Few Basic PC Problems

eirebhoy

My PC is 6 or 7 months old and still under warrantly so I'll be giving Dell a call soon (I need my PC ATM). Anyway, last week the fan on the computer went really noisy when i turned it on and I had to turn it off with the power button straight away (before it reached the booting stage). I left it off for a few hours and since then is slightly louder than it was before.

I don't know if this is related but the PC has got a lot slower recently, opening up applications, etc.

I have EsatBT broadband, when I click on "Local Area Connection" for it to connect, I have to wait until it is connected before I can attempt to use the connection. For example, if I click on LAC and go onto to internet explorer before the connection is established, the taskbar freezes (I can still move the mouse and click on apps but they won't open and just make the problem worse) and most of the time I have to use the power button to turn it off.

Today I tried to open up a .doc file, it opened up and then turned off. I pressed CTRL ALT DEL and it wasn't listed. I then tried to connect to the internet to post this very topic and it wouldn't even try to connect. I went to restart my PC and a message came up telling my my .doc file is not responding, then about 3 or 4 more of those messages came up for different programs.

It just seems fúcked up in so many ways and I doubt its all related to the fan.

There are probably other things that I can't remember.

Any recommendations? Especially how I can open up my doc files now (I tried twice).

Deadwing

Well your fan and your doc problems are 2 seperate things, id say. Basically one is a hardware problem and another is software. If your fan is going dodgy id see about getting a replacement, because if its failing your pc will start overheating and youre in a world of hurt then.
As for the other problems, the pc is just slowing down at everything in general? Is you hard drive almost full? If so remove as much unneeded software as poss.
If ts slow at startup, you can use msconfig to select which programs turn on automatically at startup, get rid of msn messenger, yahoo, any kind of programs that access the internet on startup and could potentially be slowing you down.
Then the usual defrag, adware/spyware check wouldnt go amiss

pickarooney

You could do worse than backing up everything and reformatting. It's worth doing this every few months or so with Windows PCs.
However, if your fan is busted the machine may well be overheating which could cause irreperable damage.

Prior Of Taize

this fan problem could be a CMOS battery problem...something similar happened me before. Im just throwing out ideas...

The slowness with windows that you are experiencing is most definitely solved by a re-install of windows to be honest...Windows sucks by the way...

Sleipnir

Have you run a defrag lately?
Cleared temp files?
Cleared temp internet files?

Maybe you Office installation is knackered. Uninstall and reinstall.

egan007

My uncle had a similar problem with his Dell Pc. I reinstalled windows but to no effect
turned out to be a faulty motherboard.

eirebhoy

I had a huge reply done and I got one of those "report to microsoft" messages and had to close IE. Anyway, here's a brief summary.

I have load of free disk space, about 2 thirds free. I've ran Spyware, Adware, Defrag, deleted unused files, programs, etc, etc.

I clicked on the IE icon when I rebooted and it took about 10 seconds to open.

I opened a doc file, after about 20-30 seconds it opened. I tried to open the doc file I need (the one I previously tried with Microsoft Word and Open Office), I got the same problem and it was running in the background. It wasn't listed in the Applications tab on Ctrl-Alt-Del. When I went to restart the PC it asked me do I want to end it.

When I checked the Performance tab my CPU usage was at 100% and didn't dip once, my fan was going crazy which probably means it has something to do with this.

I tried to add attachments and IE stopped responding which goes back to the start of this post.

I'm afraid this bloody thing is going to rob my reply again so i'll post anything else when I remember.

pickarooney

Strange, Microsoft Works of all things seems to be eating your processor power. Try uninstalling that.

Hagar

Is it the CPU fan or the PSU fan?
If it's the PSU fan you have a fire risk on your hands.
If its the CPU fan your chip will run hot and give strange results.
Either way its a hardware issue rather than software, back up your data ASAP and get a warranty repair from Dell.

eirebhoy

Hagar wrote:

Is it the CPU fan or the PSU fan?

I'm not well up on PC's so I honestly couldn't tell you. One thing I can tell you that I haven't mentioned because I'd be only 10-20% sure and didn't want to be laughed at, I thought I saw smoke coming from it when it was at its loudest. It was 1am and it was slightly dark so don't quote me on that.

Just about an hour ago when it was noisy I put my hand over the fan for a second and the noise was smothered. Its the top fan if thats any help (thats if there is such thing as the top fan ).

Cheers.

Sleipnir

But when you do call Dell :

"I definately did see smoke come out of it. Of that I have no doubts"

eirebhoy

Sleipnir wrote:

But when you do call Dell :

"I definately did see smoke come out of it. Of that I have no doubts"

hehe If its not uncommon for a PC to smoke up I'd be certainly a lot more confident that I saw some.

RicardoSmith

Prior Of Taize wrote:

this fan problem could be a CMOS battery problem......

Please explain how?

RicardoSmith

eirebhoy wrote:

hehe If its not uncommon for a PC to smoke up I'd be certainly a lot more confident that I saw some.

I'd say its rare. The top fan is likely to be the PSU, but that and the other problems are unrelated. Sounds like the PSU is overheating to me. Smoke is a very bad sign.

The important point is you bought a dell with support included (I assume its still valid) so you should use Dell support since you paid for it. All anyone here can do is guess what the problem is. If you were in D.15 I'd offer to look at it for you.