Major Laptop issue

Ok, I will try to give the entire story here:

The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron 1150. It has a Pentium 4 2.80GHz/1.60GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. 80GB HD and a DVD-ROM.

The HD in the laptop now is a Toshiba MK8032GAX.

My girlfriend bought this laptop from her friend, and they knew it had a problem. What they thought was the problem was a power surge that fried the HD. My gf bought a new HD for the computer, it worked fine and we installed windows Home. (Incidentally, she also bought a new keypad for it, not sure that that matters). The computer worked fine for quite some time, and then earlier this week it froze and crashed. We thought it was maybe a random error, overheated or something no big deal. Anyways, we turn it back on and all we got was the blinking "_" in the upper left corner. So I turned it back on, plugged in the AC adapter, and tried booting up again. It booted windows fine. We then turned the computer off, and thought it was fine.

Fast forward to last night. he computer had not been used since the incident, until last night. Last night she turned it on (without the AC adapter) it went through the Dell loading screen, started to load windows, and froze on the windows loading screen. I tried what had worked before, plugging in the AC adapter. But this time when I booted up with the AC adapter plugged in, the computer wouldn't load the Dell screen, it just gave me the blinking "_" in the upper left corner. Also, if you start the computer without the adapter, and plug it in while the computer is running it instantly freezes. However the computer runs just fine in safe mode. I tried some system restores but none had any effect. I tired formatting it with a windows disk I have here, and it will give me the "Press any button to boot from CD..." prompt, but when I hit enter I get a "General Protection Fault" and a bunch of letters and numbers. Conversely, a friend told me about Ultimatebootdisk and that CD will boot up just fine.

Also of note, the AC adapter will still charge the battery, because the battery died once already and I turned it off with the adapter plugged in and let it charge for a few hours before I booted back up to try some other things.

This problem has me totally stumped, but I know almost nothing about laptops. Anyone have suggestions?

 

Minor update: I told Ultimatebootdisk to boot the primary hard drive, and it took me to the window load screen, and instead of freezing there it went totally black and froze.

It also freezes on the Windows boot screen if I try to do a Diagnostic startup through msconfig.

 

Power surge???
In a laptop??

Overheating perhaps, in need of internal cleaning perhaps.
Just possibly the cmos battery (yes laptops have them)
If you are unlucky a major component, bios chip or processor on its way out.

Do the housekeeping.
Download the latest bios from

www.dell.com

You can flash this from a floppy without needing windows running.

Even if your version is the same it may pay to reload it.

Studio T

 

Someone suggested the CMOS battery but the time in BIOS doesn't reset itself and seems to be working ok. The computer doesn't have a floppy drive so that is also not a possibility.

My major concerns are:

1. why does the computer freeze when the AC adapter is plugged in (and it freezes no matter where it is BIOS, safe mode, loading windows, Ultimatebootdisk) especially when the adapter clearly works because it charges the battery.

2. Why will the computer boot the Ultimatebootdisk just fine but gets an error when trying to boot a windows disk.

Someone suggested that possibly the AC adapter is not compatible with the Hard drive? I don't even know if that is possible, and if it is why did the laptop work for 2 weeks just fine.

 

Was this the same somebody that suggested power surge?

Please explain how a power surge can affect the components the other side of the mains unit/battery.

Laptop power supplies are very different from desktop units, I can see the possibility that a surge caused damage to the mains unit and/or the control circuitry on the motherboard, leaving the power unit as a whole unable to reliably generate the required internal voltages.

Is the Windows disk you are trying to boot from a Dell Inspiron recovery disk marked operating system?

Studio T

 

No. The whole power surge thing (if you read the post) was from before we bought the computer. The previous owner was having a Hard disk not found error and took it to CompUSA and THEY said it was a power surge that killed the harddrive. Granted the CompUSA guy was probably clueless. I have had no contact with that guy, just what I was told by my gf.

Either way, the fact is replacing the hard drive did work, for a little while. But I am having this problem now.

The windows disks I have have nothing to do with Dell. However, the one I am trying to boot with is an XP pro disk, and what I had originally installed on the laptop was XP Home (obviously, from a seperate disk altogether).

 

It's unlikley that the laptop had a power surge. More likely, the HD simply failed, They do that sometimes.

Your current issue is not very likely related to the HD issue. It sounds like a possible RAM issue. Check the RAM modules. They are under one of the small removable panels on the bottom of the computer. If there are 2 modules, try removing one and see what it does. If its still the same, replace that one and remove the other one and try again. If there is only one module, try to borrow one that is known to be good from someone and try again or take the module to a store like Best Buy and ask them to test the module at their service Dept.

 

I don't know if this matters but I ran Memtest off of Ultimatebootdisk and it said everything was fine. I will still give that a shot.

 

Remove the laptop battery and just run it on the power supply only, see what happens.

Steve

 

Just tried that, I got the same blinking "_" in the upper left corner, and it got nowhere.

 

Dell version Windows CDs have an extra folder on to test for and recognise Dell equipment, Anyone who can get a non Dell version to load is lucky.

Additionally you are trying to use an XPpro disk. These are not compatible with XPhome installations. What were you going to type in for the key?

Don't get hot under the collar I did read the post. It is evident to me that you have had some ill advice in the past and that you probably have two problems. I am trying to obtain enough information to identify and separate them.
The laptop has some underlying problem which I don't think is to do with the memory. I don't buy the power surge theory either.
On top of this you have been attempting to fix it with inappropriate tools. The UBCD would do it if your friend knew how to use it properly. It does at least tell us that your laptop is capable of being booted and controlled from a CD.

Servicing by the I don't know what to do so I'll try this and see if it works method can work or it can make things worse.

Work with the geeks, gather the information and eventually there will be enough to fix it properly. You already have more hard facts than you started with plus have hopefully cleared up some misconceptions.



Studio T

 

Do you have anthing connected to the laptop?

Unhook any peripheral devices, USB, etc. and see if it functions in normal mode.

Steve

 

I don't see how the Dell CD would be needed. It was a brand new hard drive, and I formatted it using an XP Home disk, and installed Home. My intention with the XP Pro disk was to just format it again, and reinstall windows, see if that fixed the problem.

There are no peripherals attached. My gf had been using a mouse/headphones at one point but those are the only things that were ever on it.

 

Anybody have any other ideas about why this might be happening?

 

" it went through the Dell loading screen, started to load windows, and froze on the windows loading screen. I tried what had worked before, plugging in the AC adapter. But this time when I booted up with the AC adapter plugged in, the computer wouldn't load the Dell screen, it just gave me the blinking "_" in the upper left corner. Also, if you start the computer without the adapter, and plug it in while the computer is running it instantly freezes. However the computer runs just fine in safe mode. I tried some system restores but none had any effect."

I am having this problem as well! It just happened on Saturday April 21, the EXACT same symptoms. We actually have the same laptop as well (dell inspiron 1150). The only difference is, I am the sole owner of the computer and have kept the harddrive stock. So I don't think the harddrive is the problem. It is so frustrating, I can load it up in safe mode, but Windows won't load regularly. The only thing I'm worried about is recovering my files, I was thinking about getting a new laptop anyway, just not this soon. =l

Hypothetically, could I purchase an external harddrive and run it in safemode? Or will the computer not recognize the new device?

 

there is a Class Action lawsuit against Dell for design flaws in the Inspiron 1150. In particular in the power supply, which contains a microcontroller to prevent non Dell psus being used.

http://www.mattsilv.com/inspiron1150/


Studio T