Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Computer Conundrum

So, ever since three days ago, this Dell Inspiron 6000 I use starts up fine and boots through to Windows XP nicely.

Then, an hour later, just about to the minute, it just freezes up solid and will beep once if I press any keys trying to regain control.  I have to hold down the power button to kill it.

 

Any ideas or guesses?

11 comments:

  1. Sounds like your hard drive is winding up and freezing the system, If the power switch is your only fail safe, you might want to have the HD checked for errors. We've been through 4 on our desktop in the past 2 years. It doesn't seem to be a windows issue if the system powers up through XP. If you can time it to the minute all guesses seem to be your HD.

    I would check to see if Dell's website shows any issues with its operating systems, I take it this must be a laptop? If the HD you have on it crashes for good you could loose everything on it, so better be safe than sorry and take it to the doctors.

    If you check the Serial number on your HD you can go online and see if there are any known issues with it's make, model and application.

    Just a few suggestions.

    Jeremy

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  2. Well so much for having it freeze after one hour.

    Right now I'm into 65 minutes and still live....




    Sheesh.

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  3. Spoke too soon.

    Shortly after I hit enter on that previous post, it all froze up again.


    Probably my watch was wrong.


    Anyway, I'll try to run it in safe mode for an hour and see what gives.

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  4. I recommend jumping up and down and yelling at it. It may not help, but it can't hurt either.

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  5. Ummm.

    With all respect to Jeremy, hard drives do not 'wind up'.

    What information (if any) does task manager provide you? Is the computer being bogged down with rubbish running in the background? Does the computer just silently lock or can the hard drive be heard chattering away? Can you 'step back' to a time when this didn't happen using system restore? What have you recently installed (there was a recent windows update) that might be doing this?

    Dell are not infallible. I have a machine here by my feet that was sold with faulty caps on the mobo (widely discussed on the net) and after 6 to 18 months they would just start falling over when the caps failed. I can't easily get a warranty replacement as it was supplied through the US.

    Is that the new laptop you were so pleased with when we came over? Contact dell ASAP in the hope of them doing something on warranty.

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  6. Hmm, no freezing while in safe mode.

    Must be software related.

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  7. Step back.

    Not the cure for ALL ills, but will often give you time to back up and rebuild if necessary.

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  8. Tried a restore point from last week. I'm just waiting till the hour is up to see what it does.

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  9. AHAH!!

    EVERNOTE you evil genius.

    I've been using evernote the past couple of weeks and I've isolated that software so that when it isn't running, the freeze ups go away. I don't know if it's a conflict with some other settings or software, but there it is.

    So, for now, no evernote.

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