Lukosis

Hello, My Dell Inspirion 6400 runs on windows vista and recently I have had an issue where it fails to start over the dell loading screen but instead of shutting down afterwards (as it does when the battery has run out) it tries to start up again, only to get abit way up the loading bar then restart again. This goes on for approximatley 40 minutes before windows kicks in and says the computer has failed to start offering a system restore.

The system restore solves the problem, although only temporarily as a few days later the same problem will occur (presumabley when the system restore catches up to the original date when it first happened) I have used AVG and Spybot to search and for any viruses or clean it of spyware but it doesn't seem to cure the problem.

Has anyone got any ideas about what the issue could be?

mengke

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Lukosis

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunatley the issue is not the battery or the adaptor as when the battery is not charged it tries to start then turns off due to lack of power.

My issue is that the laptop tries to repeatedly start up but can never get past the initial start up screen, so the power is not the problem, but instead the failure to start up.

Unless that is a bot, in which case I apologise for replying to it!

Madcatz

I would try running the Dell diagnostics on your laptop, especially the memory and hard drive tests. To do this, press F12 at the Dell logo screen, then select the Dell diagnostics from the boot menu, or hold down the Fn key when you power the laptop on, or you can try booting the computer from the Drivers and Utilities cd that should have came with the computer.

Lukosis

Hmmm, this started working again as it eventually kicked in with a system repair.

Although a few hours ago it started doing the same thing and went to a system repair but then crashed during this and now it is doing the same but now it's only getting to the dell start up screen for a split second and failing again.
The power light is always on but the cylinder light (?) next to it flashes for a milisecond when it tries to start up and then goes back off again.

I can't think what to do now as it won't even start up, atall now but it keeps trying but only managing for a milisecond before failing and having to restart.

The boot disc is in my old house but I can get it in a few weeks. Just would be nice to atleast know what the cause of the issue may be!

Madcatz

So now you can power it on, you see the Dell screen for a few seconds and then it goes away with nothing on the screen? Does the dell screen just flash very quickly or does it stay up there for like 5-10 seconds?

Lukosis

Just for a split second, Literally so that you can see the dell logo screen flicker on if you look carefully, and sometimes it just seems like the screen lights up for a millisecond then goes dark again.

Madcatz

hook an external monitor up to it and turn it on, does it do the same thing?

Lukosis

Is there any way to connect it up to a secondary laptop and use this as an external monitor? Otherwise I have no way of testing this.

Could it be a screen issue then?
The screen was replaced a few months ago and it had to go back in to be redone several times because of not being installed properly (for instance when I first got it back there were 4 identical 1/4 size screens at start up and then the second time half the screen was black when it acessed windows) even before this issue often there would be a blue vertical line on the righthand side about 3/4 of the way across.

Madcatz

as for the second laptop, only way to do that is to swap LCD panels, but the wiring may be different and may not work anyway.

But yes, it could be a screen problem, possibly the inverter or backlight going out (for a dim display problem) or the LCD may be bad and turning off. It could be the motherboard also. Easiest way to tell is to hook up an external monitor, if it works, 10 to 1 its not the motherboard, if it doesn't work, then its most likely not the lcd panel.

Can you take it somewhere and have it hooked up to an external quick? friends or family, even maybe a retail store that sells desktops may let you do that real quick, or a computer repair shop.

Lukosis

Okay, will try that asap and get back to you with the results. It's looking to be a problem with the screen I think, what with the history of issues after screen replacement.

Although if it's a screen issue why would system repair/restore have sorted it (temporarily) the other times? As surely that wouldn't affect a problem with the hardware?

Madcatz

A system restore/repair can do something with the hardware, kinda like using basic drivers over specific drivers. If you don't really use or stress a peice of hardware out, it may run ok until you do stress it out.

Also I have noticed that sometimes bad peices of hardware can and will just start working all of the sudden for no reason at all, but it never means the problem is fixed.