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E310 motherboard has video and other problems
I bought an E310 second hand for a family member that turned out to appear to have its integrated video card fried. It also tended to bluescreen frequently to the point of having to reinstall XP numerous times. I figured that the board had some pretty serious problems and needed to be replaced so I bought another Dell E310 motherboard that was billed as "new" and it's doing the same thing.
The video display (on all monitors I use with the computer) has multiple horizontal lines all over the screen as if it can't handle the refresh rate or something. The desktop is obsured too much to see what I'm doing so I can't adjust the refresh rate even in Safe Mode. The XP splash screen displays just fine as does the BIOS display, but these are in real mode rather than virtual if I remember the terms correctly. The computer came with an old PCI S3 2Mb video card that worked fairly well but when I finally thought things were fixed and stable the machine blue screened on them again, hence my decision to get another board. I received the computer back from the family, put the new board in but, as I said, had a seriously messed up display with the integrated video and it blue screens soon after getting to the desktop. I did download the Intel driver for the integrated video card but this had no effect on it.
Looking at the service tag and running it through Dell's as-built database the computer does not appear to have been modified from its original build. It has a 300Mhz processor and the memory appears to be original too. The hard drive checked out fine with Dell diagnostics and the only thing the diagnostics turned up as flawed was the S3 video card as that's what I was using when I ran them.
Our school purchased some Optilplex GX-270s a few years ago that had serious troubles with the capacitors and I recognize that mass production can magnify problems significantly. Was this model just another lemon that comes out now and then? I'm still a huge Dell fan but this is has been a very frustrating problem that I've not found an answer for. Anyone that can shed some light on a solution would be greatly appreciated.
SlamX
950 Posts
1
February 1st, 2009 08:00
That is a very old DOG. I doubt the motherboar replacement was "new". would be hard to find a new old stock one. Maybe time to just chuck the whole system.
danak
47 Posts
1
February 2nd, 2009 09:00
For an old dog it has some pretty respectable speed - that is if it would just display properly. I've bought used Dells for years (and recently a used mb for a GX-280 with excellent results) and never had this problem with them. I guess lemons will be lemons but now we're in deep on the cost of a used computer. I can try and put a PCI video card in this to see if we can salvage it but the bluescreening problem I can't find an answer for. Diagnostics don't show any faults but that was on the original board. I'll run it on this one to see.
Is there a way to have the forum e-mail me when someone replies to messages posted here?
Thanks.
danak
47 Posts
1
February 3rd, 2009 08:00
I ran the Dell diagnostics and this popped up - 2F00:0B1C - Memeory databus stress test failure and the video reall went south on me. All other tests seem to be good with the exception of one for the CD/DVD drive and its ROM.
Is it possible that I could have the wrong memory installed that's too slow for the bus to work with? The DIMM says it's a 4200U and the original build for the service tag says it had 2 Dual In-Line Memory Module,512533M,64X64,8,240,1RX8. Has the memory been changed to some thing faster? I thought you could go up in memory speed and it would adjust itself to a lower speed and going lower only meant the system would slow down.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Thanks.