godling

Never seen this before. Got a Dell 8100 from my sister in law, who wanted me to fix it. Many viri, hard disk problems, and what else I don't know. Service tag: H0FQD01

In the process of reinstalling OS (the current build was not salvageable) I did disk checks w/ BartPE, and Ubuntu. This thing is so slow Ubuntu took forever to do any tasks at all when running off the CDROM (also note: the CDROM on this thing is probably dieing). Sucked loads of dust bunnies out of this thing ... it was covered in crap. Ripped out the front bezel, and lord! Looked like that post we had a few months ago in the Worst Case thread (or something like that). Should have taken pics. Anyway, the HDD seems to have died. I tried wiping OS and reinstalling, and it would do most of it, but on first reboot got lots of lines on the screen instead of the perfectly good graphics it used to have.

Here's the SitRep: goes through the install process well enough, asks for the key, installs networking capabilities, everything looks good on screen. Then it reboots, and comes back with a bunch of lines that look like vertical venetian blinds, thin, black and white.

Anyone have any ideas? I'd love to be able to fix this thing and give it back to her. Not that it's worth it, I don't think. But mostly I want it out of my house.

Thoughts?

-godling

67_GTO

From what I've seen, vertical lines at startup usually indicates a video problem.

Is there anything after the vertical lines? Does it continue to boot up? Can you get into the BIOS or get to the Boot Menu?

Monsignor Funkibut

If you plug the monitor into another machine the monitor works fine right?
-MF

godling

Quote: Originally Posted by Monsignor Funkibut If you plug the monitor into another machine the monitor works fine right? -MF

The answer is Yes. This is my main rig's monitor, so I know it's good, and I continue to use it. The weird thing is that during the install process, all the Windows screens show up perfectly, asking what region you're in, do you want to customize the install, everything. I can get into BIOS no problem, and it displays fine. The video problem starts when I try to boot into Windows the first time (after the install) and it just stays there (I'm assuming the OS startup has completed at this point).

-godling

goodman123

Quote: Originally Posted by godling I tried wiping OS and reinstalling, and it would do most of it, but on first reboot got lots of lines on the screen instead of the perfectly good graphics it used to have. Here's the SitRep: goes through the install process well enough, asks for the key, installs networking capabilities, everything looks good on screen. Then it reboots, and comes back with a bunch of lines that look like vertical venetian blinds, thin, black and white. Anyone have any ideas? I'd love to be able to fix this thing and give it back to her. Not that it's worth it, I don't think. But mostly I want it out of my house. Thoughts? -godling

i'm pretty sure that the PSU

67_GTO

Have you tried reinstalling more than once? goodman may be right about the PSU so checking the voltages would be a good start. In my experience tho, when the PSU is the problem, the computer either wont even POST or it will restart just as the OS begins to load.

My suggestion would be to reinstall again but this time, use nLite to slipstream some video and chipset drivers (and service packs if needed) into the process.

Unfortunately the vertical lines may also indicate that the hardware itself is messed up. I think this is probably not the case since your install went smoothly. It may be helpful if you can, to try a different video card in the machine. If it worked, that would at least rule out the PSU.

moon111

Quote: Originally Posted by godling The answer is Yes. This is my main rig's monitor, so I know it's good, and I continue to use it. The weird thing is that during the install process, all the Windows screens show up perfectly, asking what region you're in, do you want to customize the install, everything. I can get into BIOS no problem, and it displays fine. The video problem starts when I try to boot into Windows the first time (after the install) and it just stays there (I'm assuming the OS startup has completed at this point). -godling

I had a similiar problem. I did a fresh install on another harddrive which didn't change a thing, so I knew it wasn't software related. Didn't do it in the Bios, or booting off a CD.

I was able to get into (F8) Safemode and turn the resolution completely down to nothing.

Turned out to be a fried video card. Turning the resolution down while in Safemode to nothing allowed me to boot up into 'normal' mode. I downloaded and flashed the video card which allowed me to get back to a normal resolution, but any 3-D graphics were pooched. Thankfully a friend had an old old video card which he gave me. Well it actually was an upgrade to what I was running. It solved the problem.

And just to note, before this happened, I had installed a 120mm fan just opposite of the video card. Obviously I ended up getting two fans working against one another and the card probably over-heated. With the talk of all the dust, I wouldn't be suprised if you're facing the same problem.

godling

Well, I was able to install Ubuntu, run it at 1680x1050, and run full system tests (as far as I can tell) and it passed perfectly. The install must just have gone bad somewhere in XP. Odd.

Anyway, here I now am with a Dell tower, 256MB ram, 1.5GHz cpu, and a 80GB (thereabouts) harddrive .. and no use for it.

-godling

s1ugh34d

I ran into the vertical lines on an HP once. HP determined that it was just a fauly GPU, and luckily could be replaced, for $330...

We ended up just having them give us $500 off a laptop (ironically it was down $200 and the $500 dollar code was added on top) So he just upgraded.

I also noticed that the ubuntu driver for the same exact card worked great, probally a hardware issue with winblows drivers only ha, who'd of guessed a free driver for a free OS outworks a crapy driver that was made for an expensive OS.

Upgrade the memory and fold it...