Hello to all of you PCs guru's:

 

I really need some guidance on what to do here.

 

I bought a DELL dimension 4600 series about 2-1/2 weeks ago and everything is fine except for a couple things.

 

1). The screen will go from "active" to "inactive" all by itself. In other words, you could be typing an email and then you will no longer be able to type because the top blue bar goes from dark blue (active) to light blue (inactive) all by itself. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. The only way to get back to the active screen is by taking the mouse and either clicking the top of the screen or clicking somewhere inside the email to render it (active) once again. It does this about once every five minutes, very annoying. It does this in other programs as well, like solitaire, excel, etc...

 

I called DELL tech support and they never heard of anything like this. One of the techies had me run MSCONFIG to close some of the things that I was running by changing the configuration to selective startup as opposed to normal startup. Believe it or not, this actually stopped the interference of screens going from active to inactive, however it caused "other" problems as my NORTON antivirus was not functioning correctly and I could not get into webmail or any other "secure" websites for banking, checking my account with my ISP, things like that...

 

2). The tower seems to make alot of noise. Almost like it's looking for something and not finding it. My DELL at work doesn't make these noises. Is this normal? It's kind of like a quick hissing sound, it stops, and then does it again and just keeps doing it. Could this be related to the screen going from active to inactive?

 

Could Norton antivirus be the problem here with either 1 or 2 that I've listed?

 

Also, some additional info. I know that it's not my monitor because I hooked up another monitor (my old one) and the very same thing happened with the screen going from active to inactive. The problem is definitely in the tower, now I just need to know what in the tower is causing the problem.

 

I don't want to have to send my entire tower back. Can someone please help me find out what part is defective and then I can tell DELL to send me a new one and then I won't be without my computer for 1-2 weeks (if not longer?)... Or maybe my settings need to be changed?:smileysad:

 

In typing this email my screen went inactive 7 times, see how annoying it is? Each time I have to stop typing and click the mouse inside the screen to re-activate the program I'm using...

 

Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated...

 

Thanks for listening...

 

Best Regards,

 

Rick W. :smileysad:

 

PS - I will check back in a few hours if anyone has any questions about my computer specs and settings and whatever else... Thanks again...