Some Fubar dell

[a-4-year-old]

My parents are complaining about random crashes on this horrible dell dimension 2350. The crashes seem to come with more and more frequency to the point where it is unusable. They don't get a blue screen, they get a black screen with some "computer jargon" on it, and gives the ever so helpful enable safe mode option.


I figure its a dieing hard drive, but I'd like to know for sure, right now I am just running it on a linux boot disk.

Is there something to check the HD without starting windows? (I have an army of blank CD-Rs at my disposal)

Thanks for any imput, I'll check this tomorrow.

[iDante]

Are you hearing any sounds from it? (From the HD)

Have you reinstalled the OS any time recently?

[a-4-year-old]

Yeah reformatting only stopped the crashing for a while. The fans are so loud in this computer I don't think I would hear anything

[jrgp]

Well, my mom just bought a new dell laptop for around $4,000 loaded with 3 gigs of ram, XP pro, MS Office 2007 Professional, Adobe CS3 Master Collection, etc. It's the most worthless piece of bollocks ever. It can't go two days without a single blue screen of death. I haven't tried to get it to work with linux yet, but kernel panics wouldn't surprise me.

A word to everyone: Dell does not care about quality anymore, in the old days computers were made like tanks (they lasted forever) now they are viewed as disposable items and Dell only cares about profit. Never buy a dell, go with something solid like a Toshiba. They're great.

@4 year old: I feel really sorry for you, man. If you can login, maybe close everything (including explorer.exe) and only have a terminal (cmd.exe) open, you can try running CHKDSK. Reseating the RAM sticks might also help, as they could also be a / the problem.

[Flamingo]

It's always overheating.

[Captain Ben]

dell or not your mums doing it wrong jgpr
i've ran one computer without reformatting for YEARS without a bluescreen with none of that girly linux penguin crap

[jrgp]

i've ran one computer without reformatting for YEARS without a bluescreen with none of that girly linux penguin crap

uhh, the webserver that powers jrgp.us is a dell dimension from 1998. the hard drive isn't the originafl (probably a samsung from ~2003) but it is rock solid completely. the dells of recent years have been raw shit.

and really ben, don't post showoffy linux bashing shit in a thread for no reason except maybe trying to piss people off.

[Mangled*]

Helpful tip: Don't buy from Dell. Their prices may seem reasonable but that's because they put the worst hardware in any system that doesn't cost you a fortune.

[a-4-year-old]

... The computer is 6-7 years old

[blackdevil0742]

That happened to my old computer. It died after 6 months or so ..so sad it was over 8 years old and it could run Hostile Waters MAXED! ;(

[FliesLikeABrick]

Sounds like overheating

[Gortaak]

If you get blue screens it could also be a bad stick of RAM.(Allthough the BSOD could be so fast you might not even see it) I had a computer that was fine for a while, then started crashing all the time. I managed to catch a glimpse of the BSOD and it said something about memory. I figured out what stick it was and changed it, the computer works to this day.

If it IS overheating, open up the case, get a can of duster and blow out all of the dust, that should help out a bit.

Also after its been running for a while restart it and fire up the bios and poke around, if its atleast a decent MB it should have a heat sensor and will tell you how hot it is.

[DarkNoddy]

Since there isnt a BSoD, that pretty much rules out OS errors, so I'd have to go with everyone saying overheating.
Since the warranty is expierd (8 years?) I'd open it up and see how much dust and crap there is inside it.
Install a temperature managaing software and keep track on what the temperature is.

You might wanna make sure that it doesnt auto restart on BSoD though, just in case.

If you suspect the HDD being busted run chkdsk (see jrgps post)

[Biscuiteer]

Have your parents defragmented that computer recently?

[a-4-year-old]

Have your parents defragmented that computer recently?

They don't know where the start menu is.

[mar77a]

Helpful tip: Don't buy from Dell. Their prices may seem reasonable but that's because they put the worst hardware in any system that doesn't cost you a fortune.

Nothing wrong with the two Dell laptops at home.

Use Hiren's BootCD (google it) to check the RAM & hdd. Good luck finding a download link

[Biscuiteer]

Well if your parents are really that unexperienced at computer use then maybe you should try a good defrag or two. The increasing amount of crashing may be due to increased wear of the hard disk drive. However the defrag is likely to take hours.

Hopefully that helps.

[DarkNoddy]

Well if your parents are really that unexperienced at computer use then maybe you should try a good defrag or two. The increasing amount of crashing may be due to increased wear of the hard disk drive. However the defrag is likely to take hours.

Hopefully that helps.

Since overheating has been mentioned, though I really doubt its your HDD thats overheating, defraging is a process which consists of a noticable amount of work, especially on the hdd, so you should be on a lookout for that during the defraging (atleast on the hdd)