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May 15th, 2004 20:00
Dell Repair?
Will Dell take my out of warranty 2 year old 8200 for estimate cost of repair?
I come home and found out apg440 is not being loaded during boot up. I can't edit anything in the drive by booting in to 98 dos mode cause of ntfs. Dell 20 inch LCD screen sometimes have dotted lines during boot up and sometimes in thick solid lines. Sometimes the line is in red, yellow, blue, green. Initially, I thought it could be the graphics card so I ran the diagnostic tool that came with the computer. It passed all the test but removeable drives. I decided to do a clean install of xp but no matter what I do, the computer freezes right after it loads up driver and and tries to run the setup.
I went out and bought a Seagate 120 gig IDE HD and replaced with SCSI controller and HD that were in the computer. Again, WinXP CD boots, loads driver and it is ready to go in to windows like screen to run the acutal setup and just hangs. Over and over again this would happen but few times, I was able to actually complete the setup once, but after loading few drivers and reboot the computer, agp440 would not load and computer freezes again.
Any idea what is wrong with the computer? Besides the Diagnostic CD that came with the computer, is there any other software that will diagnose the system in detail? So, far I've spent 2 days and feel like sending it back to DELL and have them look at the system and send me a cost of repair.
Any help is appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Ned
ejn63
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May 15th, 2004 21:00
What are the results of the diagnostic?
Beginning steps:
Reseat the memory modules and all expansion cards. Re-run the Dell diagnostics. If nothing shows up faulty, retry the installation.
What you're describing sounds like a faulty video card - - try the monitor on another system. If it is OK, replace the video card.
If you do not want to do the repair/troubleshooting, take the system to a local shop with a good reputation. There's no point in sending it back to Dell - the shipping costs alone make local repair a better idea.
nedor
49 Posts
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May 16th, 2004 01:00
Thanks for the help.
I opened up the case, took out chips and cards, took a hand held vacumm, cleaned up all the dusts. I also noticed later on that the fan int he power supply was not spinning. Opened up the power suppy, took the fan out, cut the red and black wire and replaced with a spare.
The diagnostic CD from Dell still shows up with no error. For about 2 hours, I've tried to install WinXP but dang thing keeps hanging right before the screen tries to go in to windows screen to start the acutal setup.
I also took the LCD and plugged it back of the 8600 laptop and no problems with lines.
I am beginning to believe that the card has gone bad as you suggested, but I'd like to make sure that the card needs replacement. I was hoping there maybe a software that can diagnose the problem.
I understand now that with the money that may be used for shipping and or taking it to local shop for repair probably cost more than just getting a new card. I just want to make sure it is the video card and not the motherboard or any other parts that are causing the problem.
The more I think of it, besides the lines showing during boot, the system hangs when it tries to enter windows screen during setup, just like how it hangs when I tried to run in safe mode and system hangs with apg440 error prior to reinstalling XP.
Again, Thanks for your help.
Ned