Driver troubleshooting?

[AnomalyNexus]

I'm supposed to troubleshoot a laptop in ~7 days that is BSoDing at random intervals. Same laptop as this thread and this thread.

I know its going to be tricky to pinpoint and I don't really have a plan of attack on this. Known facts:

• Dell 1520
• Vista upgraded to Win 7
• x86_64
• Memtest run is clean

I suspect that its a driver issue, but where do I start on that? They were all preinstalled and survived the Win7 upgrade.

There is a recovery partition but I don't think recovery DVDs were ever made. Now its probably too late after the upgrade.

How would you troubleshoot this?

 

[LazyLion]

try this post for a start...

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=2504827&postcount=326

 

[AnomalyNexus]

try this post for a start...

http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=2504827&postcount=326

Nuking the whole thing is an option I guess. I was thinking more along the lines out troubleshooting though.

 

[davemc]

How would I troubleshoot it?

A. Re-create the problem, on demand.

Without this, I'll never know if I have fixed the problem.

Then I would solve each of these, and stop when I can no longer re-create the problem.

1. Install temperature monitoring software, and monitor the temperature.
2. Remove every little bit of clutter (non required programs and services and old driver versions)
3. Examine the system-log for problems on boot.
4. Look for a Bios upgrade and flash it.
5. Look for motherboard specific drivers and install the ones that are known to be stable.
6. Replace the operating system, going back to Windows XP SP2.
7. Throw the laptop away.

 

[AnomalyNexus]

1. Install temperature monitoring software, and monitor the temperature.
2. Remove every little bit of clutter (non required programs and services and old driver versions)
3. Examine the system-log for problems on boot.
4. Look for a Bios upgrade and flash it.
5. Look for motherboard specific drivers and install the ones that are known to be stable.

That sounds like a solid plan. Thanks. Esp the logs. Completely forgot about those.

A. Re-create the problem, on demand.

I suspect that this is going to be difficult in this case.

Anyway. I'll probably resurrect this thread when I've got the laptop.