Inspiron 6000 random crashes (even in the bios)

Question

I have had my Inspiron for over 2 years, never had any problems with it until about a week ago. Now, it crashes randomly. AFAICT there is no pattern. I have seen: - two times I got POST errors (turn power on, get black screen and blinking keyboard LEDs) - many crashes and screen corruption while choosing boot device (in the F12 menu) - crashes while in the BIOS menu - crashes while coming out of hibernate - many, many crashes with screen corruption when connecting to a wireless AP - several crashes while setting the system clock (the system clock, by the way, is going nuts, occasionally jumping by several hours) - and some crashes for no discernable reason at all. The problem is, over half of the time it works fine. I turn it on, and it works for 12 hours straight without a single problem. But on some days, I can't make it al the way through the boot process at all. I am am using (and have been using for 2 years) BIOS version A09, which is the latest for the 6000; I reflashing the BIOS did not fix the problem. I have no idea what to do. Since the crashes are competely unpredictable, and on some days everything works perfectly on the first try, I don't know how I can even ship the laptop for service. The service tech will probably turn it on, see that everything works, and mail it back to me...

ejn63 · Answer

Start with a sweep of the Dell diagnostics - F12 at powerup.

tetromino · Answer

Thanks for the suggestion!

I just ran the diagnostics test 4 times in a row (test, reboot, test, reboot, etc.)
First time, all tests completed with "Pass".
Second time, froze in memory test, with screen corruption.
Third time, froze in system timer functionality test, with screen corruption.
Fourth time, all tests completed with "Pass", again.

Message Edited by tetromino on 02-04-2008 02:55 PM

ejn63 · Answer

Try reseating the memory module(s) and running the test again.

tetromino · Answer

After removing and reseating the memory modules, the laptop worked fine for a day. Not sure whether that's a coincidence or not (as I said, its crashes are pretty unpredictable).

Well, today it crashed again, and now it's failing the BIOS diagnostics again...

tetromino · Answer

Well, I finally found a way to reliably reproduce the problem: leaving one stick of ram in slot B, and nothing in slot A, the system would be almost guaranteed to lock up within a couple of minutes. So once I had a way to reliably reproduce my crashes, I started a chat with Dell support, and they eventually decided that I needed to get my motherboard replaced. The motherboard was replaced today -- and now my Inspiron works fine, with no crashes.

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