Desktops General - Read Only

[UWi62]

Hello,

I have an odd problem with my new Inspiron 545 (2 months old). Sometimes it will not boot at all. I turn on the power, but there is no start up beep, my TFT screen leaves blank and goes to power safe mode. I have to turn it off and on again and then it boots normal. The problem appears every 10 to 20 times I start the computer. Is this a known problem that can be fixed with a BIOS update or what goes wrong here?

Best regards from Germany

[CondoCowboy]

Thanks for the reply Ron.  My power button glows a steady white/blue.  I hear the drive and/or fans spin up when I hit it, but nothing to the monitor.

I did as you suggested with re-seating the RAM and PCI cards. My only PCI card is my Radeon 4500.  My monitor was scrolling its powersave logo, but as soon as I plugged the DVI cable into the computer it went into DVI Power Save Mode.  The computer just sits in this state, nothing to the monitor but seemingly on until I unplug the cable. I have no way of safely shutting down.  I also never get anything to the monitor so I can't see if I get past POST or even get into BIOS.

My next step right now is to remove the Radeon card completely and try using a VGA cable.  I'll report back.

[CondoCowboy]

Also, I found I can safely shut it down if I hold on the power button long enouh. I can also get the DVD player to open and close.

[CondoCowboy]

I pulled out the Radeon card and and just used a VGA cable from the motherboard's onboard VGA video out.  I was able to boot enough so I could see the DELL and Inspiron logos, then the screen went white (as opposed to just blank before).  I then went into BIOS and moved booting from removable device to the end. Then it re-booted when I saved that and I get a screen that says "Your computer can't come out of hibernation"  "A fatal error occured processing the restoration data" 0x0000411 \hyberfil.sys.

I hit enter and made it to the OS loading screen. I have Vista 64bit.  I then successfully made it into Vista.

My best theory at this point is I put the computer to sleep and then somehow my video card went bad or crashed and it couldn't come of where it was.  I have read these cards can have problems because they don't have fans. I've ordered the Radeon 4650 which has a fan and hopefully that will fix this from happening.

I'm then did a full shutdown and installed the video card again to see if it will work for now.  I was able to use my DVI cable to my monitor once again.  I was also able to plug my HDMI cable into my TV.

So things are looking good right now, but this crash has happened 3-4 times since I've had this computer for a month. This was the worst of it, where I actually had to remove the video card to see the error I wrote above.  Hopefully a different video card will fix this problem.  I'll report more as I find things out.

[RoHe]

If this system is only a month old, you should be talking to Dell Tech Suport about getting it fixed. Don't wait until the warranty expires. :emotion-5:

And search around these forums.  There may be an issue with this system coming out of standby or hibernation, so somebody may have found the solution. Maybe an updated BIOS..??

Ron

[CondoCowboy]

Thanks for the reply. I will contact DELL tech support if the problem persists.  I've read they will run you through all sorts of hoops and use a "shotgun approach" so I'd rather zero in the problem with research first.

I found a lot of other posts where people have a problem waking their computer from sleep in vista or Win7.  One thread linked to this MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929909/

This is a desktop and this KB applies to the Mobile Intel 945GM Express Chipset whereas I think the 545 just as the 945 Chipset.  The problem does sound very similiar though.  I think this more of a Microsoft Vista problem, and fooling with the sleep settings might fix the problem.