Inspiron bootup issues- hangs or blue screens often, but not always.

I am a frustrated IT pro looking to see if someone else has
encountered the same issue with a Dell laptop.

First off, it's out of warranty, so that answers that.

The symptoms are that about 1/3 of the time (give or take), the boot
sequence will roll through the splash screen, then at when that
blanks, followed soon after by the mouse arrow and the Windows
background appearing, it will hang. Initially, it would hang with a
blue screen suggesting replacing the video card- typical Windows
We don't know what the problem is either..."; message. Now it reliably
just goes to black and hangs or gives one of a couple of blue
screens. Usually a hard restart (power off and restart) will get it
going eventually. This behavior will also occur when booting into Safe
Mode. In all cases, once the machine IS booted, everything works fine,
including all devices.

User has made very few mods to the system (Inspiron 8600) since
purchase. She reported occasional blue screens during bootup. A
previous tech suggested an overheating video card or CPU. Both check
out fine through various diagnostics. It's running quiet and cool all
around.

In the last few weeks, several things were done with the machine- none
of which should lead to instability, but none of which have fixed the
instability either. Namely:
1. BIOS updated to latest version. Settings were blanked out and
reconfigured from scratch, per directions.
2. Windows XP Home was patched to SP2 and all current hotfixes. As I
said, the user had done virtually no alterations from factory.
3. Video (nVidia), Wireless, Chipset drivers were all updated. Per the
advice of others, the video drivers were completely uninstalled, then
the new drivers installed. The latest nVidia BIOS was also installed
to go with the driver.
4. Memory has been tested using Dell Diagnostics, memtest 386, and
even swapping it with known good memory.

Symantec AV (not the whole security suite) 2006 is installed and
running. No hint of virus activity.

When running the /bootlog option in Windows, there is SOME suggestion
that the next process that SHOULD start is related to the Sonic
software (6.5, OEM to the machine). Could that cause this kind of
issue?

Dell diagnostics give the whole machine a clean bill of health.
Independent testing programs on various components give the machine a
clean bill of health. Given the above descriptions, I would swear the
problem is hardware, but I have nothing to prove it.

Does this symptom set sound familiar to anyone? If so, could you point
me to either a solution or a definitive diagnosis? Even if the
supported solution leads to turning it into a Frisbee, if it's
documented, we're both open to that. But we would hope that there is a
simple "duh" solution that my years of experience has simply
overlooked (and yes, it is plugged in!).

Not too proud to ask for help here. Thanks.

-CW

"Craig Wiggins" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
>I am a frustrated IT pro looking to see if someone else has
> encountered the same issue with a Dell laptop.
>


Nice work so far drilling it down.

I'd next (with any/all external devices including network disconnected) boot
the system into safe mode a few times.

Power up, F8, safe mode. desktop, start/turn off computer/shut down. Power
up....etc.

If the thing can manage to reach desktop in safe mode w/no BSODs, then it
might strongly/confirm suggest software and drivers (where you're already
at).

If I were successful in doing that, then I'd boot into safe mode and then
disable EVERYTHING in msconfig/startup.

Then try a normal boot (several times if you have no BSOD's).

I'd then have a hard look at the startup items, re-enabling as needed
beginning with the AV program.

You could also try removing Sonic after you verify you have either a disc or
the software downloaded for the re-install if necessary.

Stew

On Mar 12, 6:57 pm, "S.Lewis" <stew1...@mail.com> wrote:
> "Craig Wiggins" <cawigg...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news: oups.com...
>
> >I am a frustrated IT pro looking to see if someone else has
> > encountered the same issue with a Dell laptop.
>
> Nice work so far drilling it down.
>
> I'd next (with any/all external devices including network disconnected) boot
> the system into safe mode a few times.
>
> Power up, F8, safe mode. desktop, start/turn off computer/shut down. Power
> up....etc.
>
> If the thing can manage to reach desktop in safe mode w/no BSODs, then it
> might strongly/confirm suggest software and drivers (where you're already
> at).
>
> If I were successful in doing that, then I'd boot into safe mode and then
> disable EVERYTHING in msconfig/startup.
>
> Then try a normal boot (several times if you have no BSOD's).
>
> I'd then have a hard look at the startup items, re-enabling as needed
> beginning with the AV program.
>
> You could also try removing Sonic after you verify you have either a disc or
> the software downloaded for the re-install if necessary.
>
> Stew

You need to work out if it's hardware of software.
Does the event viewer give you any information?
Have you run the BSOD message thru debug to try and work out which
hardware's crapping out?
Try memtest off a bootable CD to test the RAM.
Check BIOS fan management is normal and fans operating. Consider
opening the casing and checking proper mating of heatsinks on CPU and
GPU.
A Knoppix CD isn't a bad idea to see if it'll boot off that, although
it's unlikely to push the GPU hard enough to provoke a heat-related
problem.

Personally, given the time you've invested in it so far, I'd run
memtest, check the logs then provided no hint of a hardware problem
I'd do a clean install on it and see how you go.

Ric