help - diagnose old laptop problem

Khalim

hi there,

to all the helpful and insightful members of the computer forum of boards.ie, i would like to ask for your assistance.

my system is a 4 year old dell inspiron 3800 intel p3 600 mhz
256 MB ram, onboard sound.

running windows XP and has been running it comfortably until this morning.

while i was reading up my favourite comics on the net, the system just froze and did not respond - no keyboard and mouse response. i waited for a while (5 minutes) and still no response.

so i did what most impatient non-techies did - i manually switched it off

the problem is now my pc couldn't start up - at first.
i switched on the power button and still no signs of life in the machine. (and yes the power cable was connected to the mains)

after a while i just gave up.

2 hours later i tried again - i managed to get to the logon screen and then it went blank

i could hear the machine humming in the background.

i then thought it was the monitor so i restarted the pc - the same problem happened - the monitor appears to function properly until after logging in.

so - any opinions on what the problem might be?

if not, i could just send it somewhere for laptop repairs just to run a systems check.

if the repair costs are high i might as well invest in a new pc.

thanks in advance.

-Khalim

KdjaCL

Hit F8 just after the Dell screen on boot ,and try start it in safe mode.

If you do go to Control Panel /Admin tools /Event Viewer a red X will show you what happened.


Kdjac

Khalim

i think my laptop's problem has just got worse

i tried to do as you suggested, now it seems to freeze on the Dell screen.

any ideas why it would do that?

KdjaCL

Have you added extra ram lately??
Can you get into the BIOS and check the hard drive is showing as ok.


kdjac

Khalim

i haven't added any extra ram since last year.

i managed to get into the BIOS but as luck would have it, it seems to freeze up in there as well

tell it to me straight, it doesn't look good does it?

KdjaCL

Very strange problem, its not ****ed if it turns on ,thats always a good thing.

Is your battery buggered???


Can take it out and run off the mains.

kdjac

Khalim

this laptop just gets weirder by the minute

i unplugged the mains - just to try the opposite of what you said.

it started up okay - i'll try and leave it on for a while

if it acts up again - i will post it up

thanks for your help kdjac.

Khalim

i was a bit too hasty there - only a few minutes and it froze again!

i'll try what you suggested.

KdjaCL

think its a power issue , but cant be sure without seeing it.
try running with power and no battery and battery with no power.


Also try a diff socket its a long shot but may help.

kdjac

joePC

Yes it sounds like a power issues. Could be the adapter is going.

Another thing could be overheating have sure the fan is working in the laptop.

Thanks joePC

Khalim

thanks guys for your help - unfortunately the problem is still not solved

had to get away for a week thinking what to do...

i've personally given up hope of fixing this meself.

anyone knows where i could get this veteran machine fixed?

thanks

-Khalim

Typedef

To be honest, if it was a power issue the thing wouldn't be freezing up.

Perhaps you have a buggered hard disk, which is magically disappearing due to it being broken.

Else, I'd say IRQ conflict.

Like I say, if it was a problem with power, the thing would switch off as opposed to lock up.

I'd be looking at a floppy disk, CDROM or Hard disk that the bios seeks and finds during startup and then due to said device being broken suddenly stops working *that* would be the sort of thing to hang a system, during BIOS seek/randomly thereafter.

Try removing floppy disk and CDROM, and then confirm that the BIOS is seeing your hard disk.

If all else fails, load setup defaults.