Ultimate Boot CD

first of all, thank you so much to all the developers of this amazing tool. so far, i have already pinpointed bad ram on my fiance's laptop. i want to replace the ram, but before i do, i want to test the rest of her hardware, to make sure that the ram is the only problem.

as a sidenote, she has a laptop, so if there are too many pieces of hardware that are broke, it may not be fixable, and i want to be sure before i put money into a irrepairable computer... i'm concerned, because apparently its common for her computer to get *very* hot, and lately, she has been having alot of bluescreens and unstability in general. i'm concerned that she may have fried more than just ram.

so basically, i'm looking for some direction as to how i can test her motherboard and cpu. i've checked out her hdd, and it is good. those are the only two other pieces of hardware that i can think of that may be causing problems. thank you so much, and i apologize for my noobishness. i'm very new to ubcd, and the utilities in it.

edit: typo's and added clarity

I believe that there is a CPU burn in tester that you can use on the processor itself. Other than that, i would suggest the manufacturers diagnostics for the rest of the hardware. If the laptop maker does not have a comprehensive suite of diags, then I am not sure... If it is a Dell, you are in luck and same with IBM. Others I am not so sure on...

i tried the cpu burn-in testers included on the ubcd, but never could get a clear pass or fail... possibly i just don't know how to use them right; i'm very new to all of these utilities. maybe someone could tell me which of the cpu utilities would best suit my needs.

about the manufacturer's diagnostics, the laptop is a gateway, and i haven't come across any gateway specific hardware diagnostics. ill keep my eyes open though, and thanks for the suggestions.

The BSOD and unstability are the common signs of bad RAM. I have found that installing Windows XP is about the best "burn in" test you can use.

As for the heat, that is common with laptops. Things that come to mind would be very dirty (or broken) fans in the laptop. I would inspect all the fans and see how badly built up the dust is.

our susicions were correct. i replaced the ram, and now everything is working fine. i bought some compressed air and plan to attempt to clean any dust out of the fans/vents. also, i'm going to have her be more careful and aware of the temperature. thanks for the help!

As a general rule, once you have a known bad part, you should remove/replace it before doing further troubleshooting.