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Here we go again.--Dell 8250 bad 200 gig hard drive again? & Dell's Tech line



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 12th 03, 08:09 AM
drcwks
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Here we go again.--Dell 8250 bad 200 gig hard drive again? & Dell's Tech line

To make a long story short.......(I will try)--- This is an update of my
problem back 2 months ago.--Not quite the same problem.

MY MAIN QUESTIONS are at the bottom of this post.....if you want to scroll
down first.... Sorry for the long post but I wanted to make sure you had all
the information to help with your decision..... Thanks.

1) I have a Dell 8250. It has the 3.06 processor, 1.5 gig of ram, 200
gig/8meg buffer hard drive, audigy2 sound card, ati9700, dvd burner.
Every thing has been working just fine since I had my hard drive replaced in
May. This was diagnosed by an in house tech that was here to replace my CPU
fan. It didn't boot up after he replaced it and after the tech talked to
Dell, they both agreed it was the hard drive...so.... 2 days later I
received the hard drive and "I" was responsible for loading all the new
software..... (more about this later on what I did)...now to my NEW PROBLEM.



ALL has been running fine with my NEW hard drive until last week. I booted
up one night and all I got was a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the
top left screen. This is an 'immediate' symptom right after the bios has
loaded...since I do see the white bar increase from left to right. I turned
power off, ctrl-alt-del, etc.... a dozen or so time and the same screen
appeared.



I called the DELL TECH LINE. I explained to them the problem and wanted them
to UNDERSTAND I had already had a faulty drive(now I know differently)
replaced back in MAY and now the SAME problem is occurring. AFTER 2 1/2
hours on the phone to INDIA (nothing wrong with that..but some are very hard
to understand)--- the TECH told me it was NOT a HARDWARE PROBLEM and I had
to reinstall Windows XP again. I told him I CAN'T install the operating
system EVERY 2 MONTHS --- that wasn't an acceptable option. He told me a
HARDWARE problem CAN NOT cause a SOFTWARE PROBLEM. At one point in the
diagnosis.... I did tell him the diagnostic lights on the back were all
green except #4 (Letter D) . IT was Yellow.... Of course..later on through
the trouble shooting....every time I did reboot....all the lights showed
green...so he said definitely...since all the lights were green it was NOT a
hard ware problem. _OH.. We did switch cables out too to make sure the hard
drive cable wasn't bad. The BIOS did recognize the HD and also DELL'S
diagnostics on my hard drive said the HD passed. I told him there has to be
some other quirk that makes my hard drive NOT want to boot passed the bios.
I asked to talk to his supervisor since I wanted to elevate this to the
point where maybe I could get another mother board, etc... He said the supv.
was in a meeting.... SO I told him thanks...and called back to get ahold of
another tech. I told him my problem and said I wanted to talk to his
supervisor...That person told me the same thing...that it was the OS....
SO...I just quit for the night....I was NOT impressed with their ONE WAY
support..... to just LOAD the OS again....



I remembered the next day ( I don't know why it took that long..) that I was
thinking about how I got my OLD hard drive to work since I CLONED it using
Norton Ghost. I bells went off when I remembered I went into the BIOS and
picked the INTEGRATED DEVICES (Legacy Select Options).Then the sub menu I
picked IDE Drive UDMA. I turned if from ON to OFF. I saved the settings and
rebooted... IT BOOTED UP THE FIRST TIME!!. I then rebooted and changed the
bios of the UDMA back to ON. The next reboot produce the BLANK SCREEN with
BLINKING CURSOR top left corner..also cursor will not move with arrow keys,
etc... SO.... NOW at least I was able to BOOT but I was NOT taking advantage
of the UDMA capabilities...



I called another Dell Tech (this time IDAHO). He looked up my case and
wanted to know how my software installation went. I told him I didn't
reinstall my OS. I said I Stumbled upon the boot up problem and now we had
to figure out where to go from here... Is it a bad drive,,,, is it the
Mother board...etc.... He had never heard of UDMA and wasn't familiar with
the bios, etc... He told me to hold and five minutes later....he just
said... since it works/boots with the UDMA turned off then just keep it
turned off and it will be okay.... I insisted that for the LAST 2 MONTHS my
BIOS has had this feature turned ON. And now it won't boot.... KEEPING it
off is NOT fixing the problem. He said he would do some more searching....
About another 5 minutes and he said he talked to a level 2 tech. He had me
go to MY computer. Right click to bring up the tab for DEVICE MANAGER.From
there I opened the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Right click on Primary IDE
Channel. This opens a property window. I click on the Advanced settings tab.
From this menu it shows Device 0 and device 1. Under device 0. There are 3
toggle windows. Line one is Device type. It says Auto Detection and is
underintensified....can't change it. The next line is Transfer Mode. It is
set on DMA if Available. I can toggle to PIO ONLY. The 3rd line says CURRENT
TRANSFER MODE. It's set at ULTRA DMA MODE 5. That line is set and no pull
down menu available can't be changed......... ANYWAY -- The TECH told this
menu shows the UDMA "IS" working and active and that the BIOS is SUPPOSED to
be set to OFF on the UDMA option.. I STILL insisted that it has been ON
since I installed my new hard drive and that there has to be something else
that is causing the problem... I told him NOT to close my ticket out since I
was going to do some more research.... so that's where I stand right now....



I talked with some co-workers who have built their own computers and they
said that if UDMA is NOT turned on in the BIOS then you are NOT running
UDMA. They said the Property menu I was looking at was "JUST" extracting
the info out from the hardware on what is "IS" capable of.... and by no
means does that over ride the bios....









QUESTIONS.....



1) Is the DELL TECH correct? By looking at the property window that I "AM"
running UDMA even though the BIOS shows it turned off?



2)I DID NOTICE after running with this turned off that my adobe photo shop,
my ATI tv and video capture software runs MUCH slower..... very
noticeable..... Would I SEE a difference in performance like that if I was
NOT running UDMA if I were used to it?



3)This goes back to an earlier question. -- CAN a HARDWARE problem cause a
Software Problem? (I.E. A glitch in the mother board corrupts the boot
portion of the hard drive? )



4) Does anyone agree with the Dell Tech who said that since all 4
diagnostics lights were GREEN A B C D -- that there was NO hardware problem?
I can't see how 4 little lights are THAT definitive !



Thanks in advance for your input/help



Dean









  #2  
Old July 17th 03, 04:42 AM
Don Enderton
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Dean, I don't think there are people here who know all the
answers to your questions. I suggest you post the same
message on the Dell community forum in the Dimension General
Hardware section (no need to post it in both hardware and
software). You've posted there before in Customer Service
but I recommend, for these issues, the General Hardware
section.

-- Don

wrote:

To make a long story short.......(I will try)--- This is an update of my
problem back 2 months ago.--Not quite the same problem.

MY MAIN QUESTIONS are at the bottom of this post.....if you want to scroll
down first.... Sorry for the long post but I wanted to make sure you had all
the information to help with your decision..... Thanks.

1) I have a Dell 8250. It has the 3.06 processor, 1.5 gig of ram, 200
gig/8meg buffer hard drive, audigy2 sound card, ati9700, dvd burner.
Every thing has been working just fine since I had my hard drive replaced in
May. This was diagnosed by an in house tech that was here to replace my CPU
fan. It didn't boot up after he replaced it and after the tech talked to
Dell, they both agreed it was the hard drive...so.... 2 days later I
received the hard drive and "I" was responsible for loading all the new
software..... (more about this later on what I did)...now to my NEW PROBLEM.

ALL has been running fine with my NEW hard drive until last week. I booted
up one night and all I got was a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the
top left screen. This is an 'immediate' symptom right after the bios has
loaded...since I do see the white bar increase from left to right. I turned
power off, ctrl-alt-del, etc.... a dozen or so time and the same screen
appeared.

I called the DELL TECH LINE. I explained to them the problem and wanted them
to UNDERSTAND I had already had a faulty drive(now I know differently)
replaced back in MAY and now the SAME problem is occurring. AFTER 2 1/2
hours on the phone to INDIA (nothing wrong with that..but some are very hard
to understand)--- the TECH told me it was NOT a HARDWARE PROBLEM and I had
to reinstall Windows XP again. I told him I CAN'T install the operating
system EVERY 2 MONTHS --- that wasn't an acceptable option. He told me a
HARDWARE problem CAN NOT cause a SOFTWARE PROBLEM. At one point in the
diagnosis.... I did tell him the diagnostic lights on the back were all
green except #4 (Letter D) . IT was Yellow.... Of course..later on through
the trouble shooting....every time I did reboot....all the lights showed
green...so he said definitely...since all the lights were green it was NOT a
hard ware problem. _OH.. We did switch cables out too to make sure the hard
drive cable wasn't bad. The BIOS did recognize the HD and also DELL'S
diagnostics on my hard drive said the HD passed. I told him there has to be
some other quirk that makes my hard drive NOT want to boot passed the bios.
I asked to talk to his supervisor since I wanted to elevate this to the
point where maybe I could get another mother board, etc... He said the supv.
was in a meeting.... SO I told him thanks...and called back to get ahold of
another tech. I told him my problem and said I wanted to talk to his
supervisor...That person told me the same thing...that it was the OS....
SO...I just quit for the night....I was NOT impressed with their ONE WAY
support..... to just LOAD the OS again....

I remembered the next day ( I don't know why it took that long..) that I was
thinking about how I got my OLD hard drive to work since I CLONED it using
Norton Ghost. I bells went off when I remembered I went into the BIOS and
picked the INTEGRATED DEVICES (Legacy Select Options).Then the sub menu I
picked IDE Drive UDMA. I turned if from ON to OFF. I saved the settings and
rebooted... IT BOOTED UP THE FIRST TIME!!. I then rebooted and changed the
bios of the UDMA back to ON. The next reboot produce the BLANK SCREEN with
BLINKING CURSOR top left corner..also cursor will not move with arrow keys,
etc... SO.... NOW at least I was able to BOOT but I was NOT taking advantage
of the UDMA capabilities...

I called another Dell Tech (this time IDAHO). He looked up my case and
wanted to know how my software installation went. I told him I didn't
reinstall my OS. I said I Stumbled upon the boot up problem and now we had
to figure out where to go from here... Is it a bad drive,,,, is it the
Mother board...etc.... He had never heard of UDMA and wasn't familiar with
the bios, etc... He told me to hold and five minutes later....he just
said... since it works/boots with the UDMA turned off then just keep it
turned off and it will be okay.... I insisted that for the LAST 2 MONTHS my
BIOS has had this feature turned ON. And now it won't boot.... KEEPING it
off is NOT fixing the problem. He said he would do some more searching....
About another 5 minutes and he said he talked to a level 2 tech. He had me
go to MY computer. Right click to bring up the tab for DEVICE MANAGER.From
there I opened the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Right click on Primary IDE
Channel. This opens a property window. I click on the Advanced settings tab.
From this menu it shows Device 0 and device 1. Under device 0. There are 3
toggle windows. Line one is Device type. It says Auto Detection and is
underintensified....can't change it. The next line is Transfer Mode. It is
set on DMA if Available. I can toggle to PIO ONLY. The 3rd line says CURRENT
TRANSFER MODE. It's set at ULTRA DMA MODE 5. That line is set and no pull
down menu available can't be changed......... ANYWAY -- The TECH told this
menu shows the UDMA "IS" working and active and that the BIOS is SUPPOSED to
be set to OFF on the UDMA option.. I STILL insisted that it has been ON
since I installed my new hard drive and that there has to be something else
that is causing the problem... I told him NOT to close my ticket out since I
was going to do some more research.... so that's where I stand right now....

I talked with some co-workers who have built their own computers and they
said that if UDMA is NOT turned on in the BIOS then you are NOT running
UDMA. They said the Property menu I was looking at was "JUST" extracting
the info out from the hardware on what is "IS" capable of.... and by no
means does that over ride the bios....

QUESTIONS.....

1) Is the DELL TECH correct? By looking at the property window that I "AM"
running UDMA even though the BIOS shows it turned off?

2)I DID NOTICE after running with this turned off that my adobe photo shop,
my ATI tv and video capture software runs MUCH slower..... very
noticeable..... Would I SEE a difference in performance like that if I was
NOT running UDMA if I were used to it?

3)This goes back to an earlier question. -- CAN a HARDWARE problem cause a
Software Problem? (I.E. A glitch in the mother board corrupts the boot
portion of the hard drive? )

4) Does anyone agree with the Dell Tech who said that since all 4
diagnostics lights were GREEN A B C D -- that there was NO hardware problem?
I can't see how 4 little lights are THAT definitive !

Thanks in advance for your input/help

Dean

 




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