Running out of ideas on troublesome DT

[brettjameslive]

I have picked up a customers Dell XPS 8300, AGAIN. A brief overview...

A while back I had to replace a HDD in the machine. It houses 2 1TB drives, no RAID. All good for about 6 months.

The customer advised me that the machine wouldn't power on. I.e. she presses the button, it makes a 'funny whirring noise like the fans are really loud' (her words not mine) and nothing appears on the screen, but the power light it on the tower. No BIOS screen, but lights on the keyboard. Sometimes, it WILL boot/come on normally, other times it will exhibit these problems.

We ran the full Dell diagnostics - this came back clear. I suggested replacing the PSU with a better one, as a cheap, quick attempt to fix, so we went to 500W from 350W.

Nope, problem is still present - sporadic non-booting. Then, the machine started telling her that it had bad RAM (DELL beep codes). UBCD diagnostics confirmed this. We replaced the RAM, ran diagnostics, no problems.

Now, the problem has come back. I am thinking, it can't be the HDD, can it? As it tests okay (when it boots) as the BBIOS hasn't even started!?

I am thinking the only things left to do/try?..:

Change battery/update BIOS;
Is it a Video Card (1GB Video card in the slot) problem? - Tests okay.
Mobo or CPU issue?

Any ideas? Anyone else had a similar issue?

Feeling frustrated...

 

[Kitten Kong]

Do the usual simple checks.

Bios battery.. wont be this.

Boot from minimal. ie no hard drive, no dvd, onboard graphics, one stick ram (even known working).

check for swollen caps

remove both hard drives, slave to your machine, run decent drive diagnostics, ie gs smart control.

run memtest for at least 6 passes.

Update the bios - possibly.

Chances are the mobo is flaky imo.

 

[brettjameslive]

The problem with this machine is, I can't replicate the problem. I run tests, they all come back fine, I give her the machine back, a week later, she calls me with the same problem again.

It's VERY occasional, so occasional, I haven't been able to observe the problem first hand.

There don't appear to be any swollen caps on the mobo. The RAM is new but will test the HDD's again.

 

[brettjameslive]

GSMartControl doesn't seem to run across the drives as they are set to RAID 0...

 

[Lone99star]

Sounds crazy but reseating the processor worked for me, new thermal paste.

 

[Kitten Kong]

GSMartControl doesn't seem to run across the drives as they are set to RAID 0...

In the Op you mentioned that there is no raid, in which case you can remove the drives, slave and diag.

Also you may want to have a read of this..

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/272403-diagnostic-for-hard-drives-in-a-raid

 

[jbartlett323]

So, to sum up: We suspected a power issue, so we replaced power supply. Later, found bad RAM. Before, During, and After we have had sporadic booting. All Diags pass, and (the real clue) you have not been able to replicate it.

So based off the above items, I see it as 2 possible issues:
1. flakey mobo. hard to test for, however with enough reboots, power cycle, power drians, and funny looks, it would eventually give you the same symptoms. Since it has not....
2. Bad power at her location. Would explain why your first thought (and symptoms) was the PSU. Does she run a UPS? If yes, how old? If no, thats the next tree I would look to.

Had a customer with very similar issues awhile back. Decent Dell Inspiron, C2Q Q6600, 4GB etc. had almost exactly the same symptoms. Suggested he have an electrician out. Electrician found no issue. So just in case, I had him buy a UPS. Still uses the machine, has not had the issue once since.....

 

[River Valley Computer]

Had similar issues with a XPS8300 last month. It turned out to be a defective mobo due to bad caps. How surprising. They were not obvious bulging caps or leaking, just bad. Bad caps can cause such crazy symptoms.

Also had another issue very similar to this but a different model several months ago. Turned out to be a bad Trip-lite surge protector.

 

[FremontPC]

There's also this issue, perhaps check the express code to see when it shipped:

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-b...l/archive/2011/02/02/intel-chipset-issue.aspx