Crashing Dell

[Noel S Pamfree]

I have spent a long time trying to find out what makes a friend's old Dell
31XX keep crashing It has a Celeron processor and 256 Mb of RAM.

I thought I found the problem when I discovered that his small hard disk (30
GB) was full and when I deleted some files it certainly improved things but
the weird thing was that I only deleted about 1Gb yet the next time I
checked 'properties' the all-blue screen was over half mauve!

I have checked for viruses and installed F-Secure virus checker. Spybot
found quite a few bits of malware and they have been deleted.

It works on the 'Net fine now but it still often crashes. One noticeable
place is in Word (2003) if we try to insert a picture from a file into a
page the whole thing crashes and we use copy and paste to overcome it.

Would it help matters if I put a new, large hard drive in or is the problem
likely to be with the memory, processor or mother board?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated - I spent 12 hours on the thing
yesterday!

Noel

 

[Jim Macklin]

You may be wasting time and energy on an old computer. The
parts you ask about, will cost a significant part of the
cost of a new Dell.


message |I have spent a long time trying to find out what makes a
friend's old Dell
| 31XX keep crashing It has a Celeron processor and 256 Mb
of RAM.
|
| I thought I found the problem when I discovered that his
small hard disk (30
| GB) was full and when I deleted some files it certainly
improved things but
| the weird thing was that I only deleted about 1Gb yet the
next time I
| checked 'properties' the all-blue screen was over half
mauve!
|
| I have checked for viruses and installed F-Secure virus
checker. Spybot
| found quite a few bits of malware and they have been
deleted.
|
| It works on the 'Net fine now but it still often crashes.
One noticeable
| place is in Word (2003) if we try to insert a picture from
a file into a
| page the whole thing crashes and we use copy and paste to
overcome it.
|
| Would it help matters if I put a new, large hard drive in
or is the problem
| likely to be with the memory, processor or mother board?
|
| Any advice will be greatly appreciated - I spent 12 hours
on the thing
| yesterday!
|
| Noel
|
|

 

[JS]

What is the exact model number, how fast is the processor, how many memory
slot are still unused?
Do you have the user guide, if so how much memory can this model support?

JS

 

[Paul]

I have spent a long time trying to find out what makes a friend's old Dell
31XX keep crashing It has a Celeron processor and 256 Mb of RAM.

I thought I found the problem when I discovered that his small hard disk (30
GB) was full and when I deleted some files it certainly improved things but
the weird thing was that I only deleted about 1Gb yet the next time I
checked 'properties' the all-blue screen was over half mauve!

I have checked for viruses and installed F-Secure virus checker. Spybot
found quite a few bits of malware and they have been deleted.

It works on the 'Net fine now but it still often crashes. One noticeable
place is in Word (2003) if we try to insert a picture from a file into a
page the whole thing crashes and we use copy and paste to overcome it.

Would it help matters if I put a new, large hard drive in or is the problem
likely to be with the memory, processor or mother board?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated - I spent 12 hours on the thing
yesterday!

Noel

Get a copy of Prime95 from mersenne.org .
The program has an option called the Torture Test.
It does a calculation with a known answer, and is a
good integrity test. (You don't have to join to use it,
and lots of people use Prime95 just for the Torture
Test option.)

If any errors are encountered, then you would suspect
a hardware problem. If the machine can run for hours
without errors, then the processor and memory are
probably good.

One thing I use for "difference testing", is to insert
a copy of Knoppix or Ubuntu Linux (Live CD style)
distributions. You can boot the computer with the CD
and run some Linux applications. No hard drive is needed
to do that (since Linux doesn't need to be installed and
can just run via the CD). You can even download and run
a Linux version of Prime95 if you want to. I discovered a
hardware problem was the root of my problems with one old
motherboard, by trying both Win98 and Knoppix, and my
freezing problems happened in both OSes. Since no Malware
or viruses would be bothering me while using the read-only
Linux boot CDs, if I see crashing at that point, there is
a better chance it is hardware related.

Downloading those Linux distributions, is about a 700MB
download. So a broadband connection would be recommended.
Prime95 is a much smaller download, and tells you a good
deal as well.

If all else fails, removing the hard drive, doing a clean
install of the OS on a spare hard drive, then testing your
favorite applications, is another way to determine whether
there is remaining malware or viruses that may have been
doing it. Then you can remove the spare hard drive, put
back the old one, and continue fighting with the malware.

Paul

 

[paulmd]

You may be wasting time and energy on an old computer. The
parts you ask about, will cost a significant part of the
cost of a new Dell.

It's not that old. It just is a little too light on the RAM. (but
that's not it's real issue)

There are only 2 possibilities for "Dell 31XX", and they both use
DDR2, so it's really a pretty new machine.


http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim3100/en/sm/specs0.htm#wp1052310
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim3100C/en/SM_en/specs0.htm#wp1052310

message|I have spent a long time trying to find out what makes a
friend's old Dell
| 31XX keep crashing It has a Celeron processor and 256 Mb
of RAM.
|
| I thought I found the problem when I discovered that his
small hard disk (30
| GB) was full and when I deleted some files it certainly
improved things but
| the weird thing was that I only deleted about 1Gb yet the
next time I
| checked 'properties' the all-blue screen was over half
mauve!
|
| I have checked for viruses and installed F-Secure virus
checker. Spybot
| found quite a few bits of malware and they have been
deleted.
|
| It works on the 'Net fine now but it still often crashes.
One noticeable
| place is in Word (2003) if we try to insert a picture from
a file into a
| page the whole thing crashes and we use copy and paste to
overcome it.
|
| Would it help matters if I put a new, large hard drive in
or is the problem
| likely to be with the memory, processor or mother board?
|
| Any advice will be greatly appreciated - I spent 12 hours
on the thing
| yesterday!
|
| Noel
|
|

You might want to run the dell diagnostics on it. Press f12 during
POST. and you will be given a menu. Select the diagnostics. If they
come out clean, then chances are you have a software problem.

 

[Bob Harris]

1. About those files you removed to free some space: Were any of them
system files (i.e., C:\WINDOWS\...) or DLLs or EXEs etc? If some that
cleaning could have caused some problems. If that is the case, there is not
much you can do, except to reinstall the associate programs.

2. If specific program crashes, but others do not, then consider
uninstalling and re-installing that program (i.e., WORD or Office). Note
that with only 256 Meg of RAM, XP will run well by itself. But, if you also
want to run something else, then memory might become tight, especially if
pictures are involved. In theory, XP should use a swap file (PAGEFIL.SYS),
if it runs out of RAM. But, that would slow down any program maybe 10x or
more, and could eventually lead to a crash, especially if you tried to do
something else while all that paging was being done.

3. One of the other replies had some good advice about how to test the
hardware outside of Windows. If the hardware is OK, then consider
re-installing windows. If this were a home-built PC I would suggest a
"repair" of XP first, since that would not erase your programs and data.
But, you will have to contact Dell to determine whether that is a
possibility for your PC. Many PC makers provide only for a "restore" not a
"repair". And, "restore" means (a) format hard drive, lose all info, (b)
copy back an image from ther day they delivered the PC to you. In any
event, backup all personal files off of the PC, before attempting a repair,
restore, re-install, etc. One of the easiest ways tyo get data off of a PC
is to copy & paste to an external USB disk. If XP balks in this process, be
aware that a LINUX-based rescue CD, like KNOPPIX, can do this even if XP is
dead. Link to KNOPPIX:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Note that KNOPPIX is really a full computing environment, not just an
operating system. Even the CD version comes with an office suite, picture
viewer/editior, web browser, etc. The DVD version comes with more
applications. KNOPPIX is 100% free. However, due to its size a high-speed
internet connection is required to get it. Further, it comes as an "ISO"
file, which must be bunred to CD be a program like Nero or Easy CD Creator
that supports "burn from image". It can not simply by dragged and dropped
onto the CD or DVD, or it will not functions. By default KNOPPIX will not
write to the hard drive, so it is "safe" to use. You can change that
default, but should not do so, unless using KNOPPIX to repair a specific
software problem. KNOPPIX can read from NTFS partitions. The latest
version also claims to be able to write to them. All versions of KNOPPIX
can read/write to/from FAT32 partitions. To use KNOPPIX, the BIOS of the PC
must be set to boot form CD before boot from hard drive. This is also true
of the Ultimate Boot Disk mentioned below.

4. Another way to test the hardware is to download and burn a copy of the
free Ulimate Boot CD. This contains a number of testing programs. Just
stay away from the disk-wiping and disk partitioning tools, unless you
really want to destroy all data. It also contains some antivirus tools.
Link below:

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/

5. If hardware is the issue, then fixing it might be much of the price of a
modern low-end Dell, which would have greater power, speed, disk, etc than
the old Dell. In some cases fixing an older PC does not make sense.

 

[paulmd]

1. About those files you removed to free some space: Were any of them
system files (i.e., C:\WINDOWS\...) or DLLs or EXEs etc? If some that
cleaning could have caused some problems. If that is the case, there is not
much you can do, except to reinstall the associate programs.

2. If specific program crashes, but others do not, then consider
uninstalling and re-installing that program (i.e., WORD or Office). Note
that with only 256 Meg of RAM, XP will run well by itself. But, if you also
want to run something else, then memory might become tight, especially if
pictures are involved. In theory, XP should use a swap file (PAGEFIL.SYS),
if it runs out of RAM. But, that would slow down any program maybe 10x or
more, and could eventually lead to a crash, especially if you tried to do
something else while all that paging was being done.

3. One of the other replies had some good advice about how to test the
hardware outside of Windows. If the hardware is OK, then consider
re-installing windows. If this were a home-built PC I would suggest a
"repair" of XP first, since that would not erase your programs and data.
But, you will have to contact Dell to determine whether that is a
possibility for your PC.

Dell provides a full os CD, that can be used for repair installs.
Dell's XP will even install on a non-dell. But you will have to change
the product key to make it activate.

(dell's win2k is bios locked)