RE: [SLE] Need help diagnosing hardware problem

On Monday, October 16, 2006 @ 7:40 PM, Rikard Johnels wrote:

On Tuesday 17 October 2006 02:19, Greg Wallace wrote:
On Monday, October 16, 2006 @ 2:04 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
Subject: Re: [SLE] Need help diagnosing hardware problem

On 06/10/16 13:30 (GMT-0500) Greg Wallace apparently typed:
I am having a hardware problem with my machine and am trying to
diagnose

it.

The first thing that happens is that my screen freezes. It has always
happened when my screen saver was running, but I'm assuming that's
just
a coincidence. After the screen saver freezes, here are some things
that

have

happened on reboot.

What happens if you disable the screensaver and DPMS?

Could a screensaver problem cause the machine to not be able to re-boot?
I forgot where DMPS is controlled. Could you tell me how to turn it off?

1) The computer beeps twice and nothing happens. No bios screen
comes

up,

no disk activity, nothing.

<snip>
2) There is disk activity as if the machine is booting, but the
screen

is

blank.

3) Once, the machine actually booted, but what was on the screen was

pure

garbage -- a screen full of letters overlaying other letters
overlaying
icons, etc. There wasn't a centimeter of blank screen space. It was
completely covered with this garbage.

My guess would be that I've got a video card going out, but item 1)
makes

me

wonder. Could a bad video card actually cause the machine to just
give

two

beeps and not even try to boot?

All symptoms point to a video card problem, but this includes a possible
video card slot problem. A BIOS may balk at continuing POST when it
thinks
it's supposed to have working video.

.

I'm starting to suspect the video card as the problem myself. Other than
the instance with the two beeps (which might could be caused by a video
card problem, though I have no way of knowing), all of the other cases
resulted in me not seeing any activity on the screen at boot up. I mean
I
didn't even get the bios screen. Then there was the time when the screen
was just completely covered in garbage. Even the time when I got the two
beeps I still didn't get anything on the screen. I'm thinking I might
just
spring for a new video card just to see if that fixes it. I don't do any
heavy graphics, so I could get by with a fairly cheap bare bones type of
card anyway, so it probably wouldn't cost too much just to try that.

In all cases, if I let the machine sit for
maybe just 5 minutes it will re-boot normally (so far, anyway, but I
tend

to

think the problem will get worse over time). Once it's back up, it
will

run

for some time with no problems (I don't recall it ever happening back
to
back on the same day, but if I left it up long enough the second time
I
suspect it would ultimately lock up again). There's some pattern here
in all of this, but also some inconsistency. Any help diagnosing this

problem

greatly appreciated.

These time differences make it appear it may be heat and/or voltage (and
thus power supply) related. If it hasn't had a dust removal since it was
new, that's probably long overdue. If the machine was here, my 3rd move
would be to see what happens with a different video card, 2nd being test

the

PS, 1st being cleaning. If you don't have another card to try, at least
try reseating yours. Try leaving the cover off and pointing a big fan
at
it to see if less heat is any help. If you have any cards in slots that
aren't necessary to run the OS, pull them out to see if it changes
anything.

1. Cleaning -- Well, I cleaned it out as best I could. I tried a vacuum
and a wisk broom. It's hard to a lot of the areas because of all of the
things sticking up in the air and covering other things up. I have to
say,
however, that it really didn't look all that dirty.

2. Power supply -- How does one test the power supply?

Overall, as I said above, I'm suspecting a bad video card as the culprit.

Thanks,
Greg Wallace



What DELL model is it?

Optiplex GX260

This might be a start for finding manuals etc:
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/index.aspx

I've already looked at the Dell site. It appears that my machine is too old
to have any info out there. Even for the newer machines, I couldn't find
any information about what beep codes mean.


--
         /Rikard

FD C5 59 D4 B6 78  46 1C EE 56 >

Greg Wallace


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