Jude 2

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what the problem may be.

My computer is fairly old, maybe 4 and 1/2 years old. A Dell with almost 2.5GB of RAM and Intel Pentium 4 with hyperthreading.

My computer was working fine this morning. I was getting ready to leave and noticed the mouse was froze and the keyboard did not work. Restarted everything ok, but a few minutes later the mouse and keyboard froze again.

Just a few minutes ago, go in restart the computer. Heard a few beeps, forget the exact sequence. Hold the power button to turn the computer off. Let set for a little while started up, no beeps, but fan blows very hard for about 2 seconds. Then boots up as normal. Mouse and keyboard freeze almost immediately. Then it started freezing in start up.

If I let it set for a little while it seems to boot up ok, but after one or two minutes the mouse and keyboard becomes non-responsive.

I think it maybe overheating, I just cleaned it out. Any other problems it may be?

It seems like a hardware problems and not a software problem.

Sometimes ram can go bad or become dislodged and cause startup issues.

Try removing some of that ram [ All first and then one at a time to find the culprit, if the problem ]

Good Luck

being careful to ground yourself so static discharge isn' going through the memory.

Overheating shouldn't lock up the computer, but shut it down, hardware wise, it COULD be the hard drive causing some corruption, but most likely is a software issue from what you are describing.

that's true, but he said it's actually booting, then freezing, still possible, but it really sounds software based to me.

Mole_J wrote:Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what the problem may be.

My computer is fairly old, maybe 4 and 1/2 years old. A Dell with almost 2.5GB of RAM and Intel Pentium 4 with hyperthreading.

My computer was working fine this morning. I was getting ready to leave and noticed the mouse was froze and the keyboard did not work. Restarted everything ok, but a few minutes later the mouse and keyboard froze again.

Just a few minutes ago, go in restart the computer. Heard a few beeps, forget the exact sequence. Hold the power button to turn the computer off. Let set for a little while started up, no beeps, but fan blows very hard for about 2 seconds. Then boots up as normal. Mouse and keyboard freeze almost immediately. Then it started freezing in start up.

If I let it set for a little while it seems to boot up ok, but after one or two minutes the mouse and keyboard becomes non-responsive.

I think it maybe overheating, I just cleaned it out. Any other problems it may be?

It seems like a hardware problems and not a software problem.

We had a couple Dells where I work (about the same age) do this & turned out the power supply had gone bad.

When it first started happening - Dell Tech Support had us shut them completely down - pull the power cord out - hold the power button down to completely discharge the power & then plug the cord back in & reboot. It would work OK for a couple days - then keyboard & mouse would lock up again. Finally started happening more frequently until we replaced the power supply. We've still got both of them & they have worked fine ever since?

It was somewhat obvious that one was the power supply as you could hear the fan speeding up & slowing down - but the fan in the other one didn't act the same?

Good luck!

Do your Dell have 4 leds of the back, what are the colors?

The "few beeps" could indicate Memory, just try as MacUser surggested.
It also can be some other device you will have to find out which one by the beeps or leds on the back.

It is also possible for it to be a overheating problem. Check the CPU heatsink and fan, it maybe full. (Alway unplug and ground yourself first.)


Let us know what the beep codes are and the leds.

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

It could be the memory, I have two gig sticks of memory and two 256 sticks in the slots. I removed both gigs and tried just the two 256 sticks and vice versa, but no luck. I may go through them one by one to see if I can find if one is bad.

The LED lights on the back. I just noticed that ACD were green, but B was orange.

I tried what pianoman said, unplugged it and press the button to discharge it completely. It then started up ok, all the LED lights on the back were green now. Then the mouse froze again.

No beeps on startup now, just the one time. The majority of times now the fan inside blows very hard. The hard drive does not start up or anything, just the fan blowing very hard. When this happens the LED's lights on the back do not light up.

The fan on the power supply does not seem to spin. It is very dirty (dust) and even though the area around the power supply is very warm. The fan does not blow.

I may take it to Micro-center and let them look at it. It is out of warranty with Dell.

Mole_J wrote:Thanks to everyone for their advice.

It could be the memory, I have two gig sticks of memory and two 256 sticks in the slots. I removed both gigs and tried just the two 256 sticks and vice versa, but no luck. I may go through them one by one to see if I can find if one is bad.

The LED lights on the back. I just noticed that ACD were green, but B was orange.

I tried what pianoman said, unplugged it and press the button to discharge it completely. It then started up ok, all the LED lights on the back were green now. Then the mouse froze again.

No beeps on startup now, just the one time. The majority of times now the fan inside blows very hard. The hard drive does not start up or anything, just the fan blowing very hard. When this happens the LED's lights on the back do not light up.

The fan on the power supply does not seem to spin. It is very dirty (dust) and even though the area around the power supply is very warm. The fan does not blow.
I may take it to Micro-center and let them look at it. It is out of warranty with Dell.

By what you have said, it would be the power supply is bad or going bad.
Dell is known for cheat psu's in thier systems.