Dell P3 dying?

[imported_ceefka]

We have an old Dell Dimension XPS 700 PIII (700MHz). I've upgraded it a bit with 2 x 80GB HDDs and a 17"TFT screen.

It seems now, old age is getting the better of it. We have the following symptoms

Black screens, some right after startup, some after the screensaver is activated and it won't come back on line.
Vertical lines over the screen in all kinds of colours.
Reboots, some just after startup
Resolution at 640 x 480.

I have read that the C:\ might have a bad sector just where the graphics driver is. That might explain the last symptom.

I am now planning to reïnstall everything and see what it does. It could however be that the machine is simply dying on me hardwarewise. What do you think?

I might add:

I just plugged in the Windows CD and the screen is unreadable. I will now shut it off completely and try it again.

 

[chilled]

Originally posted by: ceefka
I am now planning to reïnstall everything and see what it does. It could however be that the machine is simply dying on me hardwarewise. What do you think?

That's your best bet as of now. Backup now. Run memtest to check memory and use WD's hard drive checking utility to make sure your disks are running OK. Then reformat and attempt to reinstall.

If it fails with any of the above its a hardware error.

 

[Maximilian]

I would think its the graphics card. Try getting hold of another AGP card and testing it with that, or a PCI card if you have one.

 

[Slugbait]

I also vote the graphics card...more precisely, the fan on the graphics card. If it's an onboard GPU and doesn't have a fan, you'll need to try another card as mentioned above. Just be sure to disable the onboard GPU (either a jumper on the mobo, or in the BIOS)

 

[MNOB07]

I had an old P3 that, when the memory wasn't in the system right, would display similair problems. that system used an integrated gpu so it was using the ram as vram. I would guess that if there's a dedicated card it's the ram that is possibly damaged or overheating, or if it's integrated it may be the memory. Get those checked out.

 

[imported_ceefka]

Originally posted by: chilled
Backup now.

The data is already on a seperate HDD. I can maybe pull this one out and put it in my new rig, just to check it. I could even do the same with the OS disk.

The graphics card seems quite a possibility too. I'll check with a few friends if they have a spare lying around.

There are three RAM sticks in this machine 256, 128 and 64MB. A bit odd, yes. The 128 was in when we bought it, the 256 I bought in 2004 to have XP on this machine and the 64 was a hand-me-down.

I read a suggestion somewhere that it could also be that the graphicscard driver is in a bad sector.

Well thank you all. I'll try this stuff tomorrow. What a way to spend Easter.

 

[InlineFour]

i'll buy the hard drives from you if you're going to part the PC.

 

[imported_ceefka]

Finally got hold of an AGP (for free) from a friend.

When I took out the old graphics card I saw some dust on the small fan of the old graphics card. I tried to remove the dust and noticed that the fan didn't go round so well, it is jammed. Perhaps that's what killed it. So, I'd better look for some more dust in here to avoid further damage. I cleaned this machine out a year ago, but never went as far as taking it apart. It seems now that there's little choice.

I never really saw the CPU slot in because Dell had it nicely covered in plastic device that somehow made me think of Darth Vader. This thing creates a tunnel to a case fan, making it more like a CPU-fan and let the rest of the case rely on the fan of the PSU. I cleaned that out as well.

The PSU is standard Dell issue of about 200W. The system holds a PIII, 448MB RAM, 2x 80GB PATA, CD Burner, DVD ROM, Floppy, Creative Soundblaster and now an AGP 9200 128MB with its own little fan. Am I in any danger of abusing the PSU? There was an old modemcard and some graphics add on card with S-VHS and spdif out. Quite useless now. I removed both of them.

I'll try starting it up this evening and keep you posted.

 

[bluestrobe]

Replace the PSU before doing anything. A 6 year old 200 watt PSU might die when you first turn the computer on.

 

[GrammatonJP]

Man i would just strap an oz of c4 to it and take it out to the parking lot..

if not

1. backup important files
2. clean the pc - blow out dust and vaccum all the dust bunnies
3. run the diag to make sure hdd is not gathering bad sectors or something
4. if its good, format c: and reinstall windows.. with ur new fx card..

The psu is fine... if ur going to buy a dell psu you might as well buy a cheap dell computer... one of those psu is like 50 bucks.. or like 100 after market

 

[imported_ceefka]

Hi y' all,

The new card is in, the dust is out, everything is up and running again. :beer: So in the end it must have been the AGP-card. I think the PSU is fine now. I´d rather change the whole system if the PSU goes down. Then i might look for some C4

I'll be running some diags now to see what the status of the HDDs is.

Thank you all for participating here.

 

[Slugbait]

Even tho' it's an XPS, it possibly has a proprietary PSU. If so, swapping it out would mean paying thru the nose directly from Dell, with the added bonus that you couldn't use it in a newer machine you build yourself later.

It probably would have been much cheaper to go with a new GPU fan, I did this with my old Ti200 Personal Cinema card. But if you're happy with a new card (I assume it's more powerful...) then that was the good way to go.

 

[imported_ceefka]

No worries there Slugbait. The "new" card was a hand me down AGP Sapphire ATI Radeon 9000 Atlantis PRO, 128RAM. I got it for free from a friend. It is more powerful than the old one, nVIDIA GForce 256, 32MB RAM.

Just from a technical point of view: Do you suppose the graphics card would still work as long as I put on a new fan? I know fans like that cost next to nothing, but you can't beat a free card.:gift:

GrammatonJP already pointed out how expensive Dell PSUs are. I am not willing to invest more than 10-20 bucks or so in this machine, but only to keep it running. I'll buy something nice for my friend though. With the new graphics card I can postpone the entire replacement, which will eventually happen. That is another story and someday another post as well.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: ceefka
Just from a technical point of view: Do you suppose the graphics card would still work as long as I put on a new fan? I know fans like that cost next to nothing, but you can't beat a free card.

Sure, it would probably work just fine, and have a nice, healthy long life. But considering the current value of that card, and the price you paid for the replacement, it wouldn't be worth the money to buy a new fan for it (much less the cost of your time to do the replacement)