Hello!

I own a Dell Inspiron 4150 (yes, old laptop, but I love it). Yesterday I took it for a bike ride in my backpack and then when I came back later in the day I resumed work on a project. The computer worked fine until all of a sudden it gave me the Blue Screen O' Death. I did not catch the entire message but I think it was the DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_EQUAL_TO or whatever it is. So I powered it down, and when I tried turning it back on, it would turn on for about 5 seconds, the busy light would flash a few times then it would just shut off. The monitor stays black throughout the entire process.

So, I thought the RAM modules could be coming loose or something so I took a quick peek inside and everything seemed in order. So I undocked the laptop and tried turning it on again, but the same thing kept happening. So, out of frustration, I picked it up and shook it around like an insane moron (yes, I know it's not a good idea). But to my surprise the computer was able to start up (a couple times it froze at the menu where it asks you to press F2 to access the menu). So I decided I had to back up my files, but when I opened Explorer, the computer just locked up. No sound, or BSOD's, or anything. Simply frozen. So after force-shutting it down, I tried starting it up again. It had resumed doing the immediate shut-down.

Now I'm at a loss of what to do, because I can't back up my files or access anything without the computer locking up randomly!

Thank you in advance for your help (if you guys want to see a short video clip of what it does, I'll see if I can upload one. But basically I press the power button, the power light turns on, the busy light flashes for about 4 seconds, then everything just shuts off. The monitor doesn't even get a chance to go to the startup splash screen (it says blank the entire time).

Your motherboard could very well be bad. Your data is probably still recoverable, but you would need to take your hard drive out and hook it up as a secondary to a computer. Doing this would also aid in your hard drive diagnostic. If it still didn't work as a secondary drive, it is your hard drive. You could try switching the slots the RAM is in. If its an old laptop its probably not worth the repair (they are typically WAY to expensive to repair). Go to your local computer repairmen and get him to back up your data for you. Best buy will charge you 79 dollars, I'm not sure about anyone else.

Oh and on another note, I use a Usb2.0 PCMIA card. When the computer was able to start up a few minutes ago, I tried plugging the card in. The moment it was plugged in, the computer gives me the BSoD, this time claiming about PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

I don't know if these two problems are connected. I still can't start the computer up, with or without the card.