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Holy crap... Computer freezes before I can even FDISK

A

aeroguy

Senior member
I'm trying to fix my friends computer. She has a Dell Dimension L866 with WinME.

I wouldn't boot, so I put tried booting from my XP Pro CD. It got to the windows setup screen, then said 'loading windows' and froze.

I put in the WinME recovery CD and got to the A:\> prompt and typed FDISK, then Y, then 3 to delete, then 1, then 1 again, and just as I was about to type Y, it froze. That's the furthest I've gotten after about 20 attempts. It always freezes, but at different times, usually earlier than what I mentioned. Usually it freezes before I can even get to the A:\> prompt.

One more note, the one time I got far enough, it showed the drive being 100% full. Is there anyting else I can do without buying a new hard drive?

Thanks!
 
The "100% full" info in FDISK just means that the whole drive is partitioned. It doesn't necessarily mean that the drive is actually full.

This might be a hard disk problem, but it really sounds to me like the system is either experiencing memory errors or is overheating. I would recommend checking the CPU heatsink and fan to make sure they are installed and working properly (firmly seated with good thermal paste and the fan is spinning correctly).

If heat is not the problem, download and run MEMTEST on the computer (it runs from a boot floppy) to see if it gets any errors. It needs to run for several hours in order to perform an effective test. From your description, you probably won't be able to get it to run that long but let it run as long as it can and if it starts reporting errors right away, then you'll know what is causing the lock-ups...
 
I don't think it's a heat thing, because it freezes after 15 seconds of use after being off for several hours.

It has 2 128MB sticks, so I removed one and when I booted I got the Dell screen, then a black screen an nothing else. So I assume that memory stick is dead.

When I put in the other stick in by itself, it works, but I get the same freezing problem, but it does seem like it will go a little longer before freezing. I'll run MEMTEST and post results.

Thanks a million for the suggestions so far.
 
I don't think it's a heat thing, because it freezes after 15 seconds of use after being off for several hours.
Click to expand...
a processor heats up fast. I've experienced the exact same symptoms and was a heat problem. Fan was spinning but wasn't seated properly. I reseated it, problem went away.

Good luck.
 
Yeah it does sound like a thermal issue.

Try re-seating the heatsink.

Edit: after re-reading the OP's second post it does sound a lot more like fishy memory, if you have another machine you can test the ram in, that would be useful.
 
Get into the bios and change the booting order to cd only and do a complete reformat. Delete all partitions beforehand. After windows installs change the booting order to hard drive only. If you want to save files I would suggest hooking the hard drive up to a friends computer and saving the the files that you want before you do the reformat. There might be viruses so make sure you scan. Other than that it could be an overheating issue. Some computers like DELL use only one fan in the system for coolling system. Make sure that the heatsink fins are clean and the tube going from them to the back of the case is free from obstructions and fan on the back of the case is clean.
 
Agreed that it could be the memory. I've had a stick fail on me that would also cause random reboots. Does the RAM test always pass to the correct amount of memory?
 
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