Laptop Shuts off during XP Pro Installation???

[CreePinG_DeatH]

My gf's laptop (HP ZX5000) has XP Home on it and runs fine. I am trying to upgrade to XP Pro, but I believe the laptop overheats and shuts down in the exact same spot of installation (selecting the windows partition and then shortly after.) I noticed that one of the fans on this beast doesn't run 100% of the time, and the bottom gets super hot all of a sudden.

Things I have tried:

- updating BIOS
- Cleaning HSF and applying AS5
- having the door cracked and cold air coming in during install
- cover off of the HSF section during install
- removed the battery and ran on AC power (battery is dead anyway)

I just don't understand how the laptop could boot and run XP Home just fine, but then completely shut down during XP Installation. Could it be the hard drive crapping out? Again, it happens at the same point of the install. XP Home is hosed now since one time it happened right after the "deleting files" started...

So what can I do?

 

[TheGame240]

I would try burning a new XP CD and make sure the only drivers slipstreamed are the ones you need.

 

[CreePinG_DeatH]

I'll try finding the drivers, but I thought about something else. Would I be able to partition and install windows on the laptop's hard drive if I used it in another laptop? I wouldn't install anything else, just get the basic OS onto the drive and then swap back. Or will each computer (they're not identical) stamp something differently on the drive?

 

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Ok adding the drivers didn't work - still shuts off immediately at the same spot. Since it happens so quickly, is it possible that this isn't an overheating issue but the computer just enters sleep mode or something?

This thing isn't worth investing in as it weighs 8.5 lbs and gets super hot. Is there a way to salvage the laptop body and get a different motherboard/cpu? I know it's a longshot, but I figured I'd ask.

 

[TheGame240]

I'll try finding the drivers, but I thought about something else. Would I be able to partition and install windows on the laptop's hard drive if I used it in another laptop? I wouldn't install anything else, just get the basic OS onto the drive and then swap back. Or will each computer (they're not identical) stamp something differently on the drive?

As long as the drive isn't a SATA drive you should be ok. I would use a vanilla XP CD to make sure it doesn't install any chipset/video drivers. Also make sure you don't activate it. Not that you didn't know that already.

Ok adding the drivers didn't work - still shuts off immediately at the same spot. Since it happens so quickly, is it possible that this isn't an overheating issue but the computer just enters sleep mode or something?

This thing isn't worth investing in as it weighs 8.5 lbs and gets super hot. Is there a way to salvage the laptop body and get a different motherboard/cpu? I know it's a longshot, but I figured I'd ask.

If it's that abrupt I would think it's either a CD ROM error or a powersupply/charger issue. You could try booting from a Windows PE CD. http://www.ubcd4win.com/ If you can get into a PE environment you can run a few stress tests to see if it's heat or not. I believe Prime95 is on the CD it creates.

If it can't boot off the CD ROM you could try installing from a USB drive. http://komku.blogspot.com/2008/11/install-windows-xp-using-usb-flash-disk.html

As far as replacing the MB/CPU I'm not familiar enough with the hardware to even take a guess. I would assume that there would be a few different MBs that would fit your case, but by the time you get into that (along with a new battery) you're getting into bargain laptop prices.

 

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Well just an update. My bios doesn't have an option to boot from USB. I found a UBCD I made last May - it loaded fine. I figured I would try formatting the hd from the CD, then install Windows on the hdd, but about 2 minutes into the format, everything froze. I was running some tests beforehand, but nothing else really caused much heat. Maybe it's the hard drive, and I just need to let this laptop die lol Thanks!

 

[DiamondDave]

A suggestion ...

Greetings,

I've got an eMachines laptop here, model M5305, that was doing the exact same thing. It would boot into XP Pro Setup, get to the formatting phase, and just power off. I tried removing the battery, using compressed air to blow out all the vents, removed and reseated the HDD, removed and reseated the battery, checked that the RAM was seated good, and even removed all PCMCIA cards from the machine - all that accomplished for me was to get me a little further along in the format process (about 41%, I believe) and then - sudden power down, as if I had reached over and hit the power button.

I did get it to work though, what I did was I removed the HDD from the laptop, and used a Laptop IDE to Desktop IDE adapter, plugged the HDD into one of my other computers, partitioned and formatted the HDD using NTFS file system on another XP machine. I didn't install XP to the drive from the other computer, I just prepped the HDD. After that, I put the HDD back into the laptop, booted from the XP CD, and told it to "Leave the current file system intact."

XP installed fine without any further problems. So, I'm not sure why it would not want to format it on this particular laptop, but this solution worked for me.

Regards,
Dave

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Sounds like maybe the PSU they installed may not be enough.