Dell Inspiron One 2305 Black Screen

Hi dedahl,

Please run a hardware diagnostics to check for hardware issues. Kindly find the steps below to perform the Hardware diagnostics.

Turn the computer off >restart the computer , At the Dell logo screen, start tapping the F12 key a few times until you see the ‘One Time Boot Menu’ appear. At the one time boot menu, press the down arrow key to highlight ‘Diagnostic’, and then press Enter to begin the PSA diagnostics. If the test fails, please make a note of any error codes listed. You can also refer to the link below.

http://dell.to/OUGnqT

Also try some of the steps mentioned in the below thread.

en.community.dell.com/.../19447153.aspx

Thanks Harish.  I ran the diagnostic and the express diagnostic.  I got 1 error on the express diagnostic.  It said:

Error Code 0F00: 133C.

Msg: DISK - No Suitable disk media is present

Also, A friend recommended to up date the BIOS so I did.  It updated from A06 to A08.

Thanks,

Dave

Hi Dave,

This seems to be an issue with the display and you can consider replacing it. If the system is out of warranty you could call the spares team on 1-800-999-3355 (US only).

After updating the BIOS and removing the back cover and the motherboard cover it has not restarted in 24 hours.  Fingers crossed!!!

I'll give it a week and if all goes well I'll put the covers back on to see it is an overheat issue.

Hi dedahl,

Thank you for the reply. You can post back on the same thread or start a new thread for any further assistance.

Well it did not freeze & get the black screen for almost 2 weeks after updating the bios.  Now it is doing it more than it did before, about 4-5 times per day.  Any more advice?

I would love a solution on this as well.  It has been happening since I bought it new and no one has been able to fix more than temporarily.  Thanks

Well,  Here's my update.  My Inspiron One 2305 stills locks up but much less frequently.  It does it maybe once a week.  Sometimes my DVD drive is recognized and other times it's like it's not even installed.  Can't see the DVD drive from My Computer.  I also removed a program I was running called Vitamin D which is a web cam software program.  Since removing Vitamin D my problem had been less frequent but not gone.  I'm also still running the machine with back cover and the ram cover removed for better cooling.  

Very disappointed in this machine.  I don't think I'd ever buy Dell again.  Their customer service was not very helpful.  When I first had the DVD drive problem the machine was 11.5 months old.  Dell swapped out my DVD drive and it seemed to work fine for another few weeks just until the warranty expired and then started acting up again with the same problem.  Which I think is the mother board.  Anyway, after trying to explain that the problem wasn't fixed properly the first time when it was under warranty I was basically told to go pound sand and I'd have to pay almost 1/2 of what I paid for the machine to have it looked at again. 

Thanks for the update.  I love this computer except for this issue.  I have reformatted a few times, taken it to be repaired and they cannot isolate what is doing it.  I haven't been able to find a common thing I was doing or running that is causing it.  Sometimes I will go for months and it won't do it, then it will do it a few times a day for weeks.  Very frustrating. 

A client of mine has three Inspiron 2305 machines -- two of which have developed this intermittent black screen problem. Dell replaced the display panel and motherboard under warranty, but the problem persists. I just spoke with a tech that works with lots of home PCs and he said he worked on one with the same symptoms. He said that the power supply had bad capacitors. He replaced it and the problem was fixed. He said it was very difficult to replace.

yes but he also said that dvd drive is being finicky, id try a new sata cable, they are cheap and the inspirions are notorius for bad cables

I made the mistake of buying two 2305.  One brand new which has not given me much problems but is also not used often.  The second was a refurbished unit, probably returned from some other unhappy customer.  The hard drive "failed" within a few months, it started by just freezing.  They sent a tech out with a replacement hard drive.  This drive needed to extract the image which took hours and the tech left me to see it through.  Then the drive did not have all the software that DELL provided on the original machine, I spent hours on the phone getting this factory software installed again.  A few months later it started acting up again.  Once again tech support claimed a hard drive.  I argued that hard drives are not that unreliable, in fact I have never had one go bad on me before.  I insisted they send the tech out with a hard drive AND a new CPU.  I had the tech replace the CPU first and the machine started working, and I kept the hard drive.  After some months passed it started flaking out again, this time I opened it up myself and replaced the SATA cable only, and it started working.  Again after some time passed it got flaky again.... many more headaches later and now the screen just stays black.  I hear the hard drive spin up but who knows what is going on as I can't get into BIOS with a black screen.  I have spent countless and aggravating hours with tech support.  Apparently my time is cheap.  My last call with Dell made me blow my stack as it is out of warranty, of course it NEVER worked well enough to even be acceptable.  Clearly DELL has design issues with this system and is not willing to own up to it and refund or replace peoples lemons.  If this was a car company there would be class action law suits.  I have always bought DELL but after this experience I will never buy another product from DELL as they do not stand behind their equipment.  Guess they figure it is better to cut their losses and lose customers rather than replace clearly defective and poorly designed product.  No wonder they are going down the tubes.  Why in the world would Micheal Dell want to buy this pig back?  He should take his $$ and bail.  Can he really turn around a company with this kind of stick-it-to-the-customer culture.

I literally have bought 10 of these for my company and almost all of them have had the same issue. Its like this specific computer was a Lemon out of the box. There should be something we can do about this. I bet at least a couple thousand people have had the same issue. These computer aren't cheap either. I am very disappointed in Dell. There newer models blow this one out of the water and never have issues. they could really do something to help out the customers with this computer issue. I am very surprised someone hasn't tried to the sue them yet for selling defective merchandise.