Toshiba Satellite only runs in safe mode

My Toshiba Satellite A205-S4607(win7) fires up in safemode w/wo networking but in normal mode it crashes after a few minutes (hdd light steady non responsive system) I'll walk through my troubleshooting tree.

1) swapped HDD out of wifes toshiba (same Model) also running 7 - no joy
2) swapped Ram, ran AVG & ASC, reset BIOS - no joy
3) altered Reg Key to allow windows installer to run and uninstalled all non system related programs - no joy
4) updated all drivers through toshiba - no joy
5) altered Reg to allow WU, Event Log & Bits to run - ran windows update - no joy
6) set all services to either "disable" or "manual" to mirror safe mode - no joy

This has gotta be a hardware glitch But I have run stress test in safe mode and coud not crash or duplicate the discrepancy.

I am about to toss this thing out in the street and be done with it.
anybody need parts :-D

Also as a side note, this is an aged Laptop. 4-5 years old.

 

After backing up all of your data, you might want to do a factory reset using the following method.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/bulletin.jsp?soid=806477

 

Yes, it looks like you have tried just about everything.

Since it happens when running your wife's HD that really makes it hard to come up with a software culprit. Did you try running your HD in your wife's machine to see if the freeze occurs?

Maybe open Task Manager as soon as you start Windows and see if the Processes tab shows any high CPU usage as the freeze begins.

I know you manually disabled all the services but maybe try disabling in msconfig and see if it makes any difference. Start type in msconfig and <enter>, In the msconfig window go to Services tab and tick box for Hide all Microsoft Services and then hit the Disable All button. Restart and see if it still freezes. Probably will but can't hurt to verify.

 

Cool,

I'm gonna try the factory reset today afterwork. I'll post updates on if it fixes anything. Anybody think a fried BUS could be the root of this, Just getting a feeling that there is something faulty in the communication chain from HDD-RAM-BUS-Processor, But would think that anything along those lines would be a qualitive good/bad and not a partial system degrader?

P.S
Last night had an audible pop from speakers right at the point it froze.

Thanks for the help.