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Rant: Don't tell me it's a fscking software issue!

H

Heisenberg

Lifer
Arrgghhh. Yesterday I come in the room to see my laptop (Inspiron 4100) with a bunch of vertical blue lines on the screen. I reboot the machine and it comes up saying the registry is corrupt. Reboot the again, this time it says it can't find any hard drives at all. So I run the dell diagnostics off floppies. The first time it says the motherboard fan is dead and then hard locks. Run it again and it says there's a problem with the hard drive, but the fan passes. I call dell and they want me to run the diagnostics again. Of course this time it passes. The guy refuses to acknowledge it's a hardware problem, and tells me to reinstall windows. I argue for a while and finally give up. I reinstall windows and it hard locks about 3 minutes after the install completes. Reboot and it does it again. There's no freaking way this is a software issue. I hate intermittent hardware problems. </rant>
 
Dell's diagnostics are useless. When the slave hard drive (the hard drive the system shipped with) failed in my 8250, Dell's diagnostic CD insisted it was fine, even though Windows gave me an "Unknown hard error" whenever the hard drive was connected.

I downloaded a diagnostics utility from Seagate's website and after 15 seconds it told me that the hard drive was defective and needed to be replaced. Then a tech support monkey had the nerve to tell me that since Windows was not installed on the drive they wouldn't replace it. Luckily the next monkey I talked to was a little more reasonable. :frown:
 
compaq did the same thing to me... i kept on telling them it was a f*cking hardware problem, and they were like "no, you need to use the restore cd". since they refused to accept it until i had done so, i used the restore cd. oh boy that fixed everything
rolleye.gif
 
Sounds heat related really IMHO. Hows the fan working?

It just makes sense like it would heat up and then lock up.
 
Just act like an idiot with the tech guys, once they think your a moron with a computer they'll have you send it right in.
 
Thanks for calling Dell my name is Renob may I have your service tag number please.
Ok sir I see your service plan expires on 7/22/of 2004
Sir are you still running Win XP Home? great what can I help you with sir.



Sir your hardware is fine, please run the debug program and reinstall the OS.


OK OK I do work for Dell, run you Dell extended diag tonight and note all the errors and call us in the morning.
also reseat your mem, harddrive and the lcd ribbion cable. If you dont know how go to dell.com click on support on the top of the page. that is were you can find the info how.

Hope this helps.
also run the 90/90 hard drive test, power on the system and when you see the Dell splash screen pres ctrl+alt+D key and it takes about 2 minutes to run.


Dell's diagnostics are useless
sorry but for the most part they rock.

 
Originally posted by: Renob
Thanks for calling Dell my name is Renob may I have your service tag number please.
Ok sir I see your service plan expires on 7/22/of 2004
Sir are you still running Win XP Home? great what can I help you with sir.



Sir your hardware is fine, please run the debug program and reinstall the OS.


OK OK I do work for Dell, run you Dell extended diag tonight and note all the errors and call us in the morning.
also reseat your mem, harddrive and the lcd ribbion cable. If you dont know how go to dell.com click on support on the top of the page.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

It's a laptop so I can't really open it up to check anything. I ran the IBM (now Hitachi) fitness test and it came up with a bunch of bad sectors. It's zeroing the drive right now and I'm gonna reinstall AGAIN. The hard drive error I got before with the Dell diag. was

Test Errors
IDE Disk 0 - Confidence Test : Fail
Result Code: 0F00-1344
Msg: Block 11685527: Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected.
 
Then a tech support monkey




Whooo cowboy thats hitting below the belt.


Dang were did my banana go.
 
It's a laptop so I can't really open it up to check anything


Dude you can open it up its easy, like I said go to the website it will show you how.

Run the 90/90 like I said and tell ime how it goes
 
Originally posted by: Renob
It's a laptop so I can't really open it up to check anything


Dude you can open it up its easy, like I said go to the website it will show you how.
Click to expand...

Well physically sure I can open it, but won't that void the warranty?
 
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