If you press F12 during boot up, while the dell logo is still on the screen, you will get a message saying something like "preparing one time boot menu".  When this menu appears, select the diagnostics option and your laptop will boot into a special diagnostics mode.  You should be able to diagnose options from there.

If that says everything is ok, try downloading i8kfangui (search google, I can't remember where it is right now) to be able to see the various temperatures for bits of your laptop.

Richard

Well, I ran the diagnostic and it stopped on the video card.  It gave me a series of tones, like an alert, then 3-2-3 beeps.  It never finished, just kept the pattern up.  Where do I find what this means, other than it has issues with the video card?  By the way the video on the laptop seems fine, and it is a GeForce4.

I got exactly the same result when I ran diagnostics on my D800. My screen works perfectly, too, and I've never had an overheating problem despite the fact that the machine is generally run flat-out 24/7.

I never got any response on why the diagnostics gave this response or on why they wouldn't go any further. Hopefully, I'll find out now.

Message Edited by KeeperC on 06-04-2004 11:06 AM