[Xales]

Hello all, I am posting this for my younger brother who is having great issues with his laptop. It is a Toshiba Satellite M65-S9092 running Windows XP. The laptop used to be mine; I passed it on to him when I bought a new one, so he did get it used (As did I from our mother.) I will admit that I can be rather hard on technology and while the laptop was in my possession it hit a few door frames and I think I dropped it once or twice. However, when I gave it to my brother, though it ran some programs slowly and didn't like for more than five programs to be up and running, it did work without a problem.

My brother mainly used the computer for gaming and internet searches. There was a power cord issue which was resolved. The problem was the power cord I used had become too bent to be used and we purchased a new one, which did improve the laptop's functions, including speed. My brother could play his games while simultaneously doing an internet search, which he was not able to do when I first gave it to him.

The problems began about a week ago. The mouse will freeze on screen, however being the macho barbarian my brother is, he found a way to unfreeze the mouse by punching the area to the right of the mouse pad. Unethical, but effective. This was not a real cause for concern to my brother. However, later he and our younger sister were playign video games and my sister accidentally got her foot tangled in the power cord while the computer was still on. She yanked it out unknowingly and the laptop shut off because the battery is useless/broken. (We have not yet replaced it and my brother would often use the laptop with the battery pack removed, which also improved the laptops performance.)

My sister reconnected the power cord for my brother, however she, according to my brother, plugged it in backwards. As he put it "Positive with positive, negative with negative, and I don't think that's how it's supposed to go. It was plugged in upside down, I tell you." He fixed the problem, switching how my sister plugged it in. However, since then the problems have been the following:

• It would not turn on to start with
• Then it would turn on, but froze during start up, the screen with the loading bar, it would freeze there
• Then it would freeze at the log-in screen
• Now it will turn on and start to run Windows, but then will freeze and up pop the blue screen on doom, then immediately shut down
• It takes an improper shut down to even get the option of turning on in Safe Mode
• It freezes in Safe Mode, or does not allow him to even access Safe Mode beyond the log-in screen

As I was typing this, the blue screen popped up and remained on the screen long enough for us to read it. It says pretty much the following:

A problem been detected and Windows had been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

(Then it talks about if thsi is the first time you've seen that screen, restart. Talks about turning on in safe mode to uninstall new software, but like I said, he cannot access Safe Mode.)

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

*** STOP: 0X000000D1 (0XA6EBF2C0, 0X00000002, 0X00000001, 0XF72EE8C5)

*** USBPORT. SYS - Address F72EE8C5 base at F72D4000, DateStamp 41107d62



And that's pretty much it. My brother thinks the only solution is to "trash this puppy and get a new one". We're hoping at least something can be done, or at least get a second opinion about whether or not it's blue screened for the last time.

Thank you for any and all help,

Xales and her brother