Troubleshooting Defective Hardware

I'm working on a Dell XPS 410 that appears to suggest it's motherboard is defective... that is unless Dell's are picky about power supplies and memory. I'd like to get some opinions.

The symptoms are.. the machine will power on normally but will lockup at random. My first thought was malware/virus. I ran a scan within safe mode with networking on and enabled the windows installer service. It locked up. I ran a scan using a boot CD and it locked up again. I ran Memtest and... everything was clear it didn't lock up. I tested the PSU using a power supply tester and it came back good. To be safe I replaced it with a known good power supply and started back on the virus scan and it locked up again lol. I pulled drives one at a a time and it failed to show anything on screen, reconnected them and it booted normally then froze. I swapped the RAM (just to be sure) again it froze with anything less than it's original RAM in place.

I cleared the CMOS and repeated the above, didn't help. I pulled the hard drive and scanned it on a separate machine there were only a handful of the usual malware/virus' present. Which does me no good if the motherboard is dead lol.

The person that was using this machine said it was running very slowly for months and would freeze on occasion so they'd hit the power button and keep on going. They kept doing this until it died or refused to stay up long enough to be usable.

At this point in the game I've been at it for a few hours and I'm willing to say it's time for a new motherboard or a new computer. Any final thoughts/suggestions would be most welcome.

 

Did you perform any benchmark tests on the drive?

The progressive slowing on a computer this old makes me lean towards blaming the HDD, especially if it's the original that came with an XP installation. And, an HDD of advanced age can even randomly shut the computer down completely by tripping the overload in the power supply. I've even seen PCB components fry now and then over the years in a puff of smoke.

 

Try a linux live CD and see if it locks up. (You tested the RAM as good so it wouldn't lock up because of failing RAM). If it does, then it might be the motherboard; if it doesn't, it points to something going wonky in windows or a problem with the hard drive.

 

Maybe just a data backup, and a fresh install would do the trick.

How old is the Windows installation?

 

That's a good idea but already done that with the Boot Disk. It was Kaspersky, it locked up after about 15 minutes of scanning. I tried a few more times and it locked up again. Which is why I ran Memtest.

I had the HDD connected to another machine, ran scans for virus' for a few hours without fail or issue. I also ran the WD utility on the HDD and all is good.

 

Thanks for the thought but it's not a software issue. I've ruled that out earlier on. Plus the user had issues previously and thought a new install of Windows would help. They have a fresh (few months old) install of Windows 7.

 

In such case, how old is the hard drive?

You can get the model number from Device Manager, or most drives physically have a "born on date" on their labels.

I use this tool now and again to get an idea of the drive's speed:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/ATTO_Disk_Benchmark_d6359.html

 

The hard drive is original but that's not going to do a thing for this machine since it's now settled into black screen, running fans and no power.

 

Are the graphics integrated, is there a card, or both?

Did you try booting w/o the HDD?

 

Yes I ruled out the hard drive long ago. Booting with or without it changes nothing the only thing that changes is if it'll freeze in Windows 7, linux or in the BartPE environment lol. The graphics is an add on card, I considered that too but found nothing to suggest the graphics. To be safe I plugged the graphics card into another machine, installed the drivers and ran 3D mark.. very slowly lol. No lockup's no failures it works normally.

The only thing that does seem to upset the machine and another reason I suspect the motherboard is the order in which the memory is installed. If I remove a stick it won't boot. If I rearrange the sticks it throws a memory error. I tried installing one stick and cycled through them all never boots. If I install a known good stick of RAM it refuses to boot. The memory I know is good per memtest.

I think it's time this guy gets a new computer lol

 

What type of memory is it, and are the timings of the sticks the same?

I'm guessing you have four sticks of RAM, and if it's dual channel it may not like only one stick.

 

Oh, and just thought I'd throw this out there:

I have a Dell Dimension I've been working on. Old, but works well enough to run XP and surf the net, which all the client needs. What I discovered was crashing the system was the nVidia update from Microsoft for the video driver. It worked fine after a full re-install (customer request, OS bloated) with the OS disc library drivers, until that update went in. It then started behaving erratically, freezing, and even crashing to a black screen with no signal to the monitor.

To finally get it working proper, I used the GeForce FX5200 drivers/software suite from the nVidia site (dated 2008) and it's run flawlessly ever since.

Not saying drivers are your issue, but I've seen some odd things over the years...

 

But with Kaspersky you were trying to scan the hd. A linux live CD would not involve the hd because it loads into RAM.

 

I pulled the hard drive, ran a BartPE disk and low and as expected it froze.

 

I did try a separate video card to rule it out a few hours ago. I dropped in another known good part and it still froze. At this point in the game I've thrown a lot of known good parts at this time and each and every time it freezes. Apart from the fluke when it ran Memtest.

 

Considered heat? Are the capicitors still good? No 'bubbling'.

 

Air flow is good but funny you mention capacitors. Yes I did spot 5 capacitors that have bubbled and leaked. Dumped the motherboard bought in a replacement (same part) and installed it. The machine powered up first time, Windows detected the new motherboard installed drivers. Rebooted and the it's chugging along like nothing ever happened pulling in updates for Windows, AV etc.

Finally we have a resolution to the mystery of the locking up Dell XPS. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions I do appreciate them.