BSOD; Kernel Stack Inpage Error

[HawkeyeScott]

3.5 year-old HP laptop with AMD Sempron processor. Been pretty reliable but has developed some major problems since Sunday. Started with a blue screen of death, procliaming Kernel Stack Inpage Error. (I think that's what it says. As soon as it goes to the screen, the screen appears for only about 3 seconds and goes away as the computer tries to restart.)

I did some searching on the issue. That led me to do a Memtest run, which showed no errors. I brought up the Run screen and did a ChkDsk, which also seemed to go smoothly. All the while, the computer would work for short periods and then go to the BSOD. I ran 2 differnt anti virus programs, which reveal a clean computer.

That was until today. Now it won't start up and continuously cycles a black screen with white text that over and over says "For Realtek..." and "PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable" and PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM now."

Obviously something has failed but I don't know what. I would love to ID the problem and potentially replace hardware as opposed to replacing the entire laptop. (My wife and I are really pinching pennies these days with a new baby and all.)

I'd love some help if anyone can offer any. Any suggestions on where to take it? How much to fix certain things? Is it even worth attempting a repair on? Thanks. And BTW, I am using our trusty desktop to monitor BITOG...for now.

-S

 

[Drew99GT]

Can you boot any program from a disk? If not, it's likely something other then the HD.

 

[MysticGold04]

Since it looks like its trying to boot from your network adapter, it might be that the hard disk has died. You could verify by trying to boot from an Ubuntu CD or a SysRecovery CD from distrowatch.com or something of the like. Also, you could go into the Bios setup to see if the hdd is recognized still. You can replace the hard disk for about $50 or so if you can catch a deal on the web.. You might be able to recover any documents and files with the Ubuntu cd if you have access to a USB hard disk or thumb drive.

 

[Superflop]

Yap, off the top of the head i would bet hdd failure, realtek is in general either integrated sound or network controllers.

the other could be a heat issue

if you are going to take it somewhere to be worked on take to your local computer shope where people who know what they are doing will work on it.. avoid geek squad and whatever the [censored] it is circus city calls their "tech teams"

oh and since Mystic mentioned it, i got a agreat deal on a 16gb thumbdrive off of newegg cost me 20 bucks and its made by OCZ.. you cant get better ram.

 

[HawkeyeScott]

Thanks a lot for the ideas. Keep 'em coming.

$50 sounds very do-able. Unfortunately it will probably be a little bit more since I will have to pay someone to do it. (This is uncharted water for me.)

The heat problem is an interesting theory. I've always thought this thing ran very, very warm. And I did have some warning with this, so I was able to back up most of the stuff I need from the HD. Unfortunately, I had to leave a bunch of MP3s on there...

 

[Drew99GT]

Laptops run hot. They can cook internal parts pretty easy. Been there done that! Keep the heat sink vents clean with compressed air.

Do you have any programs with a boot CD? Try seeing if you can boot from a CD.