Thread: HP laptop problem - memory - module error not functional

Hey, I have my Mother's HP ENVY m6 "Entertainment PC" (whatever that means) and she gave it to me to fix it. I can't speak of what started happening to it when she first started having problems since I was never present but she kept telling me it would shut off. Well, now that I have it in my possession, if I turn it on it would work for a little while (10 minutes maybe) and then shut off and I wouldn't be able to turn it back on. I noticed if it sat for a while till it got cool that it would start up again so at first I thought there was some kind of heating issue. OH, by the way, this computer is less than 3 years old, but I don't know the exact date my Mother purchased it. Anyways, I did some browsing around on the internet on how to trouble shoot the issue and that's when I learned of the code the caps lock and/or num lock led lights would blink after the shut down. The code is either two digit or single digit. Mine happens to be single digit with 3 blinks. I looked it up and it says the problem is with the memory. The exact error message is "module error not functional". Well, I turned it over to check the memory to see if I see any indicators of an obvious problem. There's two sticks of 4 GB each. One is on top of the other. I didn't see any noticeable issues, so I removed the top stick and booted up the PC to test it. Everything seems to work perfectly normal, no shut downs at all. Although, it's quite slow. My intention is to get it back to 8 GB because this 4 GB will not do. My question is, was it the memory, the seat, or something else? Is there a way to test the memory itself? I'd hate to go out and buy another stick just so I could test it and find out that there's a problem with the seat or something else on the board. Any tips?

There are ram testing hardware solutions out there but they are NOT cheap. So you might want to give your local computer shops a call and see if they have a ram tester available. If not and you can get your hands on another laptop that would be another way to test it.

You might also, if the laptop can handle it, pull both 4GB sodimms and buy a single 8GB stick.

I guess it was that top memory stick. I moved the other 4 GB memory stick to the top slot and the laptop is working fine.

So now I'm stuck with trying to decide on what memory upgrade I want to make. I'm guessing the benefit of using beyond 8 GB total is so small that it's practically non-existent, right? The information I find on the internet is a little inconsistent.

The other issue is, the laptop had windows 8, not 8.1, and not pro either unfortunately, but I just completed a free upgrade to 8.1 (non-pro once again) but from a business perspective I want to get pro on there. What are my options as far as how to go about doing that? Here's one thought I had. A couple years ago I bought Windows 7 professional for my desktop and recently I did the free upgrade to windows 10 pro. So now I'm wondering if I would be able to use that Windows 7 professional disc on my Mother's laptop and then request the free upgrade to Windows 10 from there. The question is, is the software key from my old Windows 7 professional disc the same as the key to my free Windows 10 pro operating system? Would my Windows 7 professional disc work on my Mother's laptop?

More than 8 go can actually be useful. This is only my personal experience but I have found laptops with 12 or 16 gigs of ram tend to run smoother, faster and load/launch programs better. That's just a subjective opinion. I have to testing to back that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I just upgraded to win10 the other day from Windows 8.1 Pro and you can ONLY do an upgrade, not a clean install. So yea, you could wipe and install Windows 7 pro, then install the upgrade and it should be Windows 10 Pro. The trick is that Windows 7/8 needs to be activated before you upgrade to Windows 10. If your 7 pro activates and you have a valid key or whatever, then you're fine. I think the only thing you're missing out on would be joining it to a domain and maybe a few other things, can't recall completely.

Back on the memory thing, you can download memtest for free and boot to it, it should be able to tell you whether a module is faulty or not. 8GB is pretty solid these days and 4 is low. After getting 8GB your next upgrade (or maybe your first) should be an SSD instead of the mechanical drive.

Originally Posted by nihilanth311

I just upgraded to win10 the other day from Windows 8.1 Pro and you can ONLY do an upgrade, not a clean install.

Not true. I had/have (disc) 8.1 Pro, and I did the clean install.

You have to do the Upgrade first and make sure it gets activated (registered...whatever), then you can do the clean install.
Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Reset PC > then choose the option to erase all files and folders, and it will install a shiny-fresh W10.

Be warned, though, that once you do the clean install, there is no going back to W8.1 Pro as it deletes the grace/trial period when you install the clean version of W10.

Originally Posted by nihilanth311

I just upgraded to win10 the other day from Windows 8.1 Pro and you can ONLY do an upgrade, not a clean install. So yea, you could wipe and install Windows 7 pro, then install the upgrade and it should be Windows 10 Pro. The trick is that Windows 7/8 needs to be activated before you upgrade to Windows 10. If your 7 pro activates and you have a valid key or whatever, then you're fine. I think the only thing you're missing out on would be joining it to a domain and maybe a few other things, can't recall completely.

Back on the memory thing, you can download memtest for free and boot to it, it should be able to tell you whether a module is faulty or not. 8GB is pretty solid these days and 4 is low. After getting 8GB your next upgrade (or maybe your first) should be an SSD instead of the mechanical drive.

I guess I don't fully understand how keys work. Can they be used more than once and why or why not? I supposed it was my understanding that Microsoft had a way of limiting a key's use. Is this not true? Take office software for example, what's to prevent someone from using the same disc on multiple computers?

Once a copy of Windows 10 has been installed and activated over a legit copy of Windows 7 or 8 then it binds to your hardware. You can then reinstall a clean install.
You need to download the Microsoft media creation tool. Then you make a bootable usb or Iso to dvd etc.
the key is when during the install process you are asked to input the product key (which happens twice, once in the beginning and once after the reboot) you simply pick "skip" and "do this later" ( I think those are the options).
If you do that on the clean install once you are up and running again it will activate once it verifies the hardware hadn't changed.
You can do this on desktops and laptops. I can confirm I have done both 3 to 4 times each.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The two statements above seem conflicting to me though. It sounds like Rumble is saying that It's Windows 10 that binds to hardware and I can then do a clean install of windows 7 with the same key that was originally used for the first system that had windows 7 originally. In other words, is the windows 7 key affiliated with my windows 10 upgrade?

Or maybe I misunderstood Rumble's statement?