Need Help with Dell Inspiron 8600

Question

Hello everyone, I have a dell laptop that was purchased in summer of 2004, we used it for 3-4 years, but started getting BOD, but kept using it until it became impossible then we just bought a new computer. I was doing some cleaning and ran across it(i had forgotten about it). I feel with your expertise the issue can probably be resolved fairly easy....

DELL INSPIRON 8600 15" LAPTOP

WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION

512MB OF RAM, 16G HD

I have the original discs that came with the pc

symptoms....power on and instantly get the dell screen with the taskbar and can into diagnostics or setup but if i dont press and "F" key i will just continuously get a blank black screen. the monitor does work. I ran diagnostics and monitor passed. the test that did not pass was "MEMORY TEST-FAIL...ERROR CODE 1000-0123...MEMORY INTEGRITY TEST FAILED....60% COMPLETE TEST" pc asked me to insert "drivers and utilities disk"...i did and got "ERROR CODE 2F00:0B1C"......I can provide the rest of the error code info if anyone thinks it would be helpful. we did have McAffee antivirus the whole time we used the pc, FYI.

Their is info on the pc that i would like to have if possible but if we have to wipe the memory then we must.

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

Reseat (remove and reinstall) the memory moudule(s). Re-run the test. If you still see an error, move the module to the other socket (or swap sockets). if the error follows the module, the memory module is bad - replace it. If it sticks to one socket, the socket is bad - replace the mainboard.

outburst · Answer

I did go ahead and reverse the modules, powered up.....write/read failure.....pressed  F1 to continue and still no boot up. Switched modules back to their original position and tried it and run diagnostics and got same response. so i guess i will try replacing the modules next.

ejn63 · Answer

Try just one module and in each socket.

outburst · Answer

Hey guy, i removed both modules, have then laying out of the pc now, they are not identical. i think they will change places but the two modules have different looking resistors. Beneath one of the modules is labeled 'DIMM A' and i did get an error code pointing to DIMM A. my wife did upgrade the memory just before the problems started. I dont think these ram modules are very quality. they are labeled CORSAIR....VALUE SELECT.

outburst · Answer

i tried each one in both sockets not together. i still get the same results, BUT one of the cards when in the original slot wont even bring power to boot up the dell screen. the lights next to the power button flash a few times and thats it. dont know if this means anything.

I do think its possible that uprading the memory probably started the BOD, but i think i might have unknowlingly made the situation worse trying to fix it some time ago. I will ask my wife about the upgrade she made on the pc tonite. I dont know if both cards were replaced or if it only had one and one was added.

after i opened this thread i was able to located a back up of the files that were on the pc that i thought were important, so when we rectify the module issue, if we need to wipe the HD clean and start over we can.

outburst · Answer

IEEE 488, thanks for the heads up on the static elect, i do remove the battery, unplug the ac plug and power down the power button then touch the terminals on the back of the pc before goin in. static can be a real bummer.

ieee488 · Answer

One thing that you might want to keep in mind is that you should be grounded when handling RAM.

Just this morning my body had so much static electricity, I was zapped when I went to flip a light switch.

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Need Help with Dell Inspiron 8600

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