[Jacob92103]

For about two weeks, my windows XP has been doing the same thing. I boot it up, and shortly after that, it will freeze up, mouse, keyboard, and I have to manually shutdown by holding in the button. If I try to restart right after that, the keyboard and the monitor will not come on. The keyboard will blink once, then go dead, the mouse will stay on, but the monitor will also stay in stand-by, or the yellow light. If I turn it off, then turn it back on, the monitor will show the DELL logo, then turn off again, giving the yellow light.

The only way I can clear this is if I unplug the unit for at least 24 or more hours, then start it up. It will start up like normal, and then do the same thing, no longer than 15 minutes tops into it being booted. I put in a new power supply, and that didn't help, same symptoms. I don't recall adding any new software or hardware. I did try to do a restore, it took me through the process, and then said it could not restore to an earlier time.

I have booted it in safe mode, removed some programs I haven't used in awhile, and while still in safe mode tried to defrag. It took me to 9%, then froze again in safe mode.

This morning, after having it unplugged, it booted up like normal, and less than ten minutes later just froze. I had the processes window up, but it didn't show anything making it run at full tilt, so I am at a complete loss on what may be happening. The most unusual part of it all, is having to "unplug" the unit completely for 24 hours before it will start up again so the monitor and the keyboard will work. The fans "seem" okay, but this whole unplugging thing has me puzzled. Anyone hear of this before? THANKS FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE!!!

Jacob~

Oh, it has always had Symantec, behind a firewall, on a wireless router. It's an older unit, Dell Dimension 4400, but I have always kept it clean and (knock on wood) hopefully from any virus or harms way...

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first try memtest...
get memtest 86+ here ...this will test your memory...let it run for at least 2 hours...if you get any errors then the ram is bad and will have to be replaced...no errors after 2 hours.......then its probably good and we can try other things..
it will run until you press the escape key
the how to is here..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its memtest86.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....

no joy ...

Boot your computer from a Windows XP Cd ... select boot from CD.... Press the letter R on your keyboard to get to the Windows Recovery Console.

you will be asked which partition you would like to boot into. Type the number associated with the partition containing your OS...usually 1 ... press enter ... put in your administrator password. press enter. If you do not have a password ...just press enter...

at the command prompt... type in chkdsk /p press enter...NOTE THE SINGLE SPACE BETWEEN chkdsk AND /p

if you see "One or more errors detected on the volume" then type in chkdsk /f/r
this can take some time on the larger hard drives..

it will also sometimes get to a certain % and then back up some and redo that section...its normal


DO NOT shut the computer off while running chkdsk or you can have severe problems

[happyrock]

first try memtest...
get memtest 86+ here ...this will test your memory...let it run for at least 2 hours...if you get any errors then the ram is bad and will have to be replaced...no errors after 2 hours.......then its probably good and we can try other things..
it will run until you press the escape key
the how to is here..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its memtest86.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....

no joy ...

Boot your computer from a Windows XP Cd ... select boot from CD.... Press the letter R on your keyboard to get to the Windows Recovery Console.

you will be asked which partition you would like to boot into. Type the number associated with the partition containing your OS...usually 1 ... press enter ... put in your administrator password. press enter. If you do not have a password ...just press enter...

at the command prompt... type in chkdsk /p press enter...NOTE THE SINGLE SPACE BETWEEN chkdsk AND /p

if you see "One or more errors detected on the volume" then type in chkdsk /f/r
this can take some time on the larger hard drives..

it will also sometimes get to a certain % and then back up some and redo that section...its normal


DO NOT shut the computer off while running chkdsk or you can have severe problems