Inspiron One 2330, freezes

Just done test after pressing F12 when booting.  Says all tests passed at end but half wat through said the Video Thermistor exceeded the thermal limit.  Says 126C.  Could that be owt?  This is doing my head in. 

The diagnostics suggest the video board might be overheating. Unfortunately, these AIO's typically don't have a video card that can be replaced since it's likely attached directly to the motherboard, rather than being plugged into a slot on the motherboard like in a desktop PC.

It's also possible the LCD backlight is failing so it only lights up occasionally. When it doesn't light up, shine a flashlight on the screen at an angle and see if you can read anything. If you can, that would support a backlight failure.

This system has one video VGA-OUT (port #15, here). So try connecting an external VGA monitor to the port. That might be a viable work-around.

And you probably want make sure both the CPU fan and power supply fan are clean, turn freely and are actually working because they're the only way air can circulate inside the AIO case to keep the heat from building up. 

Ultimately, only you can decide if you want to invest more quid into this PC or not. You might be able to install the new hard drive into another PC for extra storage so that money wouldn't be wasted. Or maybe sell the new drive on eBay...

Cheers for that Ron. I fear much of that is beyond me. I can kick a trye, but thats about it. I did kick it a bit again yesterday but gave up and took it to local pc repair shop.  They are quite good in there but i fear my costs are going tp mount.  What reaaly annoys me is that the dell diagnostics suggested hard drive and came up with red flashing lights in doing so.  I do wonder if this message appears simply due to age of machine?   The new hard drive is a fraction of the size of the old one and is apparantly better in some ways,  but doesnt have anywhere near the storage of the old.  I should havs just left it to the loace shop from day 1, but i feel dell has mislead me into believing maybe i could fix it. Repair shop phoning today. Ill keep you posted, but i do fear the worst. Thanks again. 

You're welcome...

But -IMO- it might all be related to the same problem...heat...

Did the hard drive alert you got give any specifics about the problem with the old drive? If the drive were running hotter than the specs for its max temp, you might have gotten a warning about the drive, just like you got a heat warning about the video thermistor when you ran the diagnostics from the F12 menu.

So have the shop check that the fans work properly and all vents in the case are clean and open. Perhaps they should remove the heat sink from the CPU and apply a thin coat of fresh thermal paste and then reinstall the heat sink and CPU fan.

But keep your eye on the bottom line. You probably don't want to spend too much on an older system like this vs putting the funds toward something new that's better and faster. :Wink:

Good luck and let us know what happens...

Well, just been down to local repair shop and they say its goosed.  They said they have spent three hours on it (at no cost to them) and stripped down/updated etc etc and tested for heat.  They say they can't find anything that is overly hot and that it must be some sort of faulty heat sensor.  They say it is a known fault on Dells.  They said they could not fix, but probably, and understandably, don't want to spend any more time on it.  

They did suggest phoning Dell support and I did this.  They wanted 40 quid to pick up and look at.  Drawn a line under it and it's gone on eBay as spares or repair, here....

Gutted.  It was a nice machine.  

Sorry it wasn't fixable... :TongueTied:

All-In-One PCs are essentially laptops so when something goes wrong, it can be difficult to fix without a major investment of time and cash. At least with a desktop, you can easily replace individual parts.

Hope you find a new and even better system to suit your needs.

Please remove the link to your eBay sale. The forum's Terms Of Use don't allow such links. To edit your post, log in and navigate to this thread. Click the 3 vertical dots on the right end of the line with your user name in the post you want to edit and select Edit from the menu. -Thanks.  If you don't remove the link ASAP, the moderators can get testy about TOU violations.  :Wink:

Cheers again for help.  Link removed.  Got bid on it already so will get money back at lease for hard drive.