Random hard-freezing on 5670

For some reason, my poor Sager is randomly freezing a couple of times a day. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it seems pretty random. I've run memtest on about 4 loops with no errors, I've checked the HDD a couple of times with no errors, I've re-installed windows a couple of times, installing only the drivers straight from sager's website and still it keeps freezing! I can have no programs running or Doom3 running, it doesn't seem to be related to stressing the components at all. My guess it a bad driver, as occasionally it comes up with a 'irql not less or equal' error. If this is a common problem, I haven't been able to find the answer anywhere on this or other forums. I did recently get an m-audio mobilepre external soundcard, but I'm pretty sure the computer was freezing before I got it. I'll un-install it and see if the problem goes away (unfortunately, it sometimes takes days, sometimes hours to repeat.)


The other problem I've been having is my CD burner doesn't actually burn cd's. It thinks it does, it even goes through the motions in iTunes, windows xp's built-in burning, nero, and wmp, but when I put the CD back in, it is still blank! I visually check it, and there's clearly nothing on it. This same cd burned fine in my desktop machine. Do I need a new CD burner or new drivers or what? I just recently bought this machine used and this problem has been here from the start (I think this might be why I got such a good deal on it!)

I'm using MobileMeter, and have been keeping it in the desktop so when it freezes I can see what temp it was at. Unfortunately, it has done it anywhere from 44* to 55*, with seemingly no relationship. I'm using XP Pro, btw.

In relation to the CD burner, I'm 100% sure I'm burning it, as 2 of the programs I've used don't have a 'test' burn. The drive seems to read all kinds of cd's just fine, with the exception of taking longer than my desktop drive to do so (I figure its a laptop drive, so it should be slower). After the cd is 'burned' on my laptop, I can then throw it in my desktop machine and burn onto it just fine, indicating there was no burn at all. Does burning use a different lazer than reading and, if so, could that lazer either be dead or dusty? I haven't dusted this thing out ever, so maybe that would be a good idea.


On a semi-related note, assuming I could get the random freezing problem fixed, and assuming I get a new dvd-burner for this thing, how much are they going for these days?



update: I left the computer on all night with almost no problems, except my linksys pcmcia 802.11b wireless card stopped being able to find my or my neighbor's wireless connection (both of which are never, ever hard to connect to). When I went to unplug the card, the computer froze! And I remember at least a couple of other times, the computer froze while loading a webpage. Could the problem have to do with the wireless card? I'll use the computer hard-wired for a couple days to see if the problem goes away.

^^^bump

so... does anybody actually read these forums or what?

Yeah, I guess I'm just used to [H] forums (several thousand people/day!). Thanks for the tip on mobmeter; I'll uninstall that right away. Have people had problems with it in the past? I hope its not the touchpad drivers, 'cause I'm a big fan of scrolling using the right side of the pad... I'll do what you said, though.

I ran 4 rounds of memtest with perfect results, so I would guess it would be a driver problem. Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the info on the mouse; come to think of it, every time it froze I seem to remember being in the middle of scrolling or moving the mouse! I've been using the machine for the last couple of days w/o an external mouse and have not experienced any freezing whatsoever! I think we may have the problem licked! (With the exception of needing the external mouse to work: perhaps I should use drivers from Logitech instead of windows' default mouse driver?

In relation to the DVD drive, I was looking at that one the other day. Assuming I got that and installed it, how much is my machine worth? Just wondering, and thank you so much for the help