- Jun 19, 2009
- 12
- 0
- 18,510
Hi there,
I'm trying to fix my aunt's Dell Inspiron. I'm not sure how old it is, but judging that it came with Vista gives a relatively small window to guess in. It recently stopped booting Vista properly. It will stick at the Windows Vista "loading bar" and never advance. I reinstalled Vista fresh using the motherboard's built-in recovery utility, but was surprised when even this yielded the same result. It never advances past the Vista loading bar, even after Vista reinstalled without any issues.
So I ran diagnostics from the boot options (an hour or so of memory tests and such), which led me to a "symptom tree" where I ran the tests under "Cannot Boot the OS." These tests took several hours to run, but all passed. They are:
L1 Cache - L1 Data Cache Pattern Test
L1 Cache - L1 Data Cache Walking Bit Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache Pattern Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache Walking Bit Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache MATS Test
Realtime Clock - RTC Functionality Test
Realtime Clock - CMOS Confidence Test
System Time - Timer Functionality Test
Interrupt Controller - PIC Functionality Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Dirty Cache Reads Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Alternating CPU Writes Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Random Access Thrash Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Dirty Cache Reads Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Alternating CPU Writes Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Random Access Thrash Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Confidence Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Device Quick Check
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Drive self-test (Long)
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Drive self-test (Short)
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Read Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Seek Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - SMART Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Start unit (Idle) command
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Stop unit (Standby) command
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Verify Test
So all the testing the mobo can do shows no hardware failure, and a fresh install makes it hard to say it's software failure from what I can tell, but I'm no expert.
Does anyone have an idea of what to try next? It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I'm trying to fix my aunt's Dell Inspiron. I'm not sure how old it is, but judging that it came with Vista gives a relatively small window to guess in. It recently stopped booting Vista properly. It will stick at the Windows Vista "loading bar" and never advance. I reinstalled Vista fresh using the motherboard's built-in recovery utility, but was surprised when even this yielded the same result. It never advances past the Vista loading bar, even after Vista reinstalled without any issues.
So I ran diagnostics from the boot options (an hour or so of memory tests and such), which led me to a "symptom tree" where I ran the tests under "Cannot Boot the OS." These tests took several hours to run, but all passed. They are:
L1 Cache - L1 Data Cache Pattern Test
L1 Cache - L1 Data Cache Walking Bit Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache Pattern Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache Walking Bit Test
L2 Cache - L2 Cache MATS Test
Realtime Clock - RTC Functionality Test
Realtime Clock - CMOS Confidence Test
System Time - Timer Functionality Test
Interrupt Controller - PIC Functionality Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Dirty Cache Reads Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Alternating CPU Writes Test
L1 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Random Access Thrash Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Dirty Cache Reads Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Alternating CPU Writes Test
L2 Cache (Multiprocessor) - Random Access Thrash Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Confidence Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Device Quick Check
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Drive self-test (Long)
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Drive self-test (Short)
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Read Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Seek Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - SMART Test
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Start unit (Idle) command
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Stop unit (Standby) command
SATA Disk S/N= 59SFT46AT - Verify Test
So all the testing the mobo can do shows no hardware failure, and a fresh install makes it hard to say it's software failure from what I can tell, but I'm no expert.
Does anyone have an idea of what to try next? It would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
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