page_fault_in_nonpaged_area

So I come by to visit the family, and moms laptop has a problem.

The laptop reboots right after POST, where the WinXP (WinXp Home) loading screen is, I see a blue screen but it reboots immediately so I can't tell what it says.

I couldn't find the original disc so had to download winxp iso and use the recovery. Boot it up from disc, gets to the main menu, press R for recovery, and I get the blue screen that says "page_fault_in_nonpaged_area," going by what google says it sounds pretty bad, as far as the laptop dying, bad ram, or something else.

Anyone have suggestions?

Currently running a memtest, and I'll check back on the laptop in a few hours. It's really weird because I was using it last night and it was working perfectly. Only thing I gathered was that the laptop fell a few months ago about a foot high from the coffee table but it was still running and working perfectly fine.

Tried twice to let the memtest run for more than a few hours but it shuts off at some point, sometime after the first pass. I dunno what else to do.

So going to try and reformat the laptop, if that doesn't work, guessing it's a bad HDD.

>>3
If it's shutting off during memtest, then it shouldn't be the HDD.  Have you checked the voltage levels?  It could be the PSU.  A flaky power supply can cause all manner of seemingly unconnected problems.

>>4

Haven't thought of it being the PSU. Do laptops really have a PSU? If not going to guess it's the batteries? Tried it with and without the battery. Didn't try to reformat to check the HDD, cause she has some very important pictures of my brother's recent graduation, of course there being no backups.

But thanks

>>5
Sort of.  Something's got to translate the power from the batteries/cord to the right voltages and distribute it to the components, after all.  They have a sort of rudimentary PSU that splits the input power (from cord or battery) to of a set of voltage regulators.  This is half of what a desktop PSU does (the other half being to convert AC from the line to DC).  If you can check in BIOS, there may be a hardware monitor (often in a sub-menu) that will tell you what your actual voltages are on the various rails (CPU core, 3.3V, 5V, and 12V).  If the voltage is too low it will cause problems (tolerance is usually 5%, with more than 10% being enough to potentially cause damage).  With or without the battery would probably make no difference if the regulators are dodgy.

For example, I recently replaced the PSU on my desktop, because it was having similar problems.  In diagnosing the problem, I discovered that the 5V rail was only delivering 4.51V (anything below 4.75 is too low, and below 4.5 could cause serious damage or simply fail to boot).  After replacement, the problem was solved.  This is a fairly common occurrence, because even a good PSU will degrade over time.  Unfortunately, it's not so easy to replace bad power components on a laptop, but a pro might be able to do it.

It might or might not be the power supply in your case, but it's worth checking the voltages if possible, because a bad power supply could certainly cause memory errors even if the memory itself is fine.

I wouldn't reformat.  For one, I really don't think it's likely to be the HDD.  If it's shutting off on it's own during memtest, the HDD won't have caused that, because memtest doesn't use the HDD.  Memtest runs from the floppy or CD (whichever you installed it on), and never accesses the HDD.  For another, I've had corrupted filesystems before, and they don't cause a page fault in the recovery console.  I would seriously suspect the culprit to either be the power supply, RAM, or the mobo.

>>6

Ah, thanks. Tried going to bios and look all over for a hardware monitor but couldn't find it. All it had was your basic menu, boot order, password and stuff. Checked everything. I guess there's no choice than going to the local pc shop and do a diagnostic, but before that I'll order some ram, it's 10 bucks and worth a shot.

Thanks