Dimension 4500 locking up

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

D 4500, WinXP all updates.

This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or anything.
You would
be working and then all would just stop and freeze.

I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little slow),
so this is what I
have done so far.

Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and booted
up
again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
It took roughly the same amount of time.
I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
Still froze in the same amount of time.
Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on the
CPU.
Still froze in the same amount of time.
The fan in the Power Supply works fine

When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes the
A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights means
"Recovery mode from BIOS failure".

Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun 8th.

Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.

moncho
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

did you try safemode??
hit the f8 key immediately after the post screen and when the little
menu comes up, select safe mode and continue. that should work better.

i have also seen spyware/viruses stop you at the position you are
experiencing.


moncho wrote:
> D 4500, WinXP all updates.
>
> This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or anything.
> You would
> be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
>
> I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little slow),
> so this is what I
> have done so far.
>
> Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
> I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
> The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
> I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and booted
> up
> again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
> It took roughly the same amount of time.
> I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
> Still froze in the same amount of time.
> Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on the
> CPU.
> Still froze in the same amount of time.
> The fan in the Power Supply works fine
>
> When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes the
> A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights means
> "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
>
> Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun 8th.
>
> Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
>
> moncho
>
>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Did you call Dell Technical Support and explain your situation? Many times,
I have seen tech support lend assistance in a case such as yours. Just
because the date of your warranty has passed, within reason, does not
necessarily mean you won't get help. And I don't mean help you have to pay
for.

"Jay B" <jayb@audiman.net> wrote in message
news:8JEre.107$Lg4.105@fe12.lga...
> did you try safemode??
> hit the f8 key immediately after the post screen and when the little
> menu comes up, select safe mode and continue. that should work better.
>
> i have also seen spyware/viruses stop you at the position you are
> experiencing.
>
>
> moncho wrote:
> > D 4500, WinXP all updates.
> >
> > This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or
anything.
> > You would
> > be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
> >
> > I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little
slow),
> > so this is what I
> > have done so far.
> >
> > Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
> > I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
> > The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
> > I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and
booted
> > up
> > again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
> > It took roughly the same amount of time.
> > I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
> > Still froze in the same amount of time.
> > Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on
the
> > CPU.
> > Still froze in the same amount of time.
> > The fan in the Power Supply works fine
> >
> > When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
the
> > A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
means
> > "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
> >
> > Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun
8th.
> >
> > Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
> >
> > moncho
> >
> >
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

While the 4500 manual advises contacting Dell for help, the 8100 manual
advises how to fix this problem. It requires you open the case, set the
configuration jumper (I believe this is labeled "RTCRST") to Maintenance
mode (jumpered) and then restart the computer. Then exit and save changes
in the system setup program (BIOS). Turn off the computer and reset the
configuration jumper to Normal mode, and then start the computer. (I
believe that it forces the BIOS to re-read the hardware and reallocate the
resources to each.)

Here's the reference.
http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dsleest/codemess.htm

> When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
the
> A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
means
> "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Jay B" <jayb@audiman.net> wrote in message
news:8JEre.107$Lg4.105@fe12.lga...
> did you try safemode??
> hit the f8 key immediately after the post screen and when the little menu
> comes up, select safe mode and continue. that should work better.
>
> i have also seen spyware/viruses stop you at the position you are
> experiencing.

I thought about going into safe mode but even when I had the HD's and
CD-ROM's
unplugged to see if it was the power supply and not even booting to Windows
at all, the pc still locked up.

I looked at SDG's reply about resetting the BIOS and was going to start
going down that
road.

The only problem I had was that this seemed like a hardware problem and not
necessarily
a software issue.

I solved the problem early this morning.

Thanks for your help,

moncho

>
>
> moncho wrote:
>> D 4500, WinXP all updates.
>>
>> This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or
>> anything. You would
>> be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
>>
>> I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little
>> slow), so this is what I
>> have done so far.
>>
>> Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
>> I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
>> The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
>> I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and
>> booted up
>> again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
>> It took roughly the same amount of time.
>> I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
>> Still froze in the same amount of time.
>> Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on
>> the CPU.
>> Still froze in the same amount of time.
>> The fan in the Power Supply works fine
>>
>> When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
>> the
>> A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
>> means
>> "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
>>
>> Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun
>> 8th.
>>
>> Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
>>
>> moncho
 
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Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"moncho" <moncho@NOspamAMmeritech.net> wrote in message
news:WyAre.1036$G55.846@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
>D 4500, WinXP all updates.
>
> This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or anything.
> You would
> be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
>
> I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little slow),
> so this is what I
> have done so far.
>
> Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
> I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
> The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
> I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and booted
> up
> again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
> It took roughly the same amount of time.
> I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
> Still froze in the same amount of time.
> Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on the
> CPU.
> Still froze in the same amount of time.
> The fan in the Power Supply works fine
>
> When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
> the
> A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
> means
> "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
>
> Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun 8th.
>
> Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
>
> moncho

Solved the problem early this morning.

On a hunch, I decided to take out the memory and replace it with some from
another
4500 machine. The only reason I did this was because I just remembered I
had
a similar problem with my wife's computer about 2.5 years ago.

That was it. When I swapped chips, the other 4500 exhibited the same
problem as the
original and the original is working just fine. On for an hour an or so now
and it has not locked
up.

What blows my mind is that there were no messages surrounding the memory at
all, either
with the BIOS or diag lights.

Thanks for everyones help.

moncho
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"moncho" <moncho@NOspamAMmeritech.net> wrote in message
news:sgTre.1192$aa2.771@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com...
>
> "moncho" <moncho@NOspamAMmeritech.net> wrote in message
> news:WyAre.1036$G55.846@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
> >D 4500, WinXP all updates.
> >
> > This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or
anything.
> > You would
> > be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
> >
> > I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little
slow),
> > so this is what I
> > have done so far.
> >
> > Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
> > I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
> > The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
> > I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and
booted
> > up
> > again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
> > It took roughly the same amount of time.
> > I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
> > Still froze in the same amount of time.
> > Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on
the
> > CPU.
> > Still froze in the same amount of time.
> > The fan in the Power Supply works fine
> >
> > When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
> > the
> > A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
> > means
> > "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
> >
> > Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun
8th.
> >
> > Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
> >
> > moncho
>
> Solved the problem early this morning.
>
> On a hunch, I decided to take out the memory and replace it with some from
> another
> 4500 machine. The only reason I did this was because I just remembered I
> had
> a similar problem with my wife's computer about 2.5 years ago.
>
> That was it. When I swapped chips, the other 4500 exhibited the same
> problem as the
> original and the original is working just fine. On for an hour an or so
now
> and it has not locked
> up.
>
> What blows my mind is that there were no messages surrounding the memory
at
> all, either
> with the BIOS or diag lights.
>
> Thanks for everyones help.
>
> moncho

Did you run Memtest86 on the memory?

http://www.memtest86.com/
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

If you upgraded the memory, it is ALWAYS a good idea to run the free MEMTEST-86
memory diagnostic through several test cycles to see if it causes any errors.
If there are errors, either the memory is bad or it is incompatible with the
motherboard. Since I've been running MEMTEST-86 on memory upgrades, I've not
had one complaint from a client... Ben Myers

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:19:04 GMT, "moncho" <moncho@NOspamAMmeritech.net> wrote:

>
>"moncho" <moncho@NOspamAMmeritech.net> wrote in message
>news:WyAre.1036$G55.846@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
>>D 4500, WinXP all updates.
>>
>> This machine started locking up yesterday. No error messages or anything.
>> You would
>> be working and then all would just stop and freeze.
>>
>> I thought it was the fan that died (it seems to be running a little slow),
>> so this is what I
>> have done so far.
>>
>> Open the case, turn on computer to see if all was working.
>> I let it sit at the XP logon screen, froze in about 8 - 9 minutes.
>> The monitor goes black and the keyboard and mouse do not work.
>> I turned of the computer, unplugged it, waited 10 minutes or so and booted
>> up
>> again ( I want to see how long it takes before freezing again).
>> It took roughly the same amount of time.
>> I then unplugged all CDROMs, HD's, and booted again.
>> Still froze in the same amount of time.
>> Found an extra fan to help with cooling and had it blowing directly on the
>> CPU.
>> Still froze in the same amount of time.
>> The fan in the Power Supply works fine
>>
>> When I power it up, all the diag LED's are all green but when it freezes
>> the
>> A, B and C lights turn yellow. According to Dell this combo of lights
>> means
>> "Recovery mode from BIOS failure".
>>
>> Now here is the funny thing, the three year warranty was up as of Jun 8th.
>>
>> Just wondering if anyone else has been down this road.
>>
>> moncho
>
>Solved the problem early this morning.
>
>On a hunch, I decided to take out the memory and replace it with some from
>another
>4500 machine. The only reason I did this was because I just remembered I
>had
>a similar problem with my wife's computer about 2.5 years ago.
>
>That was it. When I swapped chips, the other 4500 exhibited the same
>problem as the
>original and the original is working just fine. On for an hour an or so now
>and it has not locked
>up.
>
>What blows my mind is that there were no messages surrounding the memory at
>all, either
>with the BIOS or diag lights.
>
>Thanks for everyones help.
>
>moncho
>
>