[bryonymalins]

I'm not 100% sure this is a BIOS issue but I didn't know where else to put it so here goes, thanks in advance..

When i power up, it gets as far as the black screen where it says www.dell.com, BIOS revision A06, and a little white bar fills up as it loads.

However, probably 8 times out of ten, it sticks on the last centimetre of the bar and just freezes there without loading anymore or going any further. If you push F1 or F12 at that point it doesn't go to set up (though if you push it before it freezes it does).

If i switch it off and on again it usually repeats exactly the same thing again. Initially if i switched it off and pulled out the power cable, then switched it on again, it would fill up the little white loading bar more slowly and would continue to load as normal.

However after a while this method stopped working. For a few weeks the only thing that works has been to switch off, unplug and lift the laptop up and move it about a bit(not shake it, just give it a little move). Then switch on, and it loads up as normal.

BUT! In the last week it has done one of 3 things. Either go straight to a DOS-looking screen saying "Critical Battery!" or go to the blue screen of death, or go to a new black screen of death ive never seen before which freaked me out so much i can't remember what it said. But basically it was to do with it wanting to load in safe mode. Now it's started up again (apparently as normal) but I can hear the drive spinning louder than usual, which fills me with dread.

To be honest I haven't really tried anything because i have no idea what might help, so any assistance on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Oh, and before I forget, here's all the details on the laptop, please feel free to shout as me if i am missing something/have included something i shouldn't have:

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600) Dell Inc. Inspiron 510m
System Service Tag: H3BJ71J (support for this PC)

Enclosure Type: Portable
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1.70 gigahertz Intel Pentium M
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Dell Inc. 0H1908

Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. A06 06/28/2004
Drives Memory Modules c,d
40.01 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
15.97 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

_NEC DVD+RW ND-6100A [CD-ROM drive]

ST94811A [Hard drive] (40.01 GB) -- drive 0, rev 3.07, SMART Status: Healthy 512 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM_A' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B' has 256 MB
Local Drive Volumes


c: (NTFS on drive 0) 40.01 GB 15.97 GB free



Send To Microsoft OneNote Driver on Send To Microsoft OneNote Port:
Controllers Display
Intel(R) 82801DBM Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 24CA
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller] Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller [Display adapter] (2x)
MS_ [Monitor]
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Texas Instruments PCI-4510 CardBus Controller
Intel(r) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD
Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C2
Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C4
Intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB Universal Host Controller - 24C7 SigmaTel C-Major Audio

 

[bryonymalins]

*bump*

Any help on this would be really appreciated, even if it's only to say "you're an idiot, you should have done x, y ,z.." thanks!!

 

[Wrench97]

Sounds like a hard drive starting to fail, Do you have the dell diagnostics disk?

 

[GetOutOfBox]

I agree with wrench97, the HDD is going out the door. Backup any sesitive data or stuff u might want to keep, because it could go any day now.

 

[bryonymalins]

Oh balls, i suspected as much though.. so I've backed up everything on my external hard drive.

I ran the diagnostic cd and got as far as 79% whereupon i got:
Error code: OF OO:0244
Msg: Block 6204432 – Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected
(i’m going to assume it’s the data error..)
It'll be a sad sad day when i have to replace this computer, i bought it with savings from my first job...though i suppose that just confirms that it's probably its time to go.

Oh well, thanks very much for your opinion guys.

 

[Wrench97]

You could replace the hard drive.

 

[bryonymalins]

I suppose..except I couldn't..i'd have to pay someone to do it for me. And with labour plus parts..plus the fact that it will probably be obsolete in another year anyway. I'll think about it though, thank you.

 

[firefoxsilver9]

Hi. I have a Dell Inspiron 5000 and i'm experiencing almost the exact same issues as you. I turn on the laptop, most of them time its a dead black screen with no HHD activity. Sometimes it boots past the BIOS and then freezes in various places after that (During the XP Splash screen, the Welcome Screen, or during web browsing). It just freezes. Also I've noticed that slight movement of the laptop causes it to freeze, although other times i'll move it to try and reproduce the error for testing, but i'll still fuction properly. I also suspected a HDD issue so i removed it and reseated it to no avail. I also tried booting without the Hard drive in the laptop but the same thing happens.