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13177
February 14th, 2005 14:00
C640 problems
Hi, i've had a C640 for approx 18 months and it's been great but last week i left it running while i had my lunch and when i came back it was dead:(. It would not turn on again and even with the ac power plugged in no lights were lite. I read a few forums done a google etc and stripped it down and checked a few things with a multimeter. I could find no obvious faults checked the cpu,h/drive and memory in a friends laptop all were ok. I put it back together thinking the motherboard had gone ready to stick it on ebay for spares but pressed the power button and it booted????.
Its still working now but occassionally it shuts down for no reason, i thought maybe it was overheating as i've never heard the fans going. I downloaded a utill mentioned on this site somewhere which lets you control the fans and they both work. I've left the laptop running prime 95 and the fans cut in and out fine. The batteries are both ok and are charging up fine but the green led on the side of the top 3rd one down dosen't always light up when it used to, any ideas please or should i sell it while its still working?.
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gerardvg
21 Posts
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February 18th, 2005 10:00
i had pulled it to bits swapped cpu ,video card,memory card,wireless card ect with ones from my girlfriends identical system did same thing ! and all my stuff worked fine in her system ......after a week i put it together ,,,thaught selll the thing for parts and it booted up worked fine for 3 days ,,has died again same as a week ago
i think its the batery that is on the video card cover that connects to the motherboard ........wondering if that almost flat and causing problemb after long run ?!?!?! i have already purchased a new motherboard and cpu now am wondering iff its something simple .....when i get it i will try the battery and see if thats the problemb ....
will let you know iff its the case ............never know ......
the diagnostics say all tests passed ?!?!?!?!?!?!? weirdest thing ive ever come across
my trusty old p3 inspiron is keeping me online now ...lucky i didnt sell it ...came in handy :)
:D
BILKO1
2 Posts
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February 19th, 2005 17:00
gerardvg
21 Posts
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February 20th, 2005 01:00
goodluck with your c640 :)
valer
3 Posts
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March 23rd, 2005 18:00
I have a very similar problem (but worse) on my Dell Latitude C640. When it is cold it happens to run for 1-2 min, windows xp starts ok, then black out and starts no more. I must let it cool down for a long time to get back to the 1-2 min "performance". If I hit F8 key and enter bios menu the time is longer (because the LCD screen is less involved, I suppose) but eventually also that screen becomes unreadable. A brave electronic engineer opened and said the LCD driver (interface) has a chip which is very hot during functioning. If he use a fan to cool down the chip the computer will work for about 10 min. He assumes that chip is broken. I have no ideea how to buy another one (LCD driver), does anybody have an ideea? I bought it from Japan but now I am in Romania so I wonder how I can get in touch with some dell representative in this part of the world... :) Thanks in advance.
gerardvg
21 Posts
0
March 24th, 2005 01:00
new motherboard in it all is fine and was only $199us on ebay :D
regards
gerardvg :)
oh you could try downloading the i8kfanGUI on the inspiron forum
then you can set your temperature control and keep the c640 running heaps cooler and hdd cooler also .....note the d600 runs heaps slower cpu think dell has found the temperature kills the laptop , hdd,cpu ,motherboard
some thing to think about :)
Message Edited by gerardvg on 03-24-2005 03:06 PM