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Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 30th 06, 09:48 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Pat Conover
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 216
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot

My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer has
been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before shutting
down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One of his kids
had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it started and
forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally. I
thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the problem,
heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell diagnostics on the HD,
MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has the stock NVIDIA GeForce4
MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag on the C drive, which was
badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today. Have to check the startups
too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


  #2  
Old October 30th 06, 09:51 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Pat Conover
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 216
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer
has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before
shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One
of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it
started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally.
I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the
problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell diagnostics
on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has the stock
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag on the C
drive, which was badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today. Have to
check the startups too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL and
installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat

Forgot to add, that I did a system restore to Before the Ages of Empires
game was installed. I forgot to uninstall first though... Pat


  #3  
Old October 30th 06, 10:05 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Tom Scales
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,502
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer
has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before
shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One
of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it
started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally.
I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the
problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell diagnostics
on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has the stock
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag on the C
drive, which was badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today. Have to
check the startups too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL and
installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go back
to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has good
backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


  #4  
Old October 30th 06, 11:02 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Pat Conover
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 216
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer
has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before
shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One
of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it
started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally.
I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the
problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell
diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has
the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag
on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today.
Have to check the startups too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL
and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has good
backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all his
disks.

Thanks, Pat


  #5  
Old October 30th 06, 11:16 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Tom Scales
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,502
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer
has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before
shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One
of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it
started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally.
I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the
problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell
diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has
the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag
on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today.
Have to check the startups too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL
and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has good
backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all
his disks.

Thanks, Pat


All you need is the Dell XP disk. The drivers are downloadable. In fact,
for $15-20 you can get the latest XP SP2 Dell disk off Ebay and save
yourself the trouble of upgrading to SP2. Just make sure you get the same
OS that it currently has a legal license for.

Tom


  #6  
Old October 30th 06, 11:55 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Pat Conover
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 216
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your
computer has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds
before shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to
date?). One of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the
machine when it started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted
normally. I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the
machine, which was filthy with all the vents completely blocked.
Thought that was the problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I
ran the Dell diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to
pass. It has the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my
4550. Ran defrag on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and will
run a chkdsk today. Have to check the startups too, since who the Dell
knows what's been DL and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all
the cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has
good backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all
his disks.

Thanks, Pat


All you need is the Dell XP disk. The drivers are downloadable. In fact,
for $15-20 you can get the latest XP SP2 Dell disk off Ebay and save
yourself the trouble of upgrading to SP2. Just make sure you get the same
OS that it currently has a legal license for.

Tom


Tom, Just in case he can't find his, I'll take my new Dell XP Home SP2 disk
and download all the latest drivers for the 4550 . Worked great for another
XP Home SP2 install and saves a lot of time too. Gonna ditch Norton AV too
and go with free AVG while I'm at it. Guess I need to hold a mini-PC Do's
and Don'ts camp for his kid's. Already spent a lot of time resurrecting
their Dim 4600 at their mom's house.

I'm also thinking about creating one administrator account for me and one
user/guest account for everyone else. They now each have their own account,
which is a pain to do any disk maintenance/cleanups on. Any thoughts on
that Tom?

Thanks, Pat


  #7  
Old October 30th 06, 11:59 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,418
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


Pat Conover wrote:
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer has
been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before shutting
down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One of his kids
had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it started and
forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally. I
thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the problem,
heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell diagnostics on the HD,
MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has the stock NVIDIA GeForce4
MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag on the C drive, which was
badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today. Have to check the startups
too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


How about RAM?

www.memtest.org

  #8  
Old October 31st 06, 12:10 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Christopher Muto
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 249
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your
computer has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds
before shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to
date?). One of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the
machine when it started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted
normally. I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the
machine, which was filthy with all the vents completely blocked.
Thought that was the problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I
ran the Dell diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to
pass. It has the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my
4550. Ran defrag on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and will
run a chkdsk today. Have to check the startups too, since who the Dell
knows what's been DL and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all
the cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has
good backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all
his disks.

Thanks, Pat


All you need is the Dell XP disk. The drivers are downloadable. In fact,
for $15-20 you can get the latest XP SP2 Dell disk off Ebay and save
yourself the trouble of upgrading to SP2. Just make sure you get the same
OS that it currently has a legal license for.

Tom


that's not all you need. you also need 5-6 spare hours to do the job.
i suggest that you try a system restore to a point in time far before the
recent software install.
since you can start in safe mode then see if you can also successfully run a
system restore while in there...
start-allprograms-acessories-systemtools-systemrestore
more details he
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...w_03may19.mspx


  #9  
Old October 31st 06, 12:26 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Tom Scales
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,502
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Christopher Muto" wrote in message
news:1Ev1h.3021$Gg5.1371@trndny02...
"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your
computer has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds
before shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to
date?). One of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the
machine when it started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted
normally. I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the
machine, which was filthy with all the vents completely blocked.
Thought that was the problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I
ran the Dell diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed
to pass. It has the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as
my 4550. Ran defrag on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and
will run a chkdsk today. Have to check the startups too, since who the
Dell knows what's been DL and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all
the cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some
shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has
good backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom

Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all
his disks.

Thanks, Pat


All you need is the Dell XP disk. The drivers are downloadable. In fact,
for $15-20 you can get the latest XP SP2 Dell disk off Ebay and save
yourself the trouble of upgrading to SP2. Just make sure you get the
same OS that it currently has a legal license for.

Tom


that's not all you need. you also need 5-6 spare hours to do the job.
i suggest that you try a system restore to a point in time far before the
recent software install.
since you can start in safe mode then see if you can also successfully run
a system restore while in there...
start-allprograms-acessories-systemtools-systemrestore
more details he
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...w_03may19.mspx


I do agree with Chris. Don't jump into the reformat until you try
everything.

tom


  #10  
Old October 31st 06, 01:04 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
S.Lewis
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,079
Default Dimension 4550 BSOD on Boot


"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
. ..

"Pat Conover" pat conover at comcast dot net wrote in message
...
My brother's Dim 4550 starting doing a BSOD after booting, your computer
has been shutdown to protect it...runs for about 15 seconds before
shutting down. Stock 4550, 512MB RAM, XP Home (maybe up to date?). One
of his kids had just loaded Ages of Empires III on the machine when it
started and forgot to tell Dad.

It boots and runs in safe mode, but always crashes when booted normally.
I thought a power, heat or HD problem. I cleaned the machine, which was
filthy with all the vents completely blocked. Thought that was the
problem, heat and Intel shutdown, but no luck. I ran the Dell
diagnostics on the HD, MB and video card and all seemed to pass. It has
the stock NVIDIA GeForce4 MX420 video card, same as my 4550. Ran defrag
on the C drive, which was badly fragmented and will run a chkdsk today.
Have to check the startups too, since who the Dell knows what's been DL
and installed on this.

Any suggestions from my favorite DellBots? Otherwise, it's pull all the
cards and test one by one... Guess I'm looking for some shortcuts.

Thanks, Pat


The symptoms all point to software, not hardware. If it was me, I'd go
back to basics. Backup everything you can in safe mode (hope it has good
backups) and wipe the machine clean with a fresh install of XP.

But I'm not a good example, as I reinstall XP every few months.

Tom


Tom,

That was the one answer I wasn't hoping for... Hope he still has all
his disks.

Thanks, Pat



Boot in safe mode and try disabling everything in the startup folder...then
attempt a normal boot.


 




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