37 Posts

January 6th, 2004 21:00

if your computer is new, try the following procedure:

-first, insert in your cd/dvd drive a cd named "for reinstalling Dell Inspiron System Software" which should have come with your new computer
-second, reboot and when the blue dell logo appears, press the F12 button - this will let you choose which devices to boot from. choose to boot from cd-rom, and follow the instruction. you should end up with the dell diagnostic.

i tried it with my laptop. and it works. but it may vary from different models

good luck

??-----Inspiron 8600-----??
Pentium-M 1.6Ghz
1Gb RAM
60Gb 7200rpm HDD
DVD+RW (NEC)
ATI Radeon 9600 PRO TURBO
15.4" WUXGA+
Win XP Pro
Dell TrueMobile 1300 WLAN
etc etc etc

425 Posts

January 6th, 2004 21:00

it is Ctrl+Alt+D and it starts up the IDE diagnostics (actually just hard drive)

to run PSA diags at startup just hold any button on the lightpipe (IE not on keyboard like volume or something) and power on the system.

Dell Latitude C840 BIOS A12
WindowsXP Media Center Edition
15" Samsung ASV UXGA 1600x1200
Intel Pentium4 2.5GHz-M
512MB PC2100 Crucial
512MB PC2100 Dane Elec
Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm Primary
IBM 60GB 5400rpm Modular
Hitachi 40GB 5400rpm USB2
HLDS 8x DVD-Rom Fixed
Matshita 24x CDRW Modular
Teac 1.44MB Floppy Modular
Sanyo 66Whr Battery
Sony 66Whr Battery
Nvidia Geforce4 440 Go 64MB
(53.03 Forceware with Teraphy's Modified Inf)
Dell TrueMobile 1300 802.11b/g Mini-Pci
NEC 4Port USB2.0 PCMCIA

Latitude X200, XP Pro, pIIIm 800, 384MB, 30GB 4200, TM1150

Latitude X300, XP Pro, P-M 1.2GHz, 640MB, 40GB 5400, TM1300

19 Posts

January 6th, 2004 21:00

what does CNTL ALT P at boot time do??

2 Intern

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617 Posts

January 6th, 2004 21:00

For newer systems (1100, 5100, 5150, 600M, 500M, 8500, 8600, 300M), just tap F12 during the blue Dell logo. It will give you some options and choose the option for diagnostics. It will run the PSA diagnostics, which is a simple diags on the system, and after that the 32 bit Dell diags will automatically run, which is a more advance diags on the system.
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