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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
Weird problem. Plain vanilla Dimension 4400, solid since I bought it
Spring 2002. XPPro. Added 512M RAM (Crucial), and later a 2nd 80G HD, both early on. Flawless until it died four months ago. POST said no video. Replaced orig AGP card with new one. Revived. For three months. Failed again last week. Same POST - no video. 2nd new AGP card did not revive it this time. Not in a position to buy a new computer for a couple of months, but have workaround for the interim. Will be able to buy a new computer in late winter/early spring. Curiosity abounds however. Is it worth paying the Geek Squad, or the CC equivalent a couple $100 bucks to check out the D4400 to see why it's eating video cards, whether the two new cards are bad, or whether it's not eating the cards and there's a more serious internal problem? After five years of faithful service, I've grown attached to it. And I *really* don't need a _more capable_ machine. {And at my age, don't have the inclination to try to deal with Vista.] If it's simple, I'd rather get it fixed. Have any of y'all experienced a problem like this, and can possibly give me advice? If not, I'd appreciate a few recommendations for a Dell replacement for the D4400 - mid-level, 2-HD bays (redundancy appeals to me), don't need gaming, multi-media (WMP, Realplayer, QT, etc, freebies, handle my limited needs). WP, accounting, data-base work, email, usenet newsgroupsand some non-adventuresome web-surfing is all I do. Which is why I'm lamenting the current coma/death of my D4400. It's been all I've needed for the past five years. Which is also why, although I regularly frequent this newsgroup, I am totally out of touch with the details of current Dell (or other vendors) offerings. [And this just *had* to happen just after Dell ditched the Dimensions for, what?, Vostros and Inspirion /desktops/? Murphy's Law working overtime.] Thanks in advance. |
#2
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
"OJ" wrote in message ps.com... Weird problem. Plain vanilla Dimension 4400, solid since I bought it Spring 2002. XPPro. Added 512M RAM (Crucial), and later a 2nd 80G HD, both early on. Flawless until it died four months ago. POST said no video. Replaced orig AGP card with new one. Revived. For three months. Failed again last week. Same POST - no video. 2nd new AGP card did not revive it this time. Not in a position to buy a new computer for a couple of months, but have workaround for the interim. Will be able to buy a new computer in late winter/early spring. Curiosity abounds however. Is it worth paying the Geek Squad, or the CC equivalent a couple $100 bucks to check out the D4400 to see why it's eating video cards, whether the two new cards are bad, or whether it's not eating the cards and there's a more serious internal problem? After five years of faithful service, I've grown attached to it. And I *really* don't need a _more capable_ machine. {And at my age, don't have the inclination to try to deal with Vista.] If it's simple, I'd rather get it fixed. Have any of y'all experienced a problem like this, and can possibly give me advice? If not, I'd appreciate a few recommendations for a Dell replacement for the D4400 - mid-level, 2-HD bays (redundancy appeals to me), don't need gaming, multi-media (WMP, Realplayer, QT, etc, freebies, handle my limited needs). WP, accounting, data-base work, email, usenet newsgroupsand some non-adventuresome web-surfing is all I do. Which is why I'm lamenting the current coma/death of my D4400. It's been all I've needed for the past five years. Which is also why, although I regularly frequent this newsgroup, I am totally out of touch with the details of current Dell (or other vendors) offerings. [And this just *had* to happen just after Dell ditched the Dimensions for, what?, Vostros and Inspirion /desktops/? Murphy's Law working overtime.] Thanks in advance. Don't spend $200 on a machine worth only $200. You can go to the Dell Outlet website and pick up a decent, refurbished machine for about $250 to $300. And it will be running XP. You can pick and choose various options to pare down your search of the outlet inventory, and the operating system is one of the choices. |
#3
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
Hi!
Start by looking at the video cards. Do they show signs of having cooked...blown capacitors? Scorched or blackened components? Does the underlying board look like it's been hot? If the card has a fan, does it turn freely/at all? The failure of the card could have killed the AGP slot. You might see if you can find a PCI video card. It wouldn't be as fast as an AGP card, but you'd never notice from a Windows desktop/word processing/spreadsheeting/etc perspective. Check the power supply. Make sure it is clean and working properly. Finally, you might try unplugging the system and pulling the CMOS battery out overnight. That could fix it. William |
#4
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
"OJ" wrote in message ps.com... Weird problem. Plain vanilla Dimension 4400, solid since I bought it Spring 2002. XPPro. Added 512M RAM (Crucial), and later a 2nd 80G HD, both early on. Flawless until it died four months ago. POST said no video. Replaced snip I'd go over to ebay and search for a Dimension 4500 (a slight upgrade and very nearly the same machine) from a reputable seller. You should be able to get the entire tower for $100 /$150 round about with shipping. You very likely will be able to simply swap your hard drive into the 4500, let Windows install any new hardware devices, and be back in business. Also, all of your RAM and any other cards/drives will work in the 4500. That's what I'd do. Example: http://tinyurl.com/3yl4m6 Good luck, Stew PS - I'm not the seller, nor do I know the seller. Link is just for purposes of pricing example only. |
#5
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
Well, scratch the Geek Squad. They are overpriced and often incompetent.
If you are somewhere near the northwest Boston suburbs, come on by. I've collected Dell spare parts, enough to get your system back up and running fairly inexpensively. There would seem to be three possibilities: power supply, motherboard, AGP card. Without a selection of spare parts, it is pretty hard to figure which has failed. In addition, if you continue on with the present system, replace the 3v C2032 battery, which is probably nearly dead and due to be replaced. C2032 batteries are inexpensive and often cause wild and crazy symptoms when failed or failing. .... Ben Myers On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:16:39 -0800, OJ wrote: Weird problem. Plain vanilla Dimension 4400, solid since I bought it Spring 2002. XPPro. Added 512M RAM (Crucial), and later a 2nd 80G HD, both early on. Flawless until it died four months ago. POST said no video. Replaced orig AGP card with new one. Revived. For three months. Failed again last week. Same POST - no video. 2nd new AGP card did not revive it this time. Not in a position to buy a new computer for a couple of months, but have workaround for the interim. Will be able to buy a new computer in late winter/early spring. Curiosity abounds however. Is it worth paying the Geek Squad, or the CC equivalent a couple $100 bucks to check out the D4400 to see why it's eating video cards, whether the two new cards are bad, or whether it's not eating the cards and there's a more serious internal problem? After five years of faithful service, I've grown attached to it. And I *really* don't need a _more capable_ machine. {And at my age, don't have the inclination to try to deal with Vista.] If it's simple, I'd rather get it fixed. Have any of y'all experienced a problem like this, and can possibly give me advice? If not, I'd appreciate a few recommendations for a Dell replacement for the D4400 - mid-level, 2-HD bays (redundancy appeals to me), don't need gaming, multi-media (WMP, Realplayer, QT, etc, freebies, handle my limited needs). WP, accounting, data-base work, email, usenet newsgroupsand some non-adventuresome web-surfing is all I do. Which is why I'm lamenting the current coma/death of my D4400. It's been all I've needed for the past five years. Which is also why, although I regularly frequent this newsgroup, I am totally out of touch with the details of current Dell (or other vendors) offerings. [And this just *had* to happen just after Dell ditched the Dimensions for, what?, Vostros and Inspirion /desktops/? Murphy's Law working overtime.] Thanks in advance. |
#6
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
how did you determine that the problem was the video card the first time,
and this time? it could be the monitor. did you try to connect an different monitor to this system? if it is the monitor then look on craigs list for free 17" crt's that are regularly being given away. "OJ" wrote in message ps.com... Weird problem. Plain vanilla Dimension 4400, solid since I bought it Spring 2002. XPPro. Added 512M RAM (Crucial), and later a 2nd 80G HD, both early on. Flawless until it died four months ago. POST said no video. Replaced orig AGP card with new one. Revived. For three months. Failed again last week. Same POST - no video. 2nd new AGP card did not revive it this time. Not in a position to buy a new computer for a couple of months, but have workaround for the interim. Will be able to buy a new computer in late winter/early spring. Curiosity abounds however. Is it worth paying the Geek Squad, or the CC equivalent a couple $100 bucks to check out the D4400 to see why it's eating video cards, whether the two new cards are bad, or whether it's not eating the cards and there's a more serious internal problem? After five years of faithful service, I've grown attached to it. And I *really* don't need a _more capable_ machine. {And at my age, don't have the inclination to try to deal with Vista.] If it's simple, I'd rather get it fixed. Have any of y'all experienced a problem like this, and can possibly give me advice? If not, I'd appreciate a few recommendations for a Dell replacement for the D4400 - mid-level, 2-HD bays (redundancy appeals to me), don't need gaming, multi-media (WMP, Realplayer, QT, etc, freebies, handle my limited needs). WP, accounting, data-base work, email, usenet newsgroupsand some non-adventuresome web-surfing is all I do. Which is why I'm lamenting the current coma/death of my D4400. It's been all I've needed for the past five years. Which is also why, although I regularly frequent this newsgroup, I am totally out of touch with the details of current Dell (or other vendors) offerings. [And this just *had* to happen just after Dell ditched the Dimensions for, what?, Vostros and Inspirion /desktops/? Murphy's Law working overtime.] Thanks in advance. |
#7
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
On Nov 12, 9:58 pm, "Kevin" wrote:
"OJ" wrote in message [Saga snipped Thanks in advance. Don't spend $200 on a machine worth only $200. You can go to the Dell Outlet website and pick up a decent, refurbished machine for about $250 to $300. And it will be running XP. You can pick and choose various options to pare down your search of the outlet inventory, and the operating system is one of the choices.- Hide quoted text - Thanks for reminding me about Dell Outlet, Kevin. I'll be exploring that option. IIRC, it didn't exist in 2002 when I first bought the 4400, but I've noted recent discussions here about it. One of the few, given my plain vanilla computing, I actually fully understand nowadays given the ever-onward technology march in PCs. ;- OJ |
#8
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
On Nov 12, 10:30 pm, "William R. Walsh" wrote:
Start by looking at the video cards. Do they show signs of having cooked...blown capacitors? Scorched or blackened components? Does the underlying board look like it's been hot? If the card has a fan, does it turn freely/at all? None of the three cards, the original nVidia Geforce 2MX, the Radeon X1050 that worked for three months, nor the brand new VisionTek Radeon HD2400 that didn't "work" out of the box showed any signs of component damage. The failure of the card could have killed the AGP slot. You might see if you can find a PCI video card. It wouldn't be as fast as an AGP card, but you'd never notice from a Windows desktop/word processing/spreadsheeting/etc perspective. Other than the fact that the second AGP card worked fine for three months, I don't discount some sort of AGP slot problem. Check the power supply. Make sure it is clean and working properly. Regular part of PM, and no signs of PS problems outside cards. Finally, you might try unplugging the system and pulling the CMOS battery out overnight. That could fix it. That I didn't think of. But, given that I have an employer's Dim 4600C that was never used in the store, for use at home right now, immediate replacement is not needed. I've picked up an external USB hard drive housing to retreive needed info off the 4400 drives and put it on the 4600; and the advice I'm receiving here, I'm inclined to let the 4400 quietly go off into the night, to wherever computers go after long and faithful service. (After, of course, stripping out anything that might be handy to have in the spare parts closet. ;-) Thanks, William. |
#9
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
On Nov 12, 10:34 pm, "S.Lewis" wrote:
"OJ" wrote in message [Snipped] snip I'd go over to ebay and search for a Dimension 4500 (a slight upgrade and very nearly the same machine) from a reputable seller. Heh. Not a month after I bought the 4400 the 4450 came out, and, a few months later the 4500. Thanks for the suggestion - given my usage it's an option I'll seriously consider. [snip details] PS - I'm not the seller, nor do I know the seller. Link is just for purposes of pricing example only. I'd never think otherwise. I might do Craig's list - local - vice ebay, but it won't be because I think you're flogging yours. ;- Thanks, Stew. |
#10
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Dimension 4400 in Coma or Dying
On Nov 13, 3:26 am, WaIIy wrote:
On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:34:24 -0600, "S.Lewis" wrote: I'd go over to ebay and search for a Dimension 4500 (a slight upgrade and very nearly the same machine) from a reputable seller. [snips] When I couldn't figure out my Dimension 4550, that's what I did. The one I bought was actually cleaner than mine and mine was close to spotless. Plus, I have a spare processor, etc now. Thanks, Wally. Another reinforcement of my decision to let the 4400 go. Too many better options, for either short term or long term, and more cost effective (cheaper) ;-. |
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