Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
4 Posts
0
9213
Vostro 220 Freezing in POST
I'm hoping someone will be able to explain my freeze ups.
I have a Dell Vostro 220 with the G310 Graphics Card and Card reader upgrades that will frequently freeze while using it (no response). When I do a hard reboot it will sometimes freeze in POST sometimes in OS startup and sometimes shortly after logging in, but usually it is less than 1/2 hr after use. I can turn off the computer and let it sit unused for the night and then come back and get sometimes days of use out of it. It has been getting progressively worse. The problem shows up more quickly making the computer almost entirely unworkable at this point. Hard freezes occurred once or twice in the first 10 months. Then a couple more times in the next two months. I didn't think much of any of them, but now my warranty has expired (February) and it occured almost daily for the last couple weeks and moving towards multiple times per day now. If I let it sit frozen for a day, it does not recover from the freeze.
I use Ubuntu Linux, but have seen the same thing occur when using a GParted Live CD so we're talking about two different OS installs running from two different mediums (HD & CD). The software seems to be out of the picture.
I suspect something with USB, but can't prove it. It does seem to have, in the past, coordinate with the use of USB devices; however, my kbd and mouse are USB and it is now freezing even when I'm not using it. This did not occur previously.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
44.3K Posts
0
March 25th, 2011 12:00
The next time it freezes during POST, check the color of the power button. Depending on whether it's blue or amber, steady or blinking, you can get some info on the problem here.
<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed / replaced from this post by Dell>
If you have your Dell Drivers and Utilities disk, boot from that CD and run all the hardware tests, including the extended hard drive and RAM tests. These take a while so be patient. Copy down any error messages.
If no error messages reported:
Power off and unplug
Press/hold power button on tower for ~15 sec
Open the case and carefully reseat the RAM modules and PCI cards in their slots
Check that all cables are securely connected at both ends
Check that all fans are clean and turn freely
Used canned air to clean out all the dust bunnies
Close the case and reboot. See if that solves the problem
Ron
josiahr
4 Posts
0
March 28th, 2011 06:00
Thanks for the suggestions. I reseated everything and there wasn't any significant dust around (no bunnies).
I ran the diagnostic and it came back clean. I ran it a second time and walked away. While it was waiting for me to respond to the blinking line question it froze. The kdb didn't respond, but the line kept blinking.
josiahr
4 Posts
0
March 28th, 2011 08:00
Oh yeah, and the light was blue when it froze I believe this is the same as it has been other times. I haven't been looking intentionally, but didn't notice anything strange when pushing the button the light is in.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
44.3K Posts
0
March 28th, 2011 12:00
If it froze during the diagnostics, that suggests it's hardware rather than software. Could be anything: overheating, failing hard drive, power supply, video card or bad RAM.
You can pull out all the RAM modules, except the one in slot 1 and run it for a while. If no freezes, swap each RAM module, one at a time into slot 1 and test them. Maybe you can ID a bad module. If this system has both on-board video and add-in PCI-e video card, you might switch to on-board video and see if that helps.
Random freezes like this are really hard to diagose...
Ron