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[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2003
- Messages
- 1,037
Hi All,
I've been attempting to help my brother fix his Dell over the phone for a few days now. I'm not sure of the full specs, but I believe it's a Q6600 with at least 8gb of ram. It was a fully spec'd out XPS ~3 years ago. I just walked him through upgrading his video card (8600GT -> 6850) a few weeks ago and now his computer is hanging before he can even access the BIOS (ie: during Dell splash screen). Note that the computer ran flawlessly with the 6850 in for several weeks. The issue started after he had been gaming (either Starcraft 2 or more likely Battlefield: Bad Company 2). He took a break and left the game open in the menu and wound up not returning to the computer until the following morning. When he looked at the computer in the morning it was frozen at the Dell logo with the progress bar ~halfway through. Every attempt at rebooting yields the same results.
I've talked him through the following troubleshooting tests:
- Resetting CMOS by battery removal and jumper
- Tried booting with only 1 RAM chip in, tried both channels and different chips
- Tried disconnecting HDD
He's going to try putting the old GPU in tonight and see if that's the issue, but I suspect it is not based on the symptoms.
I'm pretty sure at this point it's either the motherboard or the PSU. He does not have a spare PSU, nor is he willing/able to rewire the whole system to test one. A motherboard swap isn't possible at this time for the same reasons.
I guess I'm just trying to see if there is anything I'm overlooking here. Would leaving a game open at the menu overnight be potentially stressful enough to kill any of the components?
I've been attempting to help my brother fix his Dell over the phone for a few days now. I'm not sure of the full specs, but I believe it's a Q6600 with at least 8gb of ram. It was a fully spec'd out XPS ~3 years ago. I just walked him through upgrading his video card (8600GT -> 6850) a few weeks ago and now his computer is hanging before he can even access the BIOS (ie: during Dell splash screen). Note that the computer ran flawlessly with the 6850 in for several weeks. The issue started after he had been gaming (either Starcraft 2 or more likely Battlefield: Bad Company 2). He took a break and left the game open in the menu and wound up not returning to the computer until the following morning. When he looked at the computer in the morning it was frozen at the Dell logo with the progress bar ~halfway through. Every attempt at rebooting yields the same results.
I've talked him through the following troubleshooting tests:
- Resetting CMOS by battery removal and jumper
- Tried booting with only 1 RAM chip in, tried both channels and different chips
- Tried disconnecting HDD
He's going to try putting the old GPU in tonight and see if that's the issue, but I suspect it is not based on the symptoms.
I'm pretty sure at this point it's either the motherboard or the PSU. He does not have a spare PSU, nor is he willing/able to rewire the whole system to test one. A motherboard swap isn't possible at this time for the same reasons.
I guess I'm just trying to see if there is anything I'm overlooking here. Would leaving a game open at the menu overnight be potentially stressful enough to kill any of the components?