Whats the problem?

[Elrojo]

Hey dudes,

I have a Dell XPS 1640 (or something), its about 17 months old now. yesterday i went to reboot it after it wouldnt load any applications and it just freezes on the "gasmeter" about 60% the way through.

I had just received my iphone 4 and i had just registered it through itunes (alread was loaded on my comp). I shut down iTunes and let the comp idle. About 20 mins later I went to reopen iTunes and it did the actions like it was gonna open, then nothing. So i clicked it again and nothing. I opened a random folder and it loaded fine. SO i hit CTRL + ALT + DEL to see if itunes was open in the system anywhere and nothing happened. I hit it a bunch of times and nothing. SO i rebooted. And it freezes.

I cant get to the point to hit F8 or F2 or anything to go into an alternate boot up. The option to hit F2 for set up or F12 for something appears and if i hit it the selection highlights like something should happen but it doesnt. I tried hitting F8 as soon as it turns on but nothing.

The Dell guy told me to hit Fn as i turned it on to go into diagnostics. I had to get my GF to do it cos I was at work and she said nothing happened. I'll have to double check. But what else can I do??

PS. I'm away from AO until i can fix the issue

[shartris]

Hello Elro,

I have started looking into the problem you having with your Dell laptop XPS1640. You gave a very nice and detailed description of the problems(always a plus) you are experiencing which is very good. First of all i need to gather some additional information from you to diagnose these issues further. What operating system are you currently using on this system? What we need to do is narrow these problems down to either a hardware issure such as Memory, or Hard drive issues or software issues, such as itunes or potential viruses or trojans.

Until i hear from you again iam going to cross reference to see if anyone is experiencing problems with their DEll XPS 1640 and the iTunes software. Until i can tell you to try one thing:

Dell has a built in diagnostic utility on bootup. To access it it: As the system boots press F10 during post. If successful you will be given a menu of diagnostics to run.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... 350c40.htm

Run all of the tests that are available, pending that you can even access this menu ofc. If you are, and all tests pass successfully chances are pretty good that your dealing with a software issue and not a hardware issue.

Let me know how this work for you.

Shar

[noobas]

OOOOoooo rojo!

you've been feeding your computer too many drugs :/

[Chrisax]

Shartris covered ithe question very well. Obviously, he knows Dell much better than I do.

Try to answer Shartris' questions. I'll follow the thread but so far I can't see what else to ask. Your answers should help.

And... we miss you!

[Elrojo]

Hey shar.

Thanks in advance. It runs windows Vista 64bit version. I have avast antivirus and as far as I know it was up-to-date. I do have iTunes all the time but this was the 1st time i'd used it in ages. I mainly use usenext to D/L things like TV episodes and I do have avast covering P2P D/L's. Its picked up a few times that a show has a trojan in it. I have done a full scan maybe 1-2 weeks ago. I have CC cleaner for registry cleaning etc and run it maybe 2nd daily. Other than that and AO i dont have any other external programs running. Item assist, CLicksaver etc. Firefox, WMP uhhh Office 2007, VLC player and thats about it. All the programs I have had i've had on the computer for 6+ months. My internet slowed to 64kpbs about 5 days ago and since then i havent d/l anything due to the speed. SO nothing has been downloaded in the last 5 days.

I also tried the solutions Dell gave me. No go. It doesnt get far enough into the booting cycle to allow for any options it would seem. I didnt try F10 though. I will do later. When i Rang dell back to tell them their options didnt work the guy who couldnt hear me well and didnt speak english well thinks i need a new motherboard. Which is 2 months wait, $680ish and an extra $180 for installation.....

One thing i noted was that when it paused if i hit escape another screen appears where the older computers used to do the RAM checks (i remember counting up when i was young!) it says "system RAM passed", "system BIOS Shadowed", "Video BIOS Shadowed". It gives me the option to hit F2 to enter setup. If i hit that the option says "entering Setup" but doesnt go anywhere. (PS holding F10 didnt help).

[Elrojo]

Unsexy update.

I got the computer to run past the initial screen.

1) SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0:Samsung HM500LI-(S1)

Warning: immediately back-up your data and replace your Hard Disk Drive failure may be iminent

Hit F1 to continue

2) Disk Read Failure
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del

3) CRAP

4) rang Dell. They still tell me its a motherboard issue. The OS and the HDD apparently arent playing nice. I asked what could've caused it but i dont speak indian and they cannot speak slower so I didnt get any answers on that.

5) 2 options they tell me. $800 billable warranty. 12 months warranty + get my stuff fixed. Apparently had I rung up a week ago the warranty extension would have been $300. I'm considering ringing in a week and saying nothing about problems and trying to extend my warranty.... I doubt it now since they logged my call

Option 2 is $800 to replace HDD and Motherboard. Apparently the XPS motherboards are like 3-4X the cost of a regular one

6) No answer on if I can get my stuff off my HDD. all my work down the drain. I already had my last external HDD break with all my stuff on it only 2 months ago. And now my other HDD has crashed. I really cannot believe it.

7) running diagnostics atm and the System and HDD both said passed. SO WTF. Still checking my diagnostics, memory testing atm.

8) my stupid internet has slowed to 64kbps so its an age to open any webpages on my GF's laptop.

EDIT:: Error code 0151
MSG: Error Code 2000-0151
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - incorrect status : 5E No additional sense information

Please helpz

Any feedback on this would be welcome.

[Rulzern]

Your HDD is dying.

To save what data you can (if the harddrive isn't too far gone already), you can boot up using a live-CD or USB stick containing a linux variant like Ubuntu. Hook up an external harddrive, and copy the files you need over (or do it over the network).

Atleast that's my guess.

[Chrisax]

Whatever your possible other issues can be, it seems the HD is in big troubles.

Do as Rulzie said (we can help you if you're not used to make bootable CD-ROM or USB stick and note a bootable USB stick requires a BIOS able to boot on USB; good news being that most are able to do that today).

Or the other solution could be to install the HD as secondary HD in another computer that works well.

Anyhow, unless you KNOW what you exactly want to do, do NOT start the HD again. If it is dying, adding new start/stop processes can only make the situation worse.


Side note: I don't know the price of your system but if I had to pay 800 dollars to repair it, I would consider investing in a new one.

BTW, the industrial price for the MB is likely under 100 dollars, and the HD is less than that too.

[Millerna]

Dell XPS are good machines but not worth paying 800$ just to fix an old XPS imo, I'd rather save some more cash go around 1200$ and get a new one.

[Elrojo]

When I got my laptop i think with the whole build in AUS$ was like $3k. (technology is always more expensive here). It still has like $2k to pay on it. So I dont want to be paying off an old laptop and buy a new one. I'm screwed either way.

I'll have to get a local techie to back it up.

[noobas]

nerf rojo, I was going to say buy a new one. But you covered that.

I always go for a olderish technology computer than the cutting edge stuff. my laptop only cost me $1200 and that was like three years ago now.

I vote we tell Dell to speak ENGRISH!

[Elrojo]

Ok so I got on to a local techie who i could understand. They will try to retreive all of my stuff first, then they will test my system with a new HDD. It will cost me $150 for the test/recovery and he said maybe $100ish for a new HDD. He didnt seem to think any of the info i gave them implicated the Motherboard. If this all works i'll purchase extra warranty later off dell for cheaper.

I can see the convo now:

Me: Hi Dell can i get extra warranty for $300, yes my system is working fine

Dell: Uhh you rang the other day and it was screwed, so that'll be $800 for a billable warranty

Me: nono its fixed, i swear

Dell: Uhh no we didnt fix it. So its still broken, so that'll be $800. Thank you, come again.

Me: "clunk"

Lets just hope its a HDD issue and it can be replaced.

[Elrojo]

Mixed news.

1) The HDD couldnt be recovered by the dudes I sent it to.
2) The HDD is still spinning, so a more high-tech place may be able to recover it, but its apparently $$$
3) The laptop works fine with a new HDD, and no other probs, so saved $$$
4) Bad news is that as a result of 2 HDD failures in 2 months (1 external and one internal), I've lost EVERYTHING. All my old work, movies, music, AO prefs, pics... the lot.

[Chrisax]

Ouch Rojo, that hurts.

Good to know the laptop is doing well. But did you lose the two disks on it? If they were not the same model, that sounds strange.

As for data recovery, yes, companies like Ontrack http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ can often recover data but prices rocket fast. In fact, you can be prepared to spend more money in recovering than for buying a small computer.

For the future, you could maybe consider having an external USB drive (not very expensive, around 62 euros / 70 US dollars here for a 250GB brand name) and use an automatic backup software to save data on demand or permanently. Or make temporary backups on a flask stick (not a great solution for long-term backups though).

There is a thread here where we discussed the question of backup software:
http://www.athenpaladins.org/forums/vie ... kup#p39626

For example, Acronis True Image Home edition we discussed in that thread does a fairly nice job (it was used to me much more expensive in the past). I'll repost the link here but have a look at the thread above.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pr ... trueimage/

Note that some external USB disks may come with some backup software, basic ones though.

[shartris]

Rojo,

I am glad you finally got your computer fixed, and figured out the problem. From what you were telling me i was thinking hardware and it turned out to be the HD. Great advice from Chris, Noobas and all btw thanks for pitching in and helping Rojo with that. Sorry you lost all your data dude, that sux. As Chris mentioned flash drives work well as a temporary solution, and external drives do work, however i have a Maxtor 500 GB external and it went bad on me. While it was under a 5 year warrenty i still lost my data, so still not a good long-term backup solution. The only safe solution imho is to buy yourself a used server. I Have a little Dell Poweredge 2600 that runs 24/7 has 4 Western Digital Ultra 320 SCSI drives configured for a RAID 5. Currently it is running windows small business server 2003. I paid $300 US for this on EBAY. Great little investment. Servers unlike regular PC's have built in Redundancy, multiple processors, multiple power supplies, they are built to run 24/7. This is the situation i would recommend for long term data backup. If you cannot find a good used server with at least 3 hard drives for a stripe or RAID config you might also consider an online backup solution:

http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/pro ... 5Qod5gOWLA

http://www.carbonite.com/ads/ppc/GOOG/O ... 5QodhnWkLA


Online backup has pros and cons though. On the pro side, you dont have to worry about purchasing your own backup equipment on the con side though the more space you need the more expensive it is. figured if i payed $50 US a month for 12 months that $600 i could have put towards a nice little server with a tape drive and possiibly backup oftware (like Veritos) inlcluded.

I am including a link for Ebay for you to look at some of these prices for Dell Poweredge servers:

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid ... Categories

Now on alot of these you got to watch several things:

1. make sure the shipping is not outragous

2. make sure the server has been tested

3. make sure it comes with server OS

4. make sure it has at least 2GB ram

5. Make sure it has at least 3 Hard disks for RAID config


Hopes this helps,

Shar