Windows, it's a quite different story.

Kees

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And more questions
Sep 13, 2012 7:34PM PDT

- Can you get into the BIOS setup?
- Can you boot from a bootable disk (such as the Windows XP setup disk that came with that laptop)?

If the answer to the last question is "yes" then you might be able to repair it yourself.

Kees