I swear to God that someone has cursed me!!!!  LOL 

I logged off of my laptop earlier today and tried to log back on around dinner time. I got some kind of message about picking a profile to login with, and I didn't know what to pick so I turned the machine "Off".  It rebooted fine, got me to my desktop and then just as suddenly I got a blue screen with a bunch of text on it, saying something about "if this is the first time you've seen this screen....", but it wasn't a normal blue screen.  All the letters and words were spinning/scrolling like a slot machine.   I panicked and turned the computer OFF.  Only when I went to turn it back on, nothing happened.

I called Dell, and after spending an hour with them and a Phillips screwdriver, they determined it was the "Mother Board".  And of course my hardware warranty expired in December   :cursing:

Anyway, my laptop is out of commission until I can get it fixed....which means Poser is also on hold  :b_crying: :b_crying:  :b_crying:

Dell told me that the mother board is the most expensive part of a computer.  My nephew is a computer tech, so he can probably fix it for me.

Does anyone know approximately how much a new mother board for a laptop is? Dell said it doesn't have to be a "Dell", just something compatible.

UK prices won't be of any use to you but from experience, anything for a laptop costs 25-50% more than the desktop equivalent.

Over here, you would have some protection in law, even after the warranty expired, if the computer had failed within an "unreasonable" time, considering the cost and usage, provided it could be proven that the failure is not due to "misuse, neglect or accidental damage".  If you met the conditions, the retailer would be required by law to offer a free of charge repair, or if a repair was not possible, a replacement product or depreciated credit.

I have no idea about consumer law in your part of the world but it may be worth investigating.

As to how I know all this, well I work for "The UK's Largest Electrical Retailer".

Ummm..... Laptop mobo's are custom items, available only from the manufacturer. And Dell has a bad, bad habit of doing things like rewiring standard connectors, so that if you try and use off the shelf, you wind up frying your system further. Plus there is absolutely no way to say that the motherboard is dead unless it was properly tested. What it actually sounds like is either a damaged GPU (video chip), or the memory associated with video is bad. Most laptops integrate the video chip into the board, primarily to force you to buy new kit if you need something 'upgraded'. Let a real geek take a look at it. 15 minutes with the Mark One Eyeball beats 5 hours of trying to explain things over the phone....

Are you really sure it's not just a virus?  I've seen that

sort of behavior happen with a bad infection by the CN-Honker virus.

In any case, DaleB's advice is best.  Let the tech look at it directly.

Agree with Ockham -- it sounds more like a virus or worm, since your machine is "booting up."  If it was the Mother Board, you would see technical jargon or nothing at all.  Can you boot from a CD like the WinXP installation disk?

Quote - Agree with Ockham -- it sounds more like a virus or worm, since your machine is "booting up."  If it was the Mother Board, you would see technical jargon or nothing at all.  Can you boot from a CD like the WinXP installation disk?

It's not booting up though.   When I saw that blue screen with the tilting letters I panicked and pressed the off button. 

Now all that happens when I press the "on/off" button is that I get 4 small lights (3 below the stop/pause/forward/rewind buttons", and the very left one on the hinge part where the lid connects) come on and then immediately go off.  The monitor stays black, and after the 4 lights go out the only indication that there is any power at all is a small green light that flashes about once in 15 seconds that is also on the hinge part where the lid connects.  It looks like a rectangle with a plus sign in the middle of it. 

The Dell tech had me connect my desktop monitor to the laptop and press "Fn" and "F8" together, but nothing showed on the desktop monitor either....and I know that monitor is working because I'm using my Desktop to reply.

At the moment I'm not at all impressed with Dell computers. My laptop was very expensive because I made sure I had top of the line components including the best video card that was available at the time put in, and I don't consider 3 years to be "old" when I spend that kind of money.

I'm still waiting on my nephew to call and let me know if he has time to come look at it.

Signed..... "Frustrated in Canada",  hehe

Hmmm... Generally, I've had excellent luck with Dell. It was Gateway I had all the trouble with.

The only motherboard I've had to replace was due to fried BIOS, which was more due to the BIOS manufacturer than the m/board manufacturer. With that replaced, the computer went another six years! Of course, by then it was only being used to read email. 200Mghz, woo hoo!

cpu can cost more than the mobo :)

my cpu (1 of them) was $200, i went for the larger L2 cache, renders are a bit faster :)
my mobo was only $89, and while the cpu got fried after 3 years of using it 18/7, the
mobo was fine, atleast till i broke the plastic mount replacing the cpu lol bought new
mount for $2 and works fine, and usually i see a cpu more costly than a mobo

thats US$, canada expect about 50% more, but a new mobo you should be able to find
for $150 canadian id think

as for an entire computer, "the" most expensive part, is probably Maya i just bought :P
atleast if you count software as part of a computer haha

hey i have a 120Mhz computer, woo hoo me! :P

I wonder if you got hit by a virus that corrupted your BIOS?

Recovering the BIOS is one thing to have your nephew try.  Most desktops have a hardware jumper setting on the Motherboard that lets you recover the BIOS.

hmm..I actually am authorized to work on Dell Laptops (haven't in years, but I'm up on certifications..;) Usually if a Motherboard goes, you don't get very far past POST (usually the 'non-graphic' portion of bootup).

I've actually called Dell tech support, and I've talked to what I term 'script kiddies'..in other words, they have  a diagram or list of steps to follow, that they get confused if you skip a step on them (they have to ask them in order) or get 'off script'..:|  Alas, I've also had problems with their grasp of English (or American), but that's another subject..;)

If you're getting up to the Operating Sysem, that's a good sign. What you got before is something known to us 'geek-types' call 'The Blue Screen of Death'. What you best should do is find the tiny scrap of English on the screen (usually something like 'IRQ not equal to', or 'Problem with miniNT4.dll', etc. That's the best clue of what's actually going on. Usually, it's producing a 'log', of what actually went wrong, on a very low level, and incorporating it into a file, usually ending with a suffix of '.log'. The log file (if the first-level techs can understand it..sorry, I've been doing tech support for 19 years, and I occasionally get miffed at talking to someone in tech support who knows less than I do..;)  can  be examined to see what's wrong.

The problem with laptops, is, as mentioned above, everything is pretty much geared towards that model, and none other. I would ask for a 2nd opinion, maybe a local PC shop, if you know one you can trust. The actual problem could be anything, as we don't know what it said. Replacing a motherboard in a laptop isn't something I'd recommend to anyone who isn't fairly familiar with the subject (desktops are another matter, sometimes they have a little wiggle room; laptops have to fit exactly, and there's cables, Ziff connectors, more cables, tiny tiny screws, yada yada..;)

In short, have someone who's up on fixing computers have a look at it before you shell out the buckaroonies for a repair. Heck, a re-image would probably be a better idea before you go whole hog like that..good luck..

I've had that blue screen happen to me on desktops. Usually when some idiot got past my firewall or antivirus software. Always had to scrub the HD and start over.
I don't like Dells, Packard Bells and, now, add Gateway to that list.
IBM and Compaq are my comps of choice. Easy to add memory or cards or HD's to.
Hope you solve the problem without it costing a bundle. :)

Quote - hmm..I actually am authorized to work on Dell Laptops (haven't in years, but I'm up on certifications..;) Usually if a Motherboard goes, you don't get very far past POST (usually the 'non-graphic' portion of bootup).

Yesterday I booted up the computer, got a black screen with white text asking me to pick something.  The only thing I could pick was "Undocked Profile".  I didn't know what that was, and didn't really understand the rest of the stuff at the bottom.  But basically it sounded like if I picked the wrong thing that something bad would happen.  So instead of picking anything, or pressing any keys, I turned the computer off using "On/Off" button, and rebooted again.

When I rebooted, it was normal. Then after getting to my desktop, the screen changed to blue with spinning letters like a slot machine.  In a panic I turned the computer "off", and then I couldn't reboot anymore.

Now all that happens when I press the "On/Off" button is that I get 4 small green lights lit up, and they go out after about 2 seconds.  The screen stays black, and there is no sound of any kind coming from the computer.

Quote - I've actually called Dell tech support, and I've talked to what I term 'script kiddies'..in other words, they have  a diagram or list of steps to follow, that they get confused if you skip a step on them (they have to ask them in order) or get 'off script'..:|  Alas, I've also had problems with their grasp of English (or American), but that's another subject..;)

This guy actually seemed pretty knowledgable...he couldn't tell his left from his right though, hehe.  I have never taken apart a computer before and I wanted to make sure that I was removing the proper panels.    His English was fine also.  Though I have had times in the past where I had a difficult time understanding.

Quote - If you're getting up to the Operating Sysem, that's a good sign. What you got before is something known to us 'geek-types' call 'The Blue Screen of Death'. What you best should do is find the tiny scrap of English on the screen (usually something like 'IRQ not equal to', or 'Problem with miniNT4.dll', etc. That's the best clue of what's actually going on. Usually, it's producing a 'log', of what actually went wrong, on a very low level, and incorporating it into a file, usually ending with a suffix of '.log'. The log file (if the first-level techs can understand it..sorry, I've been doing tech support for 19 years, and I occasionally get miffed at talking to someone in tech support who knows less than I do..;)  can  be examined to see what's wrong.

I'm not getting up the OS.  I press "On/Off", get 4 little green lights that go out after 2 seconds, and the screen stays black.  No text of any kind, or any sound of any kind.  After that the only indication of power is one small green light on the hinge part of the base where the lid connects, that flashes every 10 or 15 seconds.  The icon looks like a rectangle with a plus sign on it.  Other than there there is no visible activity going on that I can see.

Quote - The problem with laptops, is, as mentioned above, everything is pretty much geared towards that model, and none other. I would ask for a 2nd opinion, maybe a local PC shop, if you know one you can trust. The actual problem could be anything, as we don't know what it said. Replacing a motherboard in a laptop isn't something I'd recommend to anyone who isn't fairly familiar with the subject (desktops are another matter, sometimes they have a little wiggle room; laptops have to fit exactly, and there's cables, Ziff connectors, more cables, tiny tiny screws, yada yada..;)

My nephew is a computer tech.  He's done some work on my desktop and he built his Dad's computer.  I'm going to call him tomorow and see if he knows anything about laptops and have him look at it.

Quote - In short, have someone who's up on fixing computers have a look at it before you shell out the buckaroonies for a repair. Heck, a re-image would probably be a better idea before you go whole hog like that..good luck..

What is a "re-image"?

I'm not in the position right now to spend a great deal on computer repairs, so there is no way I'm leaping to buy a new motherboard unless someone who knows something about computers has physically looked at it first.

What Operating System were you running, Acadia?

XP Home.

Two days before all this happened, I  had done a complete system check for errors, I did a defrag and a virus scan.  Everything was fine.

I'm sooooo lost without my laptop.  I can't even view the galleries with my desktop.  It doesn't have enough ooomph to even show the thumbnails in there :(

Attached Link: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/cih.html

It says the trigger date is the 26th of each month.  My problem was yesterday, the 19th.

I've bookmarked this thread and will have my nephew have a look at it.

I don't have an XP Home disk as Dell just sent me a disk to use to reformat the computer.  My nephew will have a boot disk though.....so maybe that's all that is needed....hopefully. 

First time in my life I've ever hoped that my computer trouble is virus related,  LOL

“I don't have an XP Home disk as Dell just sent me a disk to use to reformat the computer.”

That is most likely what is called a “Recovery Disk”.

A Recovery Disk is a mirror image of your OS (XP Home in your case) and everything else that was on your computer the day you bought it (including default factory settings and drivers).

I STRONGLY recommend that before you spend money on expensive replacement parts (as suggested over the phone), or have your laptop pulled apart, by someone who may or may not know what they are doing, you put that disk in and reboot.

If a virus or Trojan and not faulty hardware are causing your problems (a good possibility), reinstalling back to factory state should have you back up and running.

If the recovery disk doesn’t get your laptop working then that will indicate you do have a hardware problem (a not so good possibility).

Note: Using the Recovery Disk will return your laptop to the state it was in when you took it out of the box, but YOU WILL LOSE ALL FILES AND PROGRAMS YOU HAVE SINCE INSTALLED!

Chuck

Quote - Note: Using the Recovery Disk will return your laptop to the state it was in when you took it out of the box, but YOU WILL LOSE ALL FILES AND PROGRAMS YOU HAVE SINCE INSTALLED!

 

Chuck

Yes, I know that which is why I want to  wait for my nephew to come over with his tech kit or whatever it's called, so he can boot up with a real XP home disk.  That way I won't lose my data.  Not that I'd be all that upset if I did because I've lost so much data in the last year  to bad CDs that I'm beyond the point of  freaking out about  lost data.  However, if at all possible, I'd like to save myself the work of reinstalling everything.

Besides, I haven't a clue how to boot up using a disk, especially when a computer has a black screen and you can't tell whether it's on or off like mine currently.

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and try the restore disk that Dell sent me.

However, I can't get the CD Drive to open so I can put the disk in.   The only way to open it is when the computer is on, and it seems that no matter how many times I press the "On/Off" button, the computer is never "On".  So much for that idea.

I've seen that happen with a acompletely empty battery pack. What happens if you remove the battery pack from your laptop and try to start it up using the power adapter?

I've also seen similar things happen with faulty memory chips. Those are fairly easy to replace. My guess is that your laptop has two memory modules (since it was top of the line when you bought it), try and find out what happens if you remove one of those (test both modules).

The Dell tech had me remove a bunch of things. 

1.  He had me remove the battery and reseat  (I think that is the term he used) 2  rectangle chips of some kind. I had to unscrew and remove a cover from the back.  That didn't fix anything. The computer still wouldn't turn on.

2.  He had me connect my desktop monitor to the laptop and press Fn and F8 together. Nothing appeared on my desktop monitor ( yes it was on because I never turn it off).

1. He had me remove the battery, remove those 2 rectangle chips, disconnect the small cable from the 1"x1" square plastic covered thing that was next to the 2 rectagle chips, and remove my CD drive.  Again, that ddn't fix it either.  Still had the same result when I pressed the on/off button.

2. He kept asking me to make sure the AC adapter had a green light, which it did.

After doing all of those things he put me on hold and came back and told me that based on all of the trials we had done, that the only other possibility was the motherboard, and then broke the news to me that my hardware warranty was expired, informed me that I would be getting an email asking how the service was, and that despite my hardware warranty being expired, I can still telephone them for tech support.

Now that does indeed sound like a fried motherboard. I'm afraid a replacement motherboard will cost about as much as a complete midrange laptop, and the time that the machine will be at the Dell repair shops could easily be measured in weeks.

my desktop had a problem of not turning on, only activity seemed to be power supply
always went off right away, although i didnt get the slot machine look :)

turned out to just be the BIOS, and as said above, might have a jumper to "reset" BIOS
and frankly, i wouldnt say dell knows whats fried, as it could easily be cpu as well
as another case my cpu was fried and got the same end result

You do not have to lose everything if you know someone who has a laptop and who is willing, with the help of your nephew to change HDD's, connect with another puter  with a crosslink cable and copy all your data (not applications!) to the hdd of that other puter. That way, you can check for viruses etc.
Bootsector viruses are very rare. But BIOS can act strange.
Don't give up!

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who has a laptop.

I have an external hard drive which is actually an internal one in an external casing.  Maybe my nephew can swap them out and some of my data can be salvaged.

As for repairs?   Don't know when I'll be able to get a new motherboard.  I do know that I won't be sending it away to Dell for repair.  They'll charge me an arm and a leg, not to mention the shipping costs.   My nephew fixes computers for a living so I figure he should be able to fix a Dell laptop.  It's just a matter of getting a new motherboard for it....if they even make them for this model anymore.  It seems computers are expensive,  but considered disposable   :sad:

I am going to write to Dell and kick up a storm about this though.   I'm really upset that the major component that makes up my 3 year old computer craps out 5 months after my warranty expires. I'm not at all impressed!!!  Downright angry about it actually. 

In the meantime I'll have to get my Poser fixes vicariously through all of you 

ouch..guess I got mine..;)
Hmm..I'm surprised they have you doing that much on the laptop. Sorry about the various innaccuracies.. Guess I just got a coupla bad techs..;)

Black screen with white letters- undocked profile means that it's looking for a docking station; usually a 'brick' of some kind with more connectors (USB, Keyboards, mice, etc). Usually that means it's been set up for more than one type of configuration. The laptop usually clamps into the docking station (there's usually a connector on the bottom or back of the unit..

I should have considered spinning letters, that doesn't sound like the typical BSOD. The only thing I can think is that perhaps it was putting the log on the screen? (sorry, hard to tell from the words..and you can't do screen caps at that point) Or something else is going on.

4 green lights, then... the computer goes through a self-check, called 'post', before it loads the OS. Usually (or at least in the past), that usually means it's passed the Processor, memory, and is testing the keyboard. Usually the next thing you hear is a floppy (if you have one..;), then the Hard drive. But usually you get something on the screen at least when it's checking memory (depends on BIOS..the motherboard..as to what you'll see)

 Re-image -sorry, that's jargon. It's what we say at work when we have to wipe the hard drive, and put a new OS and programs (we have the whole shooting match on the network, then just run a download program ..;) I guess it's just personal preference; I tend to try everything but the system board first, except as a last resort

Following was a long blather explaining what he did, and why, but everyone above and between has covered all the bases. It would have been a cluster-crosspost..;) Hope I wasn't too confusing.

hmmm, ebots going wild.
I get the blue screen too often with XP and it drives me nuts. But when I reboot everything is okay.

Had it happen on an old 486 and lost everything. Internal battery died and killed the whole cmos.
I hear the Mac is different on that battery thing. Sometimes I think I'd like to try it but cost is a factor. sigh
gotta uncheck the ebot thingy.

I sympathize having had a motherboard on my desktop go out a few weeks ago - same symptoms, a blinking power light and nothing else.  In my case, I can see that a capacitor on the board is leaking so I'm pretty sure it's dead.  Your nephew may be able to help but as Pakled says, there really is a difference between swapping parts in a desktop, which pretty much anyone who can use a screwdriver can do, and laptops.

Unless you absolutely need a laptop, I'd think you could upgrade or replace your desktop for less than the price of repair and have a better system.  Hopefully Dell will cut you a break and at least give you a substantial discount on a new or refurb system - assuming you still want one of their products.

Quote - assuming you still want one of their products.

I'm quite disgruntled with their brand at the moment. So I doubt I'll be going the way of another Dell.  I thought they were better computers, but apparently not.  However, at least they have 24/7 tech support, so I'll give them credit for that at least.

When I'm able, I'll have my desktop tower ripped apart and have my nephew build me a computer. From what I hear it's much cheaper to build a computer than to buy one retail.

All I know is that I'm not in a position right now to fix the laptop or build a new computer, probably won't be for some months.  My desktop serves the purpose of general internet surfing and email.  But it's even having trouble displaying smilies on this forum, and pictures? Forget it.  All I'm seeing for pictures in threads are red X's,  and I don't even get a single gallery thumbnail showing.  Though I'm glad I kept it, because I can still pester all of you ;)   When I got my laptop I was going to get rid of the desktop, but then decided to keep it and use it for storage.

Quote - ouch..guess I got mine..;)
Hmm..I'm surprised they have you doing that much on the laptop.

You and me both.  I've never even seen the inside of a computer until he had me taking off parts of it.   I didn't even know how to remove the battery.  I'm pretty dumb when it comes to hardware stuff.

I've given this issue a great deal of thought.

I've weighed the expense of repairing the laptop....a few hundred dollars if my nephew can fix it, or probably around $600 if i have to send it to Dell (shipping/handling, labour, parts etc).

I've decided to have my nephew price out the cost of building me a new desktop computer. I figure that is the better avenue to take and instead of putting so much money into repairing the laptop,, which is only "adequate" for my needs,  that I'll put the money into getting a better computer overall.

However, that doesn't mean I won't be butting heads with Dell about them covering my computer under warranty. I'll be all over them like a bad rash until they give in,  LOL  and let me tell you, when it comes to being stepped on by corporations, I can be a really bad rash!!!  hehe

On a good note, I checked my graphic card on my desktop, and while it's 4 years old, it has "OpenGL"....so I may recycle at least the graphic card from the desktop, but we'll see what my nephew can come up with.  Hopefully he can get stuff at a discount through his work or something.

On the slim chance that Dell won't cover my laptop under warranty, are there any parts from a laptop that can be used in a desktop? video card, sound card, memory, cd burner etc?

For $600 you can have a very decent desktop computer.

But you probably won't be able to reuse the graphics card from your old desktop. 4 years old means that it is probably an AGP card, and the current mainboards usually have a PCI Express slot. Mainboards with AGP slots still exist but they're getting more expensive.
A decent PCI Express graphics card doesn't have to be all that expensive. An nVidia 6200 card or ATI x300 card would cost about $50, they're probably a lot faster than your 4 year old card, and they're both OpenGL compatible (I'd advise the nVidia though. I've had quite a bit of OpenGL trouble on an ATI 9600Pro, while all of my nVidia cards work well with OpenGL).

A quality mainboard would cost about $100 (MSI, Gigabyte, Abit, Asus), a Sempron processor would be around $70, the lower end Athlon64 CPUs should start at about $150.

It won't be possible to use laptop parts in a desktop. Video and sound are almost always integrated on the laptop mainboard. It may be possible to scavenge the CD burner, but you'll need some kind of bracket to mount it in the destkop case. Those brackets probably will be more expensive than a new DVD burner (a NEC dual layer DVD burner should set you back around $50-$60)

If your old desktop is a standard ATX system (and not a brand Dell or - shudder - HP) there's a good chance almost everything can be reused, except for memory. You won't need a sound card, the integrated sound chip of the current mainboards is significantly better than a midrange soundcard of 4 years ago.

The most important thing to check would be the PSU. Does it have enough power for a modern machine? 350 Watt is a workable minimum, but more is better. Then again, if your old desktop is a standard ATX machine, you can easily replace the PSU.

Good luck!

The blue screen of death is most often caused by installing new hardware. A reinstall often fixes the problem, but you have to be careful and pick a repiair, and not a clean install, otherwise all your files go away. Your nephew should be able to use the Dell recover disk to re-install the operating systme for you, 90% chance that will fix it. You may have to re-install a program or two, but not always.

Quote - The blue screen of death is most often caused by installing new hardware. A reinstall often fixes the problem, but you have to be careful and pick a repiair, and not a clean install, otherwise all your files go away. Your nephew should be able to use the Dell recover disk to re-install the operating systme for you, 90% chance that will fix it. You may have to re-install a program or two, but not always.

I tried to do a restore, but the CD drive won't open to allow me to put in the disk.  The computer has to be "On" in order to open the drive, and whatever lights go on when I press "On" last for a second or two and go out, and there is zero sound of any kind coming from the machine.  It's totally dead!

Quote - For $600 you can have a very decent desktop computer.

I want more than a "decent" machine.  I want something that is more than what I need currently, so that I can "grow" into it and not have to look to upgrading memory or hard drive etc in a year or two.

I want a really good 3D graphic card with OpenGL (my 5 year old desktop has a graphic card with OpenGL, but my newer laptop doesn't... go figure that one,  LOL), lots of memory and a ton of hard drive space. I'm tired of struggling to recover hard drive space.  I also want something that is fast because I really lack patience and I'm sure my neighbours are tired of hearing me cursing because things take so long, lol.  Plus I want a CD/DVD burner.

All that plus factor in higher prices because I'm in Canada  plus 14% sales tax, and that equals much more than $600.00.

I haven't  calmed down enough to write up a letter to Dell yet, but within the next week I should be calm enough to write them a letter and demand that they cover the laptop under warranty considering it blew up shortly after the warranty expired. 

As for keeping anything from my desktop, maybe the memory cards and cd burner, but nothing else. 

Oh, sorry, didn't read the whole thread. On a dell machine with it unplugged and the battery in, you can hold the power button down for 15 seconds, a FULL 15 seconds, and it will erase the CMOS, then sometimes, once in a great while, it will boot. Other than that, try it without the battery in it, but Dell probably had you try all that.

Ask for a supervisor right off the bat. Explain how soon it was after warranty, I have had one manager override the warranty, but most of the time they won't budge.

When he opens it be sure to check the cmos battery one the motherboard. It can wreak havoc if it's dead. Then check all the connections. I had a motherboard go out because of the lan connector, disabled the onboard one and put in a card and it worked fine. It can be any number of things, but don't give up until he checks it out for you. Also it may be possible to remove the hard drive if you find that the mother board is fried and put it in an external box so save your stuffage. Sorry to hear this happened to you, and keeping my fingers crossed that it's a popped wire or bad cmos battery.

"The computer has to be "On" in order to open the drive.."
Nope...Somewhere on the face of the CD drive you should see a tiny hole.
Stick a small wire (something like a paperclip that has been bent straight) and that will release the door.

I do a little bit of computer repair on the side as a hobby.
This past weekend I had three PC's I got back into shape.
Two would only boot to a black screen then power off (sounds very much like you), and the third had lost a lot of Windows funtions.
All three had the same problem....a virus...the same virus in all three.

The virus goes by the name "P2P_Worm.Win32.Polip.a" and attacks many of Window's files like Winlogin,Taskmag,bootin,Regedit, etc.
So far the only Anti-Virus software (AFAICT) that has a rule-set for it, is the one I use "Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro".

I had to do a fresh install of Windows to fix their problem(s)...the same thing your recover disk will do.
May not be your problem, but something to look into.

Chuck

Quote - Ask for a supervisor right off the bat. Explain how soon it was after warranty, I have had one manager override the warranty, but most of the time they won't budge.

I find that you get better results if you bypass the middleman, so I  plan on sending a registered snail mail letter to the  Chairman of the Board, Michael Dell, and copying it to the Ombudsman where I live.

Quote - "The computer has to be "On" in order to open the drive.."
Nope...Somewhere on the face of the CD drive you should see a tiny hole.
Stick a small wire (something like a paperclip that has been bent straight) and that will release the door.

I do a little bit of computer repair on the side as a hobby.
This past weekend I had three PC's I got back into shape.
Two would only boot to a black screen then power off (sounds very much like you), and the third had lost a lot of Windows funtions.
All three had the same problem....a virus...the same virus in all three.

The virus goes by the name "P2P_Worm.Win32.Polip.a" and attacks many of Window's files like Winlogin,Taskmag,bootin,Regedit, etc.
So far the only Anti-Virus software (AFAICT) that has a rule-set for it, is the one I use "Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Pro".

I had to do a fresh install of Windows to fix their problem(s)...the same thing your recover disk will do.
May not be your problem, but something to look into.

Chuck

"little" is right. I  could bearly see it. I got the drive open and will go and try the reformat now.  I've resigned myself to lost data so I'm not worried about that.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Hopefully I can get it to reformat.

I put the disk in, pressed the "on/off" button and had the same thing happen; 4 small green lights light up for a couple of seconds and then go out.  Absolutely no sound from the CD drive at all.

Ok, it's probably toast. Pull the hard drive out, go get an external laptop hard drive enclosure, then you can USB it to your new laptop, and pull off any important stuff.

Has your nephew looked at your computer, yet?

Quote - Has your nephew looked at your computer, yet?

I haven't called to ask him yet.   I am writing a registered letter to Michael Dell and telling him about the situation and am going to ask that the repair be covered under warranty seeing that the motherboard blew up 5 months after my warranty expired.   I'll wait and see the outcome of that before having my nephew get in there. 

If you're going for a high end desktop, $600 won't do the job.

I think Canadian prices will be somewhat lower than Dutch prices (we have 19% VAT). My latest machine is definitely more than just 'decent': Athlon64x2 4400+, 4 GB Kingston HyperX RAM, 2x73 GB WD Raptor 10,000 RPM disks, nVidia 7800GTX graphics card. 2200 Euros, including VAT, excluding keyboard/mouse/monitor.

And the 7800GTX is a bit of a mistake. It's not a cheap graphics card, almost top of the line nVidia consumer, but it's OpenGL performance is a little disappointing. I'm seriously considering buying a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm one of these days. It'll cost over 800 Euros, but it's the best you can get.

If you want a fast machine, go for an Athlon64x2 CPU. The slowest Athlon64 dual core is just a tad slower than the fastest Intel dual core at this time. But they're quite expensive.

If you want fast and good OpenGL, go for a professional graphics card. ATI FireGL, nVidia Quadro, or 3DLabs Wildcat. Expensive, but both reliable and fast.

A NEC Dual layer DVD burner is quite affordable these days - I paid 50 euros for the one in my media center.

Disks: I'd advise going for multiple disks. One or two smaller and very fast disks for operating system and applicantions, and a large disk (250 GB or more) for mass storage.

The most important thing is that you'll want a well balanced machine. Most brand machines come with a high powered CPU, a small disk and not enough memory - most customers still believe that CPU gigahertzes are everything. Your nephew will probably be able to assemble a well balanced high end configuration that'll outperform a brand machine at 75% of the price.

But it won't be cheap. $600 won't do it. $1200 will get you closer, but a high end machine will probably be around $1500-$2000.

Quote - a high end machine will probably be around $1500-$2000.

Yeah, I was thinking it would be in that ball park, probably more considering I also want a new monitor  in time as mine is quite old and even calibrating it doesn't make things view as they should.  I noticed a HUGE difference in image quality, colour and brightness when viewing the same image on both laptop and desktop monitor. 

Quote - If you want a fast machine, go for an Athlon64x2 CPU. The slowest Athlon64 dual core is just a tad slower than the fastest Intel dual core at this time. But they're quite expensive.

The very first computer I ever bought had an AMD processor, and it gave me nothing but trouble.  I had bought the computer locally from a well known and established  computer outlet in my city.  I knew absolutely nothing about computers except that "Pentium" was the way to go!  Big mistake to go and buy something when you know less than nothing about what you are buying.

I had to trust in the sales guy. He asked me many questions about what I planned on using my computer for and I answered them. He asked about "gaming", and I said  "No, but I'd like the option of being able to."  I also said that I know computers become "obsolete" very quickly and that I wanted something that wasn't going to be out-of-date for my needs in a few months.  He put together the following package costing $2,000.00  and told me that it was more than what I needed and would last me years and years:

AMD K6 Processor (he said it was the same as a Pentium but was more affordable)
On board sound and graphic card (no idea of the type)
32 MB of SD RAM
8 gig hard drive
17" Monitor
2 speakers
Keyboard
Epson Printer (which I later found out was "new" but was a 3 year old model)
Ace scanner (which I later found out was "new' but was a 3 year old model)

Three weeks after I got it home and set up I was getting fatal exception error messages about lost drivers and registry errors and more. I called them and they told me that it's not a hardware issue and isn't covered under warranty. I don't drive and I was not able to get the computer to them because of a back injury, so they came out to service the machine....charging me $90/hr to do so. Keep in mind this is back in 2000, so that was extremely high labour rates, probably still is...extortion rates.

$300.00 later the guy leaves and tells me the computer is "fixed".  The machine worked fine for that afternoon, but by evening I was getting bright blue screens again. Over the next 5 months they came out to "fix" my computer at least once or twice a month, usually ending up in  a reformat.  I refused to pay them one red cent after paying them that initial $300.00 because I felt they had sold me "crap".  I started doing some research (late I know), and found out that there were tons of problems with AMD K6 processors, and all the problems sounded like what I was having. I tried telling the computer place this, but they kept insisting that the components were excellent.

They refused to send anyone else out to "fix" my computer "free", because they claimed they spent a considerable amount of time on it. I told them that they wouldn't have had to if they hadn't sold me garbage. 

Bad back or not, I lugged the tower to their store along with printed data on the AMD K6 processor problems, and a notebook filled with pages and pages of documented times for the blue screens (it was literally crashing every few minutes by this time), dropped it on their counter and told them "Fix it so that it works, or I'm going to sue you!"

They gutted it and replaced the parts with the same type of parts again and claimed it was "fixed". You guessed it!  Same problems once I got it home.  I called them again!  They had the odacity to tell me that I shouldn't be adding programs to the computer because that's what's causing the problems, and that it works just fine in a fresh reformatted state.  :blink: :blink:  I told them "What's the point of having a computer if you can't install programs you need in order to use it !!!!" This was about 11 months after purchase by this time.

I was so pissed off and fit to be tied by this time, that I took it to another computer company along with a very long and detailed record of what transpired over the previous 11 months. They were totally aghast at what I went through.  By this time I was dating a guy who was a computer programmer and he told me what components I wanted and to not take no for an answer!

It cost me an additional $1700.00 to get the Pentium processor that I originally wanted plus everything else inside replaced, but I never had another problem with my desktop since then, and I'm proud to say that in the 5 years since that "upgrade", I've never experienced a blue screen.

I really should have sued to recover the cost of the upgrade, but by then I was just so sick of dealing with computer problems that I just washed my hands of it and was happy to just have a computer that finally worked, even though it ended up costing me $4,000.00 in total, twice the price of what it should have.

So given my first experience with an "AMD" processor, I'm not so inclined to want to try my luck with another one. Pentium has proven itself reliable and durable.
Thanks for the valuable information on components. I appreciate information like that more than you can know. I never want to find myself in a situation I was in like when I bought my first computer.

 Technicians have a name for people like that..'unemployed'.  Anyone selling you used equipment (sometimes a model will be in production for a few years, but if they no longer make it, that's a bad sign). You get enough complaints like that, and the managers either fire the guy, or go out of business.

The more recent AMD's have been better (I have a 2000), but components do go out over time.

It never hurts to do some research (on the web, or around town) to see what you want. On behalf of techs everywhere, someone owed you an apology. But it happens to the best of us. I had a hard drive problem on C:, took it to the place I bought it (backed everything up to D:), and ..let's sing along with Mitch..they formatted both drives. They never saw my shadow again..

Quote -  Technicians have a name for people like that..'unemployed'.  Anyone selling you used equipment (sometimes a model will be in production for a few years, but if they no longer make it, that's a bad sign). You get enough complaints like that, and the managers either fire the guy, or go out of business.

Funny you should mention that.  A few months after I bought the computer and was having all of those problems, I called to talk to the sales guy to see if he could help. He no longer worked there.

I noticed that  not long after  I took my tower to them and threatened to sue them that they had changed the name of the company on the outside of the building.

Quote - they formatted both drives. They never saw my shadow again..

Glad I'm not the only one experiencing massive file loss. I think my experience from my first computer (reformats once or twice a month and complete data loss each time) has made me numb to file loss.  My friend in California can't believe how calm I was when I lost all of my data to a corrupt external hard drive...twice,  LOL  

Quote - "they formatted both drives. They never saw my shadow again.."

Now that's why I fix things myself. I have never trusted a repair shop with my disks.

Twice I've had ttrouble with broken components. My AMD486 system failed two months after I bought the system. Talked to the sales guy at the store on the phone, he told me how to find out what was broken - it was the mainboard. Brought the system back to the store, he swapped the mainboard for a new one, and the same afternoon I went back home with a fully functional system (that has functioned without any trouble for 7 years before I retired it).

This Christmas I put together a Media center. The mainboard and one of the memory modules were non-functional. Went back to the store, got a new mainboard and memory module under warranty, put the system back together and it's been working fine ever since.

I've had several Intel systems. Most of them never gave me trouble, some did. I've also had several AMD systems. None of them ever gave me trouble.

Right now I only have AMD systems (except for my laptop). The oldest AMD I'm running is a 5 year old Athlon 1400 system (my server), which has been continuously up for over 3 years now. Very reliable and stable. The other systems are a 3 year old AthlonXP 2700, a 18 month old Athon64 3500+, a 5 month old Athlon64x2 4400 and a 5 month old Sempron 2600. Most of them are always on. All of them are reliable. None of them are built on the cheap - only quality components.

It's not the CPU. Both Intel and AMD CPUs are good and reliable. It's mostly the mainboard and the power supply unit. A good mainboard will cost around $120, a cheap, less reliable board will cost arount $70. A good power supply starts at around $60, a cheap, less reliable one starts at around $30. Don't go for cheap when coosing a mainboard or PSU, go for quality. It'll save you lots of wasted time and money in the longer run.