- Jul 8, 2014
- 20
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- 4,520
I have picked up a customers Dell XPS 8300, AGAIN. A brief overview...
A while back I had to replace a HDD in the machine. It houses 2 1TB drives, no RAID. All good for about 6 months.
The customer advised me that the machine wouldn't power on. I.e. she presses the button, it makes a 'funny whirring noise like the fans are really loud' (her words not mine) and nothing appears on the screen, but the power light it on the tower. No BIOS screen, but lights on the keyboard. Sometimes, it WILL boot/come on normally, other times it will exhibit these problems.
We ran the full Dell diagnostics - this came back clear. I suggested replacing the PSU with a better one, as a cheap, quick attempt to fix, so we went to 500W from 350W.
Nope, problem is still present - sporadic non-booting. Then, the machine started telling her that it had bad RAM (DELL beep codes). UBCD diagnostics confirmed this. We replaced the RAM, ran diagnostics, no problems.
Now, the problem has come back. I am thinking, it can't be the HDD, can it? As it tests okay (when it boots) as the BBIOS hasn't even started!?
I am thinking the only things left to do/try?..:
Change battery/update BIOS;
Is it a Video Card (1GB Video card in the slot) problem? - Tests okay.
Mobo or CPU issue?
Any ideas? Anyone else had a similar issue?
Feeling frustrated...
A while back I had to replace a HDD in the machine. It houses 2 1TB drives, no RAID. All good for about 6 months.
The customer advised me that the machine wouldn't power on. I.e. she presses the button, it makes a 'funny whirring noise like the fans are really loud' (her words not mine) and nothing appears on the screen, but the power light it on the tower. No BIOS screen, but lights on the keyboard. Sometimes, it WILL boot/come on normally, other times it will exhibit these problems.
We ran the full Dell diagnostics - this came back clear. I suggested replacing the PSU with a better one, as a cheap, quick attempt to fix, so we went to 500W from 350W.
Nope, problem is still present - sporadic non-booting. Then, the machine started telling her that it had bad RAM (DELL beep codes). UBCD diagnostics confirmed this. We replaced the RAM, ran diagnostics, no problems.
Now, the problem has come back. I am thinking, it can't be the HDD, can it? As it tests okay (when it boots) as the BBIOS hasn't even started!?
I am thinking the only things left to do/try?..:
Change battery/update BIOS;
Is it a Video Card (1GB Video card in the slot) problem? - Tests okay.
Mobo or CPU issue?
Any ideas? Anyone else had a similar issue?
Feeling frustrated...
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