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Dell Vostro 400 - slow death


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#1
Big_Ed_OH

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Hello All!

My dell vostro 400 has been slowing down over the last few months. Yesterday, it locked up and would not respond to the mouse or keyboard. I tried the ctrl-alt-delete and it did not respond. I waited 20 minutes and still nothing. I had to shut down by holding the power button and when I turned the pc back on the power button light flashed amber. I unplugged the pc, waited 10 minutes and then it powered up to a black screen with a flashing cursor. With the help of this forum, I was able to run a chkdsk /r and the system came back up and appeared to be running ok. This afternoon, it locked up again and would only shut down with the power button. The power button flashed amber again and I left it unplugged for 20 minutes while I reseated the memory modules, video card and firewire card. The pc started up and I'm running another chkdsk through xp right now. What are some of the signs of dying power supply or hard drive?

System Specs

Win XP
Quad Core 2
4GB Ram
500 Gb hard drive
Dual monitor set up


Thanks,

Ed
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#2
Macboatmaster

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Post again please without the image - it makes it well nigh impossible to read

Edited by Macboatmaster, 19 April 2011 - 01:47 PM.

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#3
Big_Ed_OH

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Sorry about the background image. When I signed up it tied my login to my twitter avatar and made that my background. I thought I had removed the background yesterday but I guess I was mistaken. Let me know if the background is still present.
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#4
Macboatmaster

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Go Control Panel, Administrative tools, event viewer. Click application in left pane.
Scroll on main window to the first from the top winlogon entry. Double click, that entry it should be the chkdsk results.
To the right of the window that opens there is the up and down arrow. Below that is a double page symbol.
Left click that once.
On your reply right click the message box and click paste.
Send me pls the chkdsk results.

When chkdsk has finished, go start run and type "sfc /scannow"
that is a system file check. It will very likely require the XP CD - presuming you are runnning XP.

IF THE CHKDSK results show bad sectors that may well be the problem
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#5
Big_Ed_OH

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Here you go.

---------

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 4/17/2011
Time: 8:39:09 PM
User: N/A
Computer: VOSTRO_400
Description:
Checking file system on \DosDevices\C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 2239 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2239 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 2239 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

488319772 KB total disk space.
375007552 KB in 353908 files.
154452 KB in 15945 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
468460 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
112689308 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
122079943 total allocation units on disk.
28172327 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
90 b3 05 00 c8 a4 05 00 d7 d7 09 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0f de 00 00 02 00 00 00 80 0f 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
5a c4 13 32 00 00 00 00 74 8d 46 fb 0c 00 00 00 Z..2....t.F.....
b8 02 c8 13 00 00 00 00 1e fc 79 de 19 00 00 00 ..........y.....
b2 3e 96 0e 06 00 00 00 24 f2 80 31 2d 00 00 00 .>......$..1-...
99 9e 36 00 00 00 00 00 80 3a 07 00 74 66 05 00 ..6......:..tf..
00 00 00 00 00 00 a5 68 59 00 00 00 49 3e 00 00 .......hY...I>..


For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....ink/events.asp.
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#6
Macboatmaster

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When chkdsk has finished, go start run and type "sfc /scannow"
that is a system file check. It will very likely require the XP CD - presuming you are runnning XP.



So have you please run this.
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#7
Macboatmaster

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Download and run this please

Download Speedfan (The download link is to the right), and install it. Once it's installed, run the program and post here the information it shows.
The information I want you to post is the stuff that is circled in the example picture I have attached.
To make sure we are getting all the correct information it would help us if you were to attach a screenshot like the one below of your Speedfan results.

To do a screenshot please have click on your Print Screen on your keyboard.
  • It is normally the key above your number pad between the F12 key and the Scroll Lock key
  • Now go to Start and then to All Programs
  • Scroll to Accessories and then click on Paint
  • In the Empty White Area click and hold the CTRL key and then click the V
  • Go to the File option at the top and click on Save as
  • Save as file type JPEG and save it to your Desktop
  • Attach it to your next reply

Posted Image


Posted with acknowledgement to rshaffer61
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#8
Macboatmaster

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Then run this please

Let's test the memory first before we do anything else.


1. Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)
2. Unzip downloaded memtest86+-2.11.iso.zip file.
3. Inside, you'll find memtest86+-2.11.iso file.
4. Download, and install ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/
5. Insert blank CD into your CD drive.
6. Open ImgBurn, and click on Write image file to disc
7. Click on Browse for a file... icon:

Posted Image

8. Locate memtest86+-2.11.iso file, and click Open button.
9. Click on ImgBurn green arrow to start burning bootable memtest86 CD:

Posted Image

10. Once the CD is created, boot from it, and memtest will automatically start to run.

The running program will look something like this depending on the size and number of ram modules installed:


Posted Image

It's recommended to run 5-6 passes. Each pass contains very same 8 tests.

This will show the progress of the test. It can take a while. Be patient, or leave it running overnight.

Posted Image

The following image is the test results area:

Posted Image

The most important item here is the “errors” line. If you see ANY errors, even one, most likely, you have bad RAM
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#9
Macboatmaster

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Then go START, programs, accessories, system tools and disk defrag.
Click to select C drive and click analyse - does it report defrag is necessary
If so click View report.
If it is over 15% you will be there all night on XP Windows defrag.
Download this - ONLY the defrag - do not use any of the other offered programs
http://www.auslogics...re/disk-defrag/
Defrag with this it is quicker and actually a lot of people think it is more efficient than the included defrag on windows.

When you have done a\ll from my post 6 please post the results

Edited by Macboatmaster, 20 April 2011 - 06:26 PM.

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#10
Big_Ed_OH

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Here is the screen shot of SpeedFan.

Attached Thumbnails

  • Speedfan_screen.JPG

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#11
Big_Ed_OH

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The memory test screen shot is attached. It looks like the memory is ok.

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  • MemTest_result.JPG

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#12
Big_Ed_OH

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I'll have to run the defrag you suggested tonight as I need the system today to get some work done. Here are the results of the defrag analyzer. Thanks for all of your help with this issue.




------------


Volume (C:)
Volume size = 466 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 278 GB
Free space = 188 GB
Percent free space = 40 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 15 %
File fragmentation = 30 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 335,657
Average file size = 1,003 KB
Total fragmented files = 58,731
Total excess fragments = 249,038
Average fragments per file = 1.74

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 2.00 GB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 13,584
Fragmented folders = 811
Excess folder fragments = 18,872

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 365 MB
MFT record count = 350,881
Percent MFT in use = 93 %
Total MFT fragments = 3
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#13
Macboatmaster

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That memtest has not apparently been run long enough unless you have sent the wrong screenshot.
Yours shows test 6 of first pass.

It's recommended to run 5-6 passes. Each pass contains very same 8 test


You will notice that speedfan is showing 60C for the Graphics processing unit and 82C for temp 1. 60C at idle for a GPU is not usually too high but 82C with the system at idle could be a reason for concern. It is not always apparent what temp1 is. I suspect the lower temp1 is CPU. This one I suspect is related to the GPU
Is this a separate GPU ie not integrated.
There are additionally only two fans shown working how many - CPU fan, case fan?, Graphics card - own fan ?
How long since you opened the case and cleaned the dust off the CPU fan and cooling fins and if the Graphics card has its own fan - that as well. and the general task of cleaning the case.


That is quite heavy fragmentation I would use Auslogics - you will be there all night with XP

Edited by Macboatmaster, 21 April 2011 - 11:50 AM.

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#14
Macboatmaster

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Further to the above please do this and lets get a temps comparison
Download and install Free Everest Home Edition
Open it.
1: In left pane expand Computer folder.
2: Click once on Summary
3: In upper menu, go Report
4: And then to Quick Report-Summary
5: Save it in text file, and paste it in your next post.
Click the + by computer, click on Sensor. Get a screenshot and post it so I can check your temps and voltages...


DO NOT INCLUDE ANYTHING UNDER THE LINE THAT SAYS "DEBUG- PCI"
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#15
Big_Ed_OH

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My system does have a seperate graphics card with a fan on the card. There are 2 fans, one for the case and one for the cpu. There is a third fan in the power supply. I blew the dust out of the case 3 days ago, there was a fair amount of dust on the heat sink for the cpu at that time. I must have read the memtest incorrectly, it seemed to be runnig fairly quick when it indicated pass 43 and it had only been about 15 minutes. I'll have to let that one run again later this afternoon.
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