Odd problem, have a customer’s Toshiba Satellite laptop that was brought in because XP was locking up shortly after boot.
Complete lock up, mouse cursor and capslock/etc lights as well, stops responding to power button (not even the usual hold-for-a-few-seconds for manual powerdown), completely removing power is the only way to shut down the system.
We have been able to reproduce the problem using a DOS boot CD and any software that accesses the drive’s SMART data.
I have replaced the SATA HDD, no affect. I have removed or disabled all the hardware components I am able to, replaced memory. It will run memtest or active@killdisk 24/7 without locking up, but immediately locks up on SMART access only.
Any suggestions appreciated.
-Michael
