All,

Ive had a T43p since 2008 and since 2009 it has been freezing almost daily(only when watching web based videos). A ballpark figure would be around 1000 freezes since then to the last time it did. Ive backup my data almost daily so I was just waiting for the impending HDD failure.

I know that sometime before the freezing began i had installed a 1GB upgrade to the laptop although there was NO WAY I connected the two since most of the reading led me to believe it was a faulty GPU/SB. I took the risk of continuing to use the laptop although data was backedup.

Jan this year I bought a used but in very very good condition T43p. Freshly installed OS, HDD, many indicators of low miles, the works etc. New T43p worked like a greased wheel with no freezes. Sometime in March I decided to swap the RAM from the old to the new T43p and wham there it was. The new T43p began freezing within a few days and the old one NEVER froze since the RAM was removed till today.

Although this could only be my experience and a premature finding, I just thought sharing this finding would probably help other out there with this menace and confirm my 99% doubt to a 100%.

Happy weekend.

My suggestion would be to download a copy of memtest86+ and let it run for at least three complete loops through all of the standard patterns. You can get a copy from here:

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

You might find some bad bits.

Thanks Ray,

Apologies for my ignorance but what exactly will this program test.

Should I install that RAM module before running the test?

Memtest+ does what it says...it tests your memory (RAM). So yes you would install the RAM module you were wanting to test.

So here's what happened. I added the problematic RAM module and started the test(ISO) via the USB flash drive. PC froze twice during the first two trials but Im not sure what happened on the 3rd run. It says test complete at the bottom but the progress bar on the top was still incomplete.

First try:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21539959/RAMtes ... %20003.jpg

Second try:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21539959/RAMtes ... %20005.jpg

Third:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21539959/RAMtes ... %20006.jpg
(Didn't take the pic correctly but if you see at the bottom is starts to say 'Pass completed No errors found. ESC to exit' but what confuses me is that the progress bar at the top showing Pass at 42% and test at 35%.

Do these test results have indicators of anything you're aware of since I cannot decipher any of the parameters.

The meaning of the Pass and Test progress bars can be a little confusing if you are not familiar with this diagnostic.

The "Pass" line at the top of the screen signifies the overall completion of the current pass through all of the memory test sequences. When it reaches 100% (sometimes, 101% as there's a bug somewhere in the time calculations), that's considered one pass. "Pass", in this case, means the sequence count of the tests being executed; first pass, second pass, third pass, etc. It does NOT refer to the fact that the memory is "good". The "Test" line signifies the completion percentage of the current memory test as shown on the third line; i.e. Test #5. There's about 7 or 8 individual memory pattern tests in the sequence. Collectively, those 7 or 8 patterns make up 1 pass of the diagnostics.

Towards the right-middle of the screen, under the "Pass" title, is the number of complete passes that the diagnostic has performed. Your third photo (006.jpg) shows that the diagnostic had been running for 2 hours, 15 minutes, 11 seconds (under "WallTime"). In that time, 2 complete passes through all of the tests was completed and that no errors were found ("0" under the "Errors" title). Furthermore, if there were any memory errors detected, they will be listed in the bottom half of the screen in white text on a red background.

If the system hasn't frozen, the WallTime clock should continue to advance until you decide to stop testing. I have had a bad module freeze the system without any errors displayed. The only indication I had was that the clock stopped running. After a couple of re-tests, it finally got to the point where errors were listed. So if you're seeing the diagnostic halt by itself, I'd take it as given that the module is defective.

I finally ran the test minus the problematic RAM module and did 3 passes and thereafter halted the process manually. Here are the results.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21539959/RAMtes ... st%202.jpg

Had I known this before it could've saved the HDD Samsung HM160HC installed in 07/2010 from its eventual demise in the near future. I keep hearing clicks that sound like a clock probably due to the 1000 plus hard restarts that I was forced to do.

Hope this finding helps folks out there with this problem.

Freezes not seldom due to bad RAM (or other components), another reason may be poorly seated components. I once had a gaming computer seemingly die on me, after which a friende advised me to reseat all components (graphics card, RAMs etc) and voila!, has worked ever since.

When searching for such errors, Memtest is a great tool and when building a computer (stationary), Prime95 is another great stress test tool - if a build has survived a night of Prime95 you know it's good!

Just an update.

Almost 3 weeks now since I removed the RAM and not a single freeze.

Fingers still crossed.

Cheers!!

Congrats Think, problems can be very hard to find sometimes and I think you found this one, just this year I have run across 2 sticks of problem RAM, one caused freeze ups and the other an LCD that look like you were looking thru a screen window.

All,

Probably the last update on this. Almost 3 months now and not a single freeze, so its confirmed that the RAM caused the freezing issue on my laptop.

Thanks all for the help and inputs.