Unknown Problem

[dancingdolphin]

Hi I am a female, using a packard bell easynote m5 series laptop with windows xp pro installed. the chipset is intel pentium 4. i feel extremely comfortable with 95 and ME, but i am not so conversant with XP, and feel a little lost when trying to sort out a problem with it. My current probs started some 4 weeks ago, when the laptop suddenly started crashing if i used dvd shrink. The next thing that happened was that when i tried to use movie maker, it would get to the point of having opened a previously saved project, then instantly shut down...no error messages, no nothing.

I wondered if all that was needed was to reinstall win xp pro. That's when i discovered half my RAM had somehow gone missing (from 512 meg down to 256). Also, ended up with an additional hard drive letter E (now successfully deleted). Worked with some computer geeks to work out what was wrong: finally took the easynote back to where I bought it 12 months and 4 weeks ago: they replaced the RAM under warrranty, but couldn't find anything wrong, and suggested doubling the size of the RAM...which I did. Brought the easynote home, shrunk one dvd successfully, then crashed on a second one. Have tried almost every antivirus/firewall/spyware program available, and still not getting anywhere. Suggestions welcomed!

[Zylstra]

Your RAM loss is most likely caused by your Video Card if its a semi-dedicated or one that has Hyper Cache (or just plain uses the computers RAM instead of its own RAMDAC)

There are many things that may cause problems. So lets start with this:
What antivirus, spyware, and adware scanners have you tried?

When was the last time you ran Windows Update?

Is this a valid copy of Windows?

Have you ever partitioned your Hard Drive?

I dont recommend downgrading to Windows ME. Though you may be more comfortable with ME and 95, they are not compatible with your computer. (Hardware issues)
(Just some FYI)

Does your laptop ever get to a really hot heat?

It sounds like it might be a virus or overheating. The loss in RAM is probably caused by the Video and System Dump, but we will see soon

[Raptor]

Hi I am a female

Hi am a male.

hey replaced the RAM under warrranty, but couldn't find anything wrong, and suggested doubling the size of the RAM...which I did. Brought the easynote home, shrunk one dvd successfully, then crashed on a second one. Have tried almost every antivirus/firewall/spyware program available, and still not getting anywhere. Suggestions welcomed!

What happens when your laptop crashes? Does it shutdown or freeze?

What spyware/virus scanners have you tried using so far?

Did you do an upgrade from Windows ME to XP?