We bought 30 of these (optiplex 745s) and about 20 are doing this. We're setting them up like a factory, turn then all on and go down the line type of thing. If it's a symantec problem then isn't it happening to all of them? What's different?

 

Let me know how this works out for you. We were on the verge of going with a different vendor.

 

Cheers,

Mark

Mark-

 

I applied the fix today and it worked.  I agree with your question. Why is this not happening to all of them?  I have no idea.  I have a very standard config.  We have a 2K3 Domain, Symantec Client Security 3.14 soon to be 3.15, and Office 2K3, and Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0.9.

 

I setup the new machines all the same way:

Have them login and finish setting up their profile.

 

I would say two of the more recent machines have shown this problem.  It could be a specific piece of hardware, etc.  In my case, the easiest fix was the yank the CD/DVD SATA cable so you could boot normally.  Download/install the Servinst.exe file from Symantec; they indicate they are aware of the problem and are looking into it, and then add the registry value the article suggests.  Shutdown, plug the SATA cable back in, and it boots.  VERY, VERY, strange.  But after the DST mess, this is par for the course.  Hope this helps.  Other than this issue, we have had good results with these systems.

I agree.

 

We're having success with these as well, we're just worried that when we put the batch we have out into a production enviroment, we're going to be seeing this error more.

 

The way we've been dealing with it is to use system restore to basically take them back to an early restore point - we just no figured out that the point that worked was before AV client install.

 

We pop them out of the box, undo all the bloat-ware, give name and IP, join the domain, and then install any software needed. We have Office 2k3 pre-installed, so we just have to input the product key.

 

We booted to safe mode and re-installed all drivers but, like you said, no luck. Because we bought so many and such a majority of those were having problems, we were about a click away from calling Dell and telling them to deal with it. :smileywink: But this seems to make sense. Using System Restore a pain!

 

Thanks for your help.

The next one that does this I'm going to try this fix on. I'm not going to yank the cable though - symantec and Dell admit it's their problem so it *shouldn't* have anything to do with the CD-ROM, but that remains to be seen. :smileywink: Hopefully, just booting into Safemode with Networking will be enough. It's aggrivating enough without having to yank a cord everytime.

 

Thanks!

Mark

I have successfully deployed 40+ Optiplex 745's without a hitch.  I use an unattended install DVD and install Office 03, Adobe Reader, Symantec 10.1.5.5001, etc. through RunOnceEx.  I haven't had a bit of trouble until I installed AOL of one of the computers.  After 3-4 reboots, I was getting the Black Screen of Death!  I have successfully reproduced this BlSOD by installing AOL after my RunOnceEx.  I have no idea what's causing it, but the workaround posted earlier does fix it for now.  Maybe this will help someone figure this out.

Rob

I to had this same problem with two new 745 systems. After speaking with Dell support and trying severl standard troubleshooting steps that were related to the RAM and video card I was ready to send both systems back to Dell. Then I spent some time looking through this forum and found this post. I followed the steps listed in