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September 19th, 2011 08:00
Is my problem the PSU?
Hi, I have a DELL Vostro 420 running Vista Business (32 bit) Service Pack 2. I have been experiencing a number of problems lately including OS would not boot and frequent freezes. I checked all connections, looked at the hard drives, memory and video card and re-sat them. I ran on-board diagnostic tests (twice) and everything passed both times. In the end I culled all non-essential services and reduced start-up progs when in safe mode. That seems to have solved the problem although it occasionally freezes or fails to start. Today I noticed the screen was flickering and losing its colour after it was woken up after having left my pc for about an hour or so. It's never done this before and so I was wondering if it is in some way connected to the other problems I've mentioned. Any advice would be appreciated. The pc and monitor are about two and a half year's old. I run McAfee security although also have PC Tools' Spyware Doctor (which is one of the programs I've stopped). TPCU is an Intel 2Quad Q9400 @ 2.66 GHz; 4Gb of SDRAM @ 800 MHz; 2x hitachi 320 Gb 7200 rpm; and NVidia GeForce 9800 GT video card wih 512 Mb of memory. Thanks
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DELL-Chris M
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September 20th, 2011 06:00
Look at the back of the power supply. Do you see a black button and under that an LED? If yes, press and hold the black button in. If the LED stays green, the power supply has passed its diagnostics.
Gozza53
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September 20th, 2011 07:00
Hi Chris, there is no 'black button' just the green LED. Should the on-board diagnostics not be able to test the PSU? I'll re-check that one but any other help you can offer is appreciated.
DELL-Chris M
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September 20th, 2011 08:00
Should the on-board diagnostics not be able to test the PSU?
* I don't think it test the power supply. The fact that the diagnostics passes leads me to think your issues are operating system rather than hardware. When it fails to start, does it not power up or is it just not getting into windows?
RoHe
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September 20th, 2011 10:00
Can you test this monitor on a different PC or a different monitor on this PC?
Might be a failing video card and/or corrupted video driver. You may want to uninstall the video driver in Device Manager, first. Then reboot and install a fresh download of the latest driver that's compatible with your hardware and version of Windows.
And if that doesn't help, consider swapping the video card...
Ron
speedstep
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September 21st, 2011 08:00
Corrupted Hard drives or dying hard drives can fail at the black screen of death on startup.
Take out the data cable on the hard drive and see if POST fails with missing boot drive.
Gozza53
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September 21st, 2011 10:00
I'll try this but all the tests so far say that the drives are 'healthy'.
Gozza53
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September 21st, 2011 10:00
This may appear twice as web connection failed! Sometimes nothing happens - no beep, blank screen, only the sound of fans. Other times I get to the user screen and irrespective of which user I select it can fail and I just get the blue screen. It's working fine at the moment which is frustrating as whatever is causing this is so inconsistent.
Gozza53
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September 21st, 2011 10:00
Thanks Ron, I'll give it a try.
RoHe
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September 21st, 2011 16:00
Dying motherboard battery??
Ron
(I can't spell today!)
Gozza53
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September 22nd, 2011 04:00
Is that what they refer to as the CMOS? Could be so I'll try that.
Unable to try any of the tests so far as the pc failed to start again after two attempts.
The third attempt went through to StartupRepair but that didn't get the pc back up either. The Problem Signature showed PS 04- 35537; 05- Unknown; 06- NoRootCause; then went to finish which switched the pc off.
On restarting I just got a blank screen with two white (could be one) broken lines at the top of the screen. So I'm forced to re-boot chosing Safe Mode with Networking so I can check services and startup programs, which is how I've had them since the problems began. When I restart everything seems to be fine.
I'm really greatful for everyone's advice but I still can't get my head around why this is so hit and miss.
RoHe
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September 22nd, 2011 11:00
Yes, the battery holds the BIOS settings which are stored on a CMOS chip.
Unfortunately, PC troubleshooting is frequently hit-miss, especially since these symptoms are so 'generic'.
A new battery is only ~$2 - $3 at discount stores so that's a cheap/easy thing to try first, after you've tested the monitor on another PC or a different one on this PC.
Beyond that, you have to consider the video card, hard drive...
Ron