A customer dropped her laptop (a packard bell easynote G5) while it was running (now gives a read error while booting). A quick inspection shows that that is not much hope of recovering data. I take it to the office, and sure enough, the drive cannot be imaged.

Customer is content to get a replacement 60Gb HDD.

I install the drive, install XP. But, as often happens, there are no drivers for the ethernet, video, sound, modem, etc. Luckily the usb drivers work.

All I need to do go to the packard bell website, and download the drivers…

Hold on… the website has drivers for a few laptops, but not an easynote G5… nothing even remotely similar, not even a search on the model number or serial number gives anything.

A bit more searching shows that packard bell is just a “front” for NEC corporation.

After a lot more guesswork, and pulling out hair, I eventually find out that the G5 is actually an NEC Versa E6000

Why do they make things so complicated?

Anyway, I quite like the laptop. Its a pearl-white colour, including the keyboard and power supply/cables… quite different from all the black/dark grey laptops out there.

So I finally download and install all the correct drivers, installation is smooth, and the customer is happy (she got a 80Gb HDD instead of the 60GB, due to delays with my supplier 🙂

about 10 days later, customer calls saying she has started getting random blue screens, followed by a computer restart. I explain about BSOD, and arrange to visit and see if there is something I can do.

The laptop had no problems while I was testing and tuning it. She agrees that it worked fine for about 5 days, before the blue screens started appearing.

So its quite likely that the fault developed after I completed my work.

While examining the PC, it didn’t give a single error.

I change the windows settings, so that in the event of a BSOD, it won’t automatically restart. Since she doesn’t use wireless, I notice that the laptops wireless card will occasionally pick up a wireless network that is just barely within range. A wireless network that is constantly appearing and disappearing, could confuse poor old XP, so I decide to disable the wireless as well.

Under the laptop: there is no panel for allowing more memory to be added. I was hoping to re-seat the RAM, in case it was causing the BSODs.

Oh well, all I can do now, is ask the customer to keep an eye on the PC, and note down the first few BSOD numbers, as I might be able to narrow the cause of the problem.

I haven’t heard back for about 2 weeks now.