Dim4700 HD and CD boot failure

Question

Been searching these forums, but really not sure whether I've got a bad MB or HD... Dimension 4700, 3 years old, no warranty left All lights at the front green and steady; diagnostic lights at the back all green. Goes through POST and WinXP start screen comes up, then it goes to blue screen. There doesn't appear to be anything speciifc on the blue screen indicating a cause. Re-starting on any of the safe mode type options leads to the same blue screen.   I corrected the boot sequence to do CD first, and put the recovery (and then a standard XP CD) in the drive, but it wouldn't boot from the CD...  I was thinking it's some motherboard IO error, but there's alot of talk here about 4700's overheating an killing the HD - could that also take out the CD?   I need to test the HD, but don't have a SATA enabled PC to test it on, so could I try putting an old IDE drive in?   If anyone has ideas, that'd be great!   Cheers.

contrvlr · Answer

I was a victim of the same problem not long ago, tried a known good HD and no luck, turns out the MB had died. 2 of the capacitors on the board blew.

RoHe · Answer

Pretty graphic evidence of a blown capacitor. :(

Assuming your capacitors look ok, and you have a floppy drive in the 4700, you can create a bootable floppy with Dell's 90/90 hard drive diagnostics on it. Read this:

http://snipurl.com/1ulh2

Ron

whisker · Answer

Cheers for the info - I presume I should be looking for something subtle like a bulge on the caps?  Do you think it's worth getting replacements, and soldering them in, or will they have killed off other parts of the MB?   Lastly, any ideas if Dell do replacement MBs?  I'd heard that they / the cases are customised, so I can't just go and get a highstreet replacement?  Heard of some on Ebay, but generally try to avoid the place...  Or do Dell do out-of-warranty return-to-base repairs?   Thanks again!

RoHe · Answer

Dell sells replacement motherboards, if you need one. Contact Dell Spare Parts. I gather you're in UK so don't know how you'd do that on your side of the pond, but they probably do have a Spare Parts contact numbner there.

Also check out:
http://www.centrix-intl.com/
http://www.ascendtech.us
They sell new OEM parts for some Dell systems and ship all over.

Ron

whisker · Answer

contrvlr - were you out of warranty?  did you get Dell to replace FOC?

whisker · Answer

Cheers for the info - looks like it's time to open it up and inspect the caps...

contrvlr · Answer

RoHe wrote: Pretty graphic evidence of a blown capacitor. :(   Yes and consistent too, both of the blown caps were the same, the other is just below the PCIE slot.

contrvlr · Answer

Yes, out of warranty for a while, I've located some replacement boards on EBay but have been to lazy to order one so the machine sits in pieces on my bench.

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Dim4700 HD and CD boot failure

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