Laptop won't boot up.....

[Tibia]

I have a Dell Vostro something running XP. Fairly new computer, two years old, three tops. I can't recall the specs, I'm not at home. Anyway, a few weeks ago, it started occasionally freezing up at the first loadup screen. With a restart, it was fine.

Tonight, it crashed from XP, then did the freeze at that first Dell loading screen. I restarted it, and got an error something like this:

Memory not found. Address FC13FC13FC returned as FC00FC13FC. Please reseat memory and try again. Decreasing memory available.


So I reseated the memory and tried again. Same basic message, but with different letters and numbers. I've reseated the memory four or five times, and still the same message. The laptop hasn't moved off the table for two months. Anyone know what else I can try with it?

[hailrazer]

Sounds like the memory fried. It actually happens quite a bit.

Good news is that ne memory is cheap

[chainfire95]

Just buy some ram and you'll be set.

http://www.computermemoryoutlet.com/Del ... memory.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bicostp]

Grab some new RAM from NewEgg and you should be good to go.

99.999999% sure the RAM failed. If the memory controller failed it wouldn't have even gotten to that point.

[Tibia]

Well, that doesn't sound as dire as I feared. I'll have to see if it's still under warranty. If it's not, the Vostro 1500 (I wrote it down today. lol) can handle up to 2g.

[simon66]

Well, that doesn't sound as dire as I feared. I'll have to see if it's still under warranty. If it's not, the Vostro 1500 (I wrote it down today. lol) can handle up to 2g.

Before you buy a new ram youshould try this... Remove all the rams and clean the dust from the ram shockets and the grab an eraser and rub it on the gold connectors on the ram ( Not that hard though) and put everything back together. If that dosent work then your ram got burned..

PS. Im saying to do this because is rare for a ram to just burn out for no reason. Dust always i the problems for computer. Had the same problem with my acer laptop, after dong all this it worked fine for a couple of month until I sold it and bought a new laptop.
Oh and also, ebay got some nice and cheap rams. Bt dnt buy those rams from china or "cheap" rams. They are garbage an a waste of money.

[Tibia]

I'm currently going through the Dell warranty process, since it's still covered, and I'm technically not the owner. All I've gotten so far is that I need to get the discs to do a reinstall with a tech over the phone. Grrrrrr.

[bicostp]

"Hurr first put the recovery CD in the drive"

"Reinstalling the OS won't do any good because it won't even let me get to that point"

"Ok but first put recovery CD 1 in the computer. You need to press the eject button, then put the disc in."

"MY RAM IS BAD"

"Oh okay we can fix that. Put in the Recovery CD."

I HATE tech support. They just go down their checklist, and are required to give you the runaround when they have to escalate issues that aren't on their cheat sheets.

[eagle5953]

You may find this article on why tech support sucks to be interesting, insightful, and even funny.

[Tibia]

Well, the tech is convinced there's something wrong with Windows itself. I did take the HDD out and hook it up to another laptop to boot from, but the same errors were happening. I can still view files on the HDD, so I'm copying them elsewhere before I continue messing with it.

[simon66]

Well, the tech is convinced there's something wrong with Windows itself. I did take the HDD out and hook it up to another laptop to boot from, but the same errors were happening. I can still view files on the HDD, so I'm copying them elsewhere before I continue messing with it.

You got to make surre you backup your drivers. I had many problems with that. If you dont know your drivers I think you can download them from the dell download page. Just type in your dell serial number and it should give you all the drivers.

[Tibia]

I found the Dell Driver disc that was shipped with the laptop. Would that be what I need, or should I get the HDD back out and do it myself?


Ugh. He was supposed to call back an hour ago. Guess I'll be jumping through the same damn hoops tomorrow.

[simon66]

I found the Dell Driver disc that was shipped with the laptop. Would that be what I need, or should I get the HDD back out and do it myself?


Ugh. He was supposed to call back an hour ago. Guess I'll be jumping through the same damn hoops tomorrow.

Well the Dell Driver disk does contains the nessecery drivers but im not surre if it has the internet driver. If thats the problem then you can download it from the dell page. You can try and re-install your OS and if it gives out the sam problem then is the ram...

BTW I dont recomend you opeing up your laptop as you can void your warranty.

[Tibia]

Well, when the tech found out I'd taken the hard drive out to back it up, his response was "Wow. If you could explain to eighty-year-olds how to do that, I could get you a job!"

Unfortunately, the reinstall isn't solving the problem. I'm using the Dell Diagnostic CD to run all the tests before I call back, though. Sadly, I'm getting used to this Acer Aspire.

[chainfire95]

lol at eighty year olds.