Dell 8300 problems Need HELP

Thank you Paul for responding. No one has been on the computer and I have not opened any jokes, etc. Jumping around: Highlight favorites and the list goes up and down like a fast elevator. Go to play spades and the computer plays the game for you once you begin the game. Went to spider solitaire and I could not undo moves. Weird stuff as if Casper the unfriendly ghost decided to decent on my computer. I run adaware several times as well as spybot and grisoft avg. No viruses were found but adaware always picks up stuff. I don't know what it looks for but it is a good detective. This is really baffling. Jen

I have to say this, if what you are telling me is true, then I would suspect Casper also. I have heard of eratic behavior but wow. Ok, a few questions...Do you have your pc on a rug\carpet where static may be high, close to possibly high EMI (electro magnetic interference) source such as a furnace, fuse pannel etc...Are you sure it hasn't been hit by lightning or some power surge? I would say the above or a hardware issue or over heating so I would make sure that the back both for the power supply fan and any air ways are not blocked. If there is bad air circulation this will cause over heating. It may be a bad Power supply unit or CPU fan not cooling CPU down.
This is just all off the top of my head though so bear with me...one thing at a time.

Click "start" "My Computer" right click whichever is your main drive, typically (C:)select "properties" "tools" "check now" When check disk options comes up, check both boxes and click start. Typically you will need to restart the pc and let it do it's thing. It will check the drive for errors and fix ones that can be fixed. See how your pc runs after that and after checking the above and let me know.

Paul

Paul, I am going to start the check now box and begin the scan. I will write down all feedback and let you know what comes up. The computer is inside of a computer cabinet, has been for 4 years, which when running the door is open. It is not on carpet nor has it been hit by lightening. Hope we can erraticate the bad Casper. Thanks, Jen

Paul, Completed chkdsk and did not get any messages. So far this morning the computer ghost has not reared its head. Jen

Ok, it may have been a buggy system and hopefully some errors were fixed and the "casper effect" doesn't come back. Still with your Dell model, they are known for overheating , among many other issues. If it continues to do this, I would suspect a cooling issue.

Paul

What do you mean by a cooling issue and what should I do to prevent it? Am planning to buy another computer and take this Dell to the lake house where it is housed outside of a cabinet. I am planning to purchase athlon processor because from what I have read they run much cooler than the pentium processors do. Please advise if I need to do anything else to help elminate the cooling issue. Thanks, Jen

Hello again, well first let me explain this. Your CPU (central processing unint) has a heat sink, typically aluminum or copper, and a fan on top to direct the heat away. You may also have an additional fan to cool the internal components of the case and to act as circulation fan to direct the heat out of the case. Either case, if the fan and heatsink get plugged up with dust, etc...it can cut down on your cooling ability. When the CPU heats up it can cause erratic behavior, as can other components. The power supply has a cooling fan also and can also cause problems if plugged up. Heat is the number 1 cause of the break down of electrical components. This is why so many people opt to buy better cooling systems. Especially gamers.

As far as preventing it goes, IF it is a cooling issue, as stated, check for large amounts of dust clogging up fans. Typically a can of compressed air is used to blow the dust from the components. Also, making sure the fans are spinning is obviously the best indication. If your cpu fan bites the dust, and even with a shutdown temp on the pc, you can burn up the CPU and other components on the motherboard. Honestly, the cpu gets hot enough to fry an egg. Also, high pitched whining noises may indicate a bad fan and that it needs replacing. I don't know how much knowledge you have when it comes to this so I tried to keep it as simple as possible and if you don't know how to get into the pc and clean or even know where to look, it's best to ask or have someone who does know, do it for you.


Amd cooler? Actually AMD was known for running hotter than Pentium, but there is a difference in how they run which I won't get into. My opinion has always been toward AMD though. If you buy a new PC, most likely there shouldn't be any cooling issues. The difference in the new 64 bit AMD and Pentium as far as heat goes, doesn't seem all that far apart to make a decision based on that, or ever has really. A person can always buy a better cooling system for under 20 bucks. My Emachines has an AMD processor and it was 62c , I bought Antec fan +heatsink for 12.99 and dropped it to 47c.

As I said though, I don't think you need to worry on a new system, they are typically just fine. The current one though, may need a good cleaning depending how often (if ever) you cleaned it, environmental dust, etc...

Hope this helps a bit, Paul

Thanks Paul for all the info. I have a can of compresed air and I know how to get into the cpu but rarely do; therefore, it has never been cleaned. I don't know what I am cleaning so I will spray everything inside of the computer. I will wait to hear from you to make sure that I am suppose to spray everything. Thanks again, Jen

When you open the case, you need to be aware of a couple of things

1. Make sure you unplug all components, power , etc...from the pc case.

2. Make sure you are grounded to the chasis (metal case) before touching anything inside as ESD(electro static discharge) can literally destroy an electrical component. The charge you get from rubbing your feet on a carpet and zapping someone, that is ESD.

3. The CPU will have the raised metal aluminum\copper heatsink which is under a fan on the motherboard. It's fairly easy to spot.

4. Do not set the computer on a carpet or rug, raise it up on something like a wood table if need be where it's easy to get at and also due to ESD.


5. You may have to read the can but some suggest keeping the straw that attaches to the nozzel, a certain distance from components as the pressure can damage a component.

6. There is also the chance when using compressed air, that something may shoot up and get in your eye and make you cuss to no end. If you feel the need to, wear safety glasses.

Other than that, look for clumps of dust plugging fans, or anywhere air may flow in\out. Clumps of dust can also build up on the motherboard and cause static discharges too, so try to make sure you get as much dust out as possibe. Then the power supply also which is where your power plugs in, if the fan\fans on that is plugged that should be cleaned as well.

I typically tip the open side down at an angle and then shoot the air allowing all the dust bunnies to fall lifelessly on my table, wiping it off as I go so it won't get back into the pc.

Hope this helps a bit,

Paul

I wanted to ask you about your emachine. In all my research, I thought the emachine was the computer to steer clear of because it uses a celeron or sempron processor. Since you are a computer expert and have an emachine, I am spending $ that I should keep in my pocket. I have looked at the HP m7300 with the 3800 x2 processor, 1 g ram, 80 ig hard drive as I already have an external, light scribe dvdrw (don't know if this is important),cd, 17" monitor, nvidia 7300 le with turbo cache graphics card because I have read to stay clear of integrated cards, and the sound blaster 4, 24 bit just because I have always had sound blaster on my computers. This computer comes to a grand total of 1099.00 without extended warranty which I do not think is real important. I have also looked at a 3800 x3 Gateway with 1 mem, 250 hard drive, dvd dual with the PCI Express slot 16x, no cd but has a 17" monitor for 800.00. My question is do I need this stuff or do I need to look at an emachine that a computer expert uses. Please do not misunderstand, I simply am not familiar with an emachine just going by what I have read. You are the expert and I trust your opinion. What do I do on a computer: Obviously a lot of research, email, office works, editing digital videos using photo impact pro, and burning cd's for friends of my ole lp's, cassettes and cd beach music. I never play games on line just xp games: solitaire, spider, hearts. I really do need a new machine but I also do not like to toss them out every few years. My computer at the lake is a gateway bought new in the late 1990's with P 233. I plan to let grands use it as it still runs great. My home computer is a Dekk 8300 which I will take to the lake and purchase a new system for home. Paul thanks for your response and time. Give your little ones an extra hug from MamaJen. Thanks, Jen

What have you heard about Gateway? I only have experience from a 10 or 11 yr old system and have had great service and tech help but companies do change so please tell me about gateway so I won't waste my time looking. Also, I gather that you like emachines, which I have3 not considered but will take a look at. If not an emachine do you have any other recommendations? Thanks agin, Jen

RE eMachines: recommend reading through the forum postings. eMachines appear to have material weaknesses especially in the power supply area. The postings lead one to believe they're built to a minimum spec without room (wattage) to spare. The consequence, the power supply may die prematurely or won't support addition of any peripherals if you should choose to add any.

Actually my emachines supported additional peripherals just fine. I do agree about the power supply issue as this happened to me but it is 4 and a half years old and undeniably this happens with many brands of pcs. Why i may be partial to emachines at all is performance, my pc performed great, and in it's defense, I ran that machine into the ground but did get a lot of use out of it. As I said, you can find many "i hate dell forums" "i hate emachines" etc...the list goes on. If anyone can guarantee that any new pre-built won't have issues in over 4 years, then please fill me in. Understand, I don't disagree with your post at all and I don't find it hard to believe either, but to be fair, the new line of emachines may be better as with any other brand, or worse I guess and every brand has had major issues.

Paul

earlier production.

On the other hand if all one sees about eMachines is PSU failures, it gives the appearance they are minimally equipped ... little reserve capacity over a minimum system requirement.

Perhaps the failures posted were low-end vs. mid/high-end units and the mid/high end units ...those with faster CPUs, come with greater PSU reserve capacity.

Last off-the-shelf box I bought was '89 or so and ever since, I've built my own. I can choose any components I want and only have myself (and the mfg) to blame if/when it goes bad. But the parts are all generic so there's lots to choose from and replacements are readily available in whatever level of power and quality I'm willing to pay for.

VAPCMD

Well, I can tell you this much, the power supply seemed to bog down under a heavier load and I knew this but at the time couldn't afford to replace it, 3 kids take up a lot of money, lol.

Any way, the power supply was junk right from the start and I would hope they corrected this problem.

The rest of the machine was excellent for a pre built and I had (for connections)8 usb , ethernet, headphones, speakers, mic, Then hard ware\ 1 80 gig hd, 2 dvd burners, nice monitor\keyboard\speakers\mouse, 2.0 ghz amd, 512 ram, an excellent 64 onboard (many couldn't believe how well it ran Halo among other games, but I still would have liked a graphics card. The pc itself ran wonderfully, until I added that extra hard drive\dvd player\fans, I added a system fan, one hard drive fan , and a better heatsink w\fan which I had from my other pc. etc..the PSU seemed to diminish, badly. For over 4 years ago and at the time, since this was in the store a good 5 months before I bought it, almost 5 years ago, for $600 dollars, nothing came close to that for that price as I mentioned, dvd burners alone were $500 in my area. So besides the PSU problem, the rest was to me, outstanding. The tech support stunk though. Now of course I want to build my own also and stray from the box types. My unit was mid\high at the time. But as I said, I do believe what you read. It's just too bad though as it would have been a heck of a box brand otherwise.

Paul

What I meant with the emachines link, it was more to show you that Sempron was AMD. I have had my bouts with HP, Emachines, Dell, Gateway, amongst others and in my complete opinion, a person is simply drawing straws among the pc consumer world.

As in the other reply on here, the person already has an opinion about emachines and this is a perfect example, what's one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Would I buy a new emachines, possibly not as they should better their systems and I did mention the tech support was a complete joke, but free.

HP\compaq have had issues with their restore partitions on the disk in the past but now some have a ''one time only'' message that pops up and tells you to burn 7 cds for a last chance at an operating system recovery disk setup. The tech support was always good to me , and free within warranty, even sometimes would help me knowing it was out of warranty.

Gateway , I have heard pretty much everything, from tech support charges, to warranty not being upheld, etc...and personally, I can't stand the way they run.

Many pre built models of pcs have OEM motherboards etc...they may be name brand models but many times are made cheaper to give the consumer a reasonable price on a computer, otherwise prices would be much higher. They may also use generic drives , etc...

The one thing I can say is this, you can do just as well for cheaper than 1099.00. If you would like me to look around and help you out and give you some ideas, I don't have a problem with that. Here is a link that may help you and is by Cnet Shopper---

http://shopper-search.cnet.com/search?qt=Desktop+reviews&subj=1191228&part=google-cnet&tag=

You can search by most popular and I beleive it has reviews , etc...

Also, as far as building your own, you can run into many issues but without tech support. I don't know what level of knowledge you have in the pc world but in my (opinion) a person should learn to be more self sufficient in fixing and maintaining a pc before building their own, or having someone nearby to help that does (Not saying you don't know how, just in general) but I can't count how many people build their own, have no tech support except for a specific part and are lost when it comes to getting drivers, troubleshooting etc...Plus you have to buy a Windows OS. It can be more costly unless getting very cheap parts which isn't always a good road either. Don't get me wrong, it has great benefits also but may not be the proper road to take.

One more thing, the reason I even bought an emachines was this, about 4 years ago when other pcs were still stuck with cd roms and dvd burners were 500 dollars, at least in my area, there was an emachines with a dvd burner and reader with 512 mb ram , 80 gig hard drive, 2.0 ghz amd processor, for 600 dollars. At the time it was excellent and the store manager said there was no way those were dvd burner\reader in there for that price. Knowing how to read the r\rw etc...I knew it was and bought it. It's been about 4 and a half years but my power supply did burn out and fried my cpu. The pc ran excellent up until then. There were other minor issues but it ran like a top and out performed HP , Gateway, Dell, etc... by far. I would like to think they may have fixed this issue but in truth, I have seen this happen on ''all brands'', some right out of the box so you never know and that's why a person should get an extended warranty if possible.

And yes, you can have a custom built, may save you money if it has features you don't need taken out or cost more depending on what you have put in.


Here's another point, older pcs lasted and some are still going but as supply and demand take over, you will be hard pressed to find any pc that will last 9 years. From what I have seen 5 to 6 with maintenence is good. They don't make em' like they used to. Also , technology was at constant minimum years ago compared to now. A pc is outdated the minute you walk out of the store with it. What I am trying to get at is this, if you are looking for a life long binary partner, I don't think it will happen. I see people buying new pcs all the time from 3 to 5 years. I heard bad reviews on AMD Athlon pcs also, but I have one that is 8 years old, running XP and has had no issues. My son currently occupies it, ''constantly''lol.

If what you are asking in general for what you may need, perhaps at least 2.0 ghz or more, 64 dual core cpu, 512 or more of ram,(seeing 1 gig more and more) an operating system , OS restore disks, free tech support, dvd\cd burner, good warranty, good extended warranty, the look, peripheral -connections, ''upgradability'' which covers many areas, and price. As you will see from the link I gave you, there are many. Look through and if want, post back and I can give you an opinion.

All this said, the bottom line is, I don't want to tell you what to buy, and have it crap out a day after warranty , or run terribly, and have you say , Paul you @$%$%^&*! you told me to buy this junk!! LoL. (lauging out loud).

I hope you understand and hey, look around, take your time, and many on here, including me will glady help you out.

Take care

Paul

Found a FX 510S and a FX510X. They are more than I wanted to put into a system but they seem to have all that I would ever need including the 19" monitor.
The processor is a Pentium D 930 featuring (3.00 ghz, 800 mhz FSB, 2x2 MB cache non-ht em64T) I do not know what any of these numbers mean but i assume they mean good.

The mem is 1 ghz pc 5300 dual ddr2 667mhz sdram. Again do not kow what the numbers mean but I assume good.

video: nvidia geforce 6600 w/ 128 mb, dvi,vga & tv out or the other has nvidia geforce 7300 le video card w/ 256 turbo cache (64 mb discrete ddr3 mem) and dvi,vga & tv out. Which is the best?

Audio: one is integrated intel 7.1 high definition and one is sound blaster 4. I know that the sound blaster 4 is better but would the integrated one work just as well?

I know that the athlon are suppose to be better than the pentiums and I went to hp and spected out a 4100 computer with 19" monitor but then I read reviews on hp and really got scared. I read some horror wtories about the company. Should I be concerned? Also the rep that I talked with at hp advised me not to go more than 3800 processor but of course it would add another 160.00 to the price tag. Any suggestions?

I also looked at the eMachine T6534 and T6535. Liked the prices but can you customize these systems prior to purchase? Read reviews and they were the only company without a red flag which is outstanding. I just have never heard of eMachines.

Last, I looked at the Gateway 4200 at BestBuy. What is BTX cooling? Seems to me that this system is very close to the emachine but has a faster processor (4200 vs 3700 or 3800) If I went with the slower processor would I be wise to get 2 gb of ram instead of customary 1 gb?

Thanks for all your help. I hope these examples will help. Jen

(Kidding). Honestly, especially from best buy, I have heard many horror stories and to be honest ,Gateway\Bestbuy, recipe for disaster. I was just helping someone on Cnet who went through 3 computers from Bestbuy as they had to keep being returned and even the last one is a lemon.

As I mentioned before, I would go with darn near anything OTHER than Gateway. HP has horror stories yes, but they do put out a lot of computers also. I am on my wife's hp, 5 years old right now as my Emachines sits upstairs collecting dust. The HP was struck by lightning when her aunt owned it and the usb ports on the front don't work but we've had it for almost two years, runs fine. I think HP support is better than Emachines and far better than Dell. My emachines did run great while it lasted and outperformed the others. My almost 8 year old AMD athlon 850 is in my son's room running nicely.

As far as numbers go, the D 930 is your CPU <dual core I believe>, and 3 Ghz is good. 800mhz is front side bus speed, but unless you are into some specific stuff, for all intents and purposes in your case, look for the Ghz, at least 2.0 and up. This is the processing speed of your cpu. I think you meant 1 GB for how much ram included, remember typically speaking GB, MB, KB , Bits , bytes are usually size, Ghz, Mhz, are speeds. Not sure on the geforce card, would have to look up user opinions.

Emachines is fairly new or they just bought out a company like 5 to 7 years ago, could be wrong but yes, when it comes to computers I believe they are the new kid on the block. I know others who owned them and were very satisfied.

And once again, not to be redundant here, but it boils down to users opinions, what they prefer and as said, what WAS a good line of computers, this year may be crap, and next year top of the line. It's really hard to say. I would give emachines a try, and tech support is free. That is my honest opinion but please , don't get mad at me if it doesn't work out, and that could happen with any computer you buy. Spin of the wheel. Even building your own can be a major pain as individual parts don't work, or deliver what you want, won't work with other parts, etc...This is technology and far from perfect for sure. And whatever you buy, if you can, please get extended warranty and read what it includes, this can save a bundle in the future. My samsung camcorder has it, it just went kaput two days ago and behold, I have complete replacement coverage, a week from 3 year extended warranty is up. So it may either get me a rebuild or a new one. It's worth it.

Paul

I am leaning to the hp because of all the stuff that is on it and the rep that I spoke with was extremely nice and informative; however, I am just wondering - why not gateway????? The only reason that I even mention gateway is because of the 10 yr. ole at the lake house with tech support today. I realize that unlimited tech support is a bygone perk but at least when you call, you get someone in the USA and they seem to be extremely knowledgeable. I asked the rep from hp about there techs and they are located abroad. I am not saying that abroad is not good, better for the computer company but I have real difficulty understanding them.
Also when I looked at emachines there tech number was not free and this really turned me off. I mean sometimes you are with techs for an extended time frame. Seems to me that the most problems with a computer comes in the first 18 months as all the kinks are worked out but I do agree about purchasing an extended warranty. Again thanks for your timely response. Jen

Also if you want to send me your choic 1 and 2 plese feel free to do so. Jen

First let me say thank you to all of you for your helpful advice, guidance, and patience. MamaJen is signing off as I just purchased a Dell Dimension 5150 business computer with a 19" ultra lcd monitor for less than $1K. I would never have done this without your imput. It has the Pentium D, which I know you have advised not to get but I did go with the 930 processor, 1 gb ram, 13 n 1 media w/ floppy, dbl. layer DVDRW, nonintegrated graphics card (standard ATI RADEon PCI Express 16x, integrated audio, etc. What sold me was their gold tech support for business with less than 2 min hold time, software and hardware service, advanced level technicians, on site service for 3 years for $109.00. I think this computer will last me along time. Again thank you for all your help. Jen

it when you get it set up and use it.

VAPCMD

you made the right decision and you are comfortable with it, that is what really matters. Once you get set up, you have to let us know how you like it. As far as emachines has gone, tech support was always free, I still have the 800. Unless they have changed it which would really turn me off to emachines then. But VERY glad you didn't go with Gateway, and Dell was a much better choice. See what I mean now, all we could do was give advice but even pc companies give different offers for different pcs you buy and run deals so you never know. I am very happy you went ahead and now all you have to do is post back and let us know how it's working or if you need help with it.
I'll be watching for your reply! Glad to hear once agian, take care always.

Paul

Again thanks for all your help. Looking forward to getting the machine and will post once up and running. I will be almost two weeks as we are going on vacation. Did not realize that the machine could be built in 4 days and shipped out in two so they have put me down for 3 to 5 ship date so I will not have a machine setting on front porch. Jen

I have brought my old computer to lake house and for some reason, I cannot open attachments in internet explorer. I have spent about an hour searching for answers and have come up cold so I thought about you. If you know how to allow attachments to open, please email me asap. My husband needs to get to these files. Thanks, Jen