HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
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- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
I've got a Dell XPS circa January 2010.
Specs:
i7-860, 3x1GB RAM, PC3-10600
WD 500GB HD
Win7 HP-64
MSI PCIe video card
The reported symptom was no video when the computer booted. Onsite, this was in fact the case. No video at all, even though the computer looked like it was booting.
On the bench, I removed the HD to test it separately (I used both WD Data Lifeguard and the Seagate software - both short and long tests in both softwares passed without incident. Backed up the data and drivers while the drive was out.
When I booted the computer with the diagnostic CD (PC-Check), the video came up fine. I started a full diagnostic run, with these curious results:
The first time through with PC-Check, I got failures on the processor, in the X64 instruction sets. After 5 failures, the testing aborts, so I decided to run it again, skipping the processor to see what else might be up. A new chip for this rig would be about $400.
The second time through, I started with memory testing. About 15 minutes into the testing, the computer shut down hard. Booting it again brought back the no-video problem.
So...back to first principals. I tested the power supply = voltages are fine, and I haven't tried replacing the PS yet.
Visual inspection of the Mobo is unremarkable. No bulging or leaking caps, nothing out of place. I removed and reseated the RAM sticks.
Just for kicks, I tried a new video card - no change. Next, I removed the CMOS battery & cleared the BIOS. After mounting the original video card and reinserting the battery, the computer started up with video (the hard disk is still out at this point). I booted to a few different CDs without any problems. So I booted PC-Check again and ran a full diagnostics overnight. This time, no errors at all. I also ran the Dell diagnostics on the utility partition without error.
A several hour run with Memtest 86+ also had no errors (6 passes).
Ok, so remounted the hard disk. The computer has video but when the Windows logo starts flying in, it reboots. Tried a startup repair, unable to repair. Same behaviour in safe mode, and there are no system restore points. After disabling auto-reboot on error, I got a 7B stop code. So, I ran a complete chkdsk on the hard disk on my bench machine. The log showed a couple of instant tag fixes, about 1,900 unused index entries and security descriptors. Finally it stated the upcase file content was incorrect and that free space was marked as allocated in the MFT and volume bitmap. The summary shows 0KB in bad sectors and that repairs were made. This is when I ran the Seagate utility even though the WD utility had no errors.
So it still won't boot Windows, so I tried a upgrade install with the universal Win7 image on my Zalman - it halts after selecting the upgrade stating that the upgrade must be run from within windows. I've done this lots before, so I'm not sure what the hangup is this time.
The data is backed up, so I tried a factory restore, which didn't give any errors, but the machine still reboots at the Windows logo fly-in.
I tried reinserting the new video card to see if THAT made a difference - it didn't.
I'd like to keep the recovery partition intact if I can, but I'm thinking the next step is a complete wipe of the disk and a reinstall -- assuming of course that it isn't the mobo after all and I'm just wasting my time rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic here.
What would you do next?
Specs:
i7-860, 3x1GB RAM, PC3-10600
WD 500GB HD
Win7 HP-64
MSI PCIe video card
The reported symptom was no video when the computer booted. Onsite, this was in fact the case. No video at all, even though the computer looked like it was booting.
On the bench, I removed the HD to test it separately (I used both WD Data Lifeguard and the Seagate software - both short and long tests in both softwares passed without incident. Backed up the data and drivers while the drive was out.
When I booted the computer with the diagnostic CD (PC-Check), the video came up fine. I started a full diagnostic run, with these curious results:
The first time through with PC-Check, I got failures on the processor, in the X64 instruction sets. After 5 failures, the testing aborts, so I decided to run it again, skipping the processor to see what else might be up. A new chip for this rig would be about $400.
The second time through, I started with memory testing. About 15 minutes into the testing, the computer shut down hard. Booting it again brought back the no-video problem.
So...back to first principals. I tested the power supply = voltages are fine, and I haven't tried replacing the PS yet.
Visual inspection of the Mobo is unremarkable. No bulging or leaking caps, nothing out of place. I removed and reseated the RAM sticks.
Just for kicks, I tried a new video card - no change. Next, I removed the CMOS battery & cleared the BIOS. After mounting the original video card and reinserting the battery, the computer started up with video (the hard disk is still out at this point). I booted to a few different CDs without any problems. So I booted PC-Check again and ran a full diagnostics overnight. This time, no errors at all. I also ran the Dell diagnostics on the utility partition without error.
A several hour run with Memtest 86+ also had no errors (6 passes).
Ok, so remounted the hard disk. The computer has video but when the Windows logo starts flying in, it reboots. Tried a startup repair, unable to repair. Same behaviour in safe mode, and there are no system restore points. After disabling auto-reboot on error, I got a 7B stop code. So, I ran a complete chkdsk on the hard disk on my bench machine. The log showed a couple of instant tag fixes, about 1,900 unused index entries and security descriptors. Finally it stated the upcase file content was incorrect and that free space was marked as allocated in the MFT and volume bitmap. The summary shows 0KB in bad sectors and that repairs were made. This is when I ran the Seagate utility even though the WD utility had no errors.
So it still won't boot Windows, so I tried a upgrade install with the universal Win7 image on my Zalman - it halts after selecting the upgrade stating that the upgrade must be run from within windows. I've done this lots before, so I'm not sure what the hangup is this time.
The data is backed up, so I tried a factory restore, which didn't give any errors, but the machine still reboots at the Windows logo fly-in.
I tried reinserting the new video card to see if THAT made a difference - it didn't.
I'd like to keep the recovery partition intact if I can, but I'm thinking the next step is a complete wipe of the disk and a reinstall -- assuming of course that it isn't the mobo after all and I'm just wasting my time rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic here.
What would you do next?
