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337
July 16th, 2022 03:00
Inspiron 3501 - Potential issue with Dell SupportAssist
Hello everyone,
Today I opened Dell SupportAssist to check new updates and after the hardware testing the program found an hardware issue (solution: Replace hard drive).
I bought this pc 7 months ago so this error seems quite weird to me. Moreover I've tried to run the Dell Preboot Diagnostic Test and the result was fine, it found no problem at all.
My question is: is it possible that Dell SupportAssist gave me a "false positive" error? What should I do to check if this error actually exists or not?
(My PC is still under warranty so replacing the hard drive isn't a problem, but I would like to avoid it if possible to not waste time.)
Nessun evento trovato!
ZenitDrevo
4 Messaggi
1
July 18th, 2022 03:00
Okay I have an update: I contacted the Dell support and after some tests they lastly suggested me to uninstall and reinstall Dell SupportAssist since all the clues pointed to a "false positive" of the program.
Reinstalled, started the general test again and no problems were found this time. Apparently it was Dell SupportAssist's fault all along.
Thanks for the advices, the problem is solved (for now).
Tatolino
6 Professor
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2.8K Messaggi
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July 16th, 2022 03:00
Hi there!
Well... It may be a false positive, but it could actually mean your drive is failing, it's honestly hard to tell. SupportAssist reads from SMART which quite accurately records every different kind of stats from your drive, so you could use a software that monitors SMART, like Harddisk Sentinel or Crystal Disk Info, to see for yourself what is happening under the hood.
There is also a little test you could run from the Command Prompt (run it as administrator):
Windows will tell you if, according to your SMART readings, your drive is about to fail. Can you absolutely rely on it? It's more like a second opinion I guess.
But if the replacement is covered by the warranty I would go for it, you know, peace of mind.
ZenitDrevo
4 Messaggi
0
July 16th, 2022 04:00
Okay I tried the Command Prompt test you suggested me and it gave me a FALSE result. So right now the SupportAssist is still the only one whose announces this hardware fail error.
Should I try anyway Harddisk Sentinel or Crystal Disk Info in order to get more opinions? Honestly I have no idea of what should I do.
Tatolino
6 Professor
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2.8K Messaggi
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July 16th, 2022 05:00
It is up to you. But at this point I would say they are not going to clear up any doubts. You could have them running for a few days, see if they detect and log any error while you're working.
But honestly, if you haven't swapped your drive for a new one, if you haven't messed with it in any way, it would be very strange for SupportAssist to come up with a warning like that out of the blue, for no specific reason: like I said SA reads directly from the SMART system, meaning that at some point SMART detected an error, something that SupportAssist logged as a red flag.
These days we all keep our data safe on the cloud, so if your laptop wasn't under any kind of warranty any more I would tell you to pay no care, just make sure all your documents are safely backed up, and if your drive eventually failed it would mean absolutely nothing, other than wasting a couple hours replacing it and reinstalling the OS.
But since your warranty covers it, just check what kind of technical intervention you're offered, maybe a technician will come and swap it on site; you will be spared from possibly having to drop a 100 bucks on a new drive one day when the warranty has expired.