Clearly not my year for technology................

[dkryan]

Thanks.

I have an i7 with Win7 and 8GB RAM.

I'd like to keep this 17-inch (though not too portable) laptop for personal use. I am likely to swap out the HD for a 128- or 256 GB SSD, run the recovery disks, reload my files, cross my fingers, and move on from that point.

 

[dkryan]

Well, heck........

I guess crossing my fingers was not enough.

The laptop passed the two runs of Memtest86 and 86+, so I installed a new Samsung 256GB SS-HD and reloaded via my recovery discs.

This morning I once again had a blue screen waiting for me on startup proclaiming "Driver Power State Failure."

If it's not the RAM or the HD, then it's the....................?

Motherboard?

 

[spackard]

It would be the next logical component to replace.
Probably time to look for a new laptop.

 

[dkryan]

Originally Posted By: spackard
It would be the next logical component to replace.
Probably time to look for a new laptop.


I don't want to "chase parts."

I'm tempted to pay to have diagnostic test run on it but the cost of that plus a possible new part, plus the cost of the new SS HD may not be worth it.


Dang! I at least wanted to have a Win 7 machine.

 

[OVERKILL]

Are these recovery disks ones that just "dump" an image onto the hard drive or does it actually "install" Windows? If the former, you might want to try a fresh install of Windows 7 "from scratch".

 

[dkryan]

It performs an "install."

The sad thing is I'm getting one of two "blue screen" messages that I had gotten before the recovery disks were initially ran and before the new SSHD was installed, i.e., "driver state power failure."

I really hate to give up on what was 51 months ago a $1,000 laptop.

But again, I hate to chase parts and end up spending $500 on what may eventually become a wheel chock.

Thanks for the input, guys.

 

[dkryan]

I e-mailed ASUS directly citing the issues above.

I will let you know what they say - in dollar signs.

 

[OVERKILL]

On the BSOD, does it list which driver is failing? Like does it give you the name of a DLL?

 

[dkryan]

No "dll" was listed.

Just "driver state power failure" or "bad pool header."
.
I have a photo of both screens.

 

[OVERKILL]

Hmmmm, well, if you can grab the memory dump or check the event log, it may give more details as to which driver it was. Which might help at least shed a bit of light on things.

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
It sounds like your drive is failing.


Sounds like it has been screaming it for a while. The S.M.A.R.T. data should be helpful here.

 

[badtlc]

Originally Posted By: dkryan
I tested the RAM as suggested using Memtest86+.

There were no errors or issues found.

I guess I'll see if I can swap out the HD for a SSHD with either 128 or 256GB of storage.


Prime95 torture test can also help you find memory errors that Memtest fails to detect. Make sure to use the combination stress test and up the ram amount to within 800MB of total ram installed.

 

[dkryan]

I tried to obtain feedback from ASUS but that has proven futile.

I hit the Web for answers to both BSODs and what I learned is that either problem ( driver state power failure and bad pool header) could emanate from a variety of sources, PC-wise.

It certainly seemed like a system problem initially, but re-installing the O/S and original software via recovery disks did not solve the problem.

It must have been the HD, then.

Nope.

So, I will boot into safe mode (again, for the umpteenth time) and use some of the Web resources I found for trying to solve both BSOD warnings for Win 7.

Who knows if it will work?

One thing that stood out in all my Web research was the consistent comment that allowing the problem to run too long or failing to solve either problem will ultimately render the computer useless.

Lovely.

Maybe that's a good thing because at this point I'm fed up with dealing with computers.

I'll try ang get an event log and pass along to you anything that looks really interesting.

Just don't expect it to happen this weekend.

Thanks for the input, though.

 

[OVERKILL]

This little article on the issue is why I asked for a log or the ID of the driver causing the dump:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1653253/fix-driver-power-state-failure-windows.html

Quote:
Note: The exact information of a problematic device driver can be found by going through the minidump file that is automatically generated by Windows 8 when the Blue Screen of Death appears. In order to view the generated minidump file that has .DMP extension, BlueScreenView can be downloaded and executed.


This applies to all NT-based OS's FYI, not just Windows 8 as outlined in the article.

It could be something as stupid as a video driver.

 

[dkryan]

Thanks.

I found a similar article specific to Win 7.

I'll try and get an event log before I do anything else.

The only external hardware I have is a wireless mouse, USB based printer, and a 3.0 USB hub.