Redcrosse:

have you tried just booting with your monitor mouse and keyboard? if you have and it still doesnt work you should try to see if the computer will boot into safe mode by tapping F8 at the dell logo screen. if it does boot normally then its proably a driver or a startup program. If it doesnt let you boot normally but it does let you into to safe mode i would try running msconfig ( heres a link http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/) also you might try running ASD (start->run->ASD->ok) to see if a driver is causing the problem if that turns out to be the case it should tell you what it is so you can delete it. Also you might want to run a diagnostic on you hard drive to see if theres a problem with that, even though its unlikley, you can do this by hitting ctrl +alt + D at the same time at the dell logo screen . once you do this it should come up with an IDE device diagnostic test. once this is done it should list all your IDE devices, the one that you need to look for is the primary IDE Drive 0 entry; this will say either passed or fail. If it comes back fail then you need to write down the error code and call tech support. next if this doesnt work you might want to try opening up your case and reseating your video, sound, modem, and network card and\or remove all cards but the video and put them back in one by one to see if one may be causing the problem.if a majority are intergrated reset your bios and clear nvram (dell logo hit f2, at main screen hit alt + f and then alt + e then save changes and exit) and see if that helps. finally if none of this works i would try running the dell 32bit diags and if nothing is found there repair\reinstall the OS.

hope this helps

Message Edited by cahallmxj on 02-04-2003 12:14 AM

I have the same problem with my xpsb8100

When i boot up, I get a blinking coursor in the upper left. The system will not respond to anything. After much frustration, i finally figured out a way around it. When the comp hangs like this, i hold the power button down (while the comp is on, so the push of the button is the "turn off stroke"), for 10 to 15 seconds. Then i let go and the comp is off. When it is turned on again, it boots fine 90% of the time. If it hangs again, i repeat the process and it boots eventually.

I'm no expert, but it seems like what holding the power button does is to "clear" in some way, some memory in the comp (ram, cashe, bios? I dunno). I'm thinking holding the power button closes some circuit and allows some stored energy to dischage. This memory being cleared allows the comp to boot. This is just a theory, i doubt it is tru explanation though. Going w/ this theory, i'm led to believe that since this hang occures so early in the boot up and the fact that it seems that opening the main power circuit fixes the problem, that this is not a software issue, at least as far as drivers in windows goes.

I would really like to get this figured out because this behavior causes many problems when formating my hd and re installing windows. Since windows installer restarts the comp multiple times during its run, I usualy have to disrupt the normal flow of the installer b/c of this hang. The hang also complicates installing drivers that need a restart. I have formated and reinstalled various versions of windows since this problem started and The computer has remained in a usable state for 2 years. But it never has worked as well since i've been doing these substandard instalations of windows.

I was gonna toss this dell since customer support hasn't been helpful at all. I even had a tech. come to my house after convincing them i needed a new mobo. He came with a brand new mother board, but once i showed him that i could get it to boot, he said i couldn't have the now board. He left before I could get it to hang again. The guy was not what i'd expect from a company like dell. I bought a comp f/ dell b/c I wanted solid support, and that is not what i got.

anyway i figured i'd try this message board as a last resort before I build my own computer.

What can i do to fix this problem once and for all?

qwerty,

Unplug examine and reseat the connections for the cables to this drive. Then boot into BIOS and make sure the drive is listed properly. You may also want to make sure that the hard drive is set as the first boot device.