Computer help needed... Mother board death?

[scootergmc]

We have a 3 1/2 yr. old Dell Dimension 4500. We never turn it off. However, it goes into standby after a half an hour on non-use and then hibernates another half hour after that.



Recently, upon hitting the button to "wake it up," we will see the "DELL" logo screen for several minutes before the actual windows desktop appears. Previously, this was only a 1-2 second screen shot. I'm worried the computer will just not start up one day.



I've disabled the standby/hibernation. I'm hesitant to turn it off.



I've talked to a few people. One person said they had the same issue before their motherboard was toast. The rest have offered nothing... any suggestions?



Thanks in advance.





Edit: Now my Canon Camera program has a hard time opening... and my Norton Anti-virus won't scan... it gets to about 98 files scanned before freezing up. I'm thinking Virus now...

 

[JApol]

Here are some steps that may save you some money



First create a restore point



Second install this program: http://ccleaner.com/download/ Totally free but may donate at site. Do a full clean out of your system. Next right click on "C:" select properties then disk clean up. Once you have checked everything that has some volume click on "More Options" Under system restore click "clean up" This will clean out more stuff than CCleaner will. The system restore that i talked about will remove all system restore points up to the most recent one made above.



Third. Download and run o&o Defrag. Open the program (30 day free trial) and run a SPACE defrag. Depending on the anount of fragmentation this may take a while.



Last if your computer is still acting slow and possible possessed please go to BroadBand Reports The people here are very helpful and will clean any infection(s).

Happy hunting

 

[scootergmc]

Well, nothing is freezing up, just majorly delayed. The AntiVirus finally ran, after it had stopped for 2-3 minutes, found one adware program, nothing else. I did the CC cleaner. Nothing special. The camera program finally ran too after an extended time. I have 66% free space on my hard drive. I restarted it, just to see if it would work... I have significant boot time issues... 3-4 minutes on the "Dell" screen, then another 2-3 minutes between the "windows is starting up" and the actual windows desktop screen appearing. Sheesh. From what I've read I figure it's not any sort of infection/virus, but hardware channel/driver issues... and I have no idea what any of that stuff is. ?

 

[JApol]

A lot of the time when windows writes something to the hard drive it is not the same size as the original file. Since the file is usually bigger then the original there is no space to write the info so it gets written at the end of the drive. If this happens enough it can bring a computer to its knees trying to find all the information it needs to run.

 

[Philip]

A CD-rom or a CD-burner going bad can cause the same type of problems.



Run a program called Belarc advisor. This will give you the mfg name of your hard drive. Then down load the mfg's diagonstics program and run it to see if your hard drive is having a problem.





http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html





Most of the time a motherboard on its way out doesn't give any warning.

 

[scootergmc]

I did the belarc thing... . this is what I got :?



Generic STORAGE DEVICE USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 1

ST380021A [Hard drive] (80. 03 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 3HV1R4KJ, rev 3. 75, SMART Status: Healthy



I'm assuming it's OK? Is there a way to check the CD drives?

 

[JApol]

get inside the case and disconnect the wide flat cable. Leave the 4 pin connected. This is just power, the motherboard only uses the big flat one for information. Disconnect ALL of them except for the one required for the hard drive ans ssee if there is still a problem. If so defragment your hard drive.

 

[Philip]

Your hard drive is made by seagate. Here is the link for the diagonstic tools.



http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/



This program also has them also. Its called the ultimate boot disk. It has a lot of other usefull programs for checking computers.



http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html



Do not unplug any cables with the computer powered up. It can blow the circuits they are plugged into or blow the drives themselfs.

 

[scootergmc]

Thanks!! I'll do that next.

 

[E7mack96]

my experience is that the hard drive is almost toast. Otherwise, go to device mgr, check out your primary ide channel advanced settings and make sure it is in Ultra DMA mode ( mode 5 if you got it) . If there are cable issues, windows / bios will throttle down the hard drive to a 1970's data rate and let me tell you it is slow.



E7

 

[scootergmc]

I did the Seagate thing... the hard drive is a-OK (according to them).



I checked the DMA mode, it's on mode 5..... oh well... I guess I'll never shut it down again... .

 

[AMink]

I hope you have everything backed up! I run defrag in SAFE mode, maybe your Norton will run the whole scan in SAFE mode. F8 when you turn your computer on.

 

[Philip]

Also give this a try.



http://www.networkclue.com/os/Windows/commands/sfc.aspx

 

[scootergmc]

I hope you have everything backed up! I run defrag in SAFE mode, maybe your Norton will run the whole scan in SAFE mode. F8 when you turn your computer on.

Fortunately, we don't use it much other than for storing pics of the kids and such and internet browsing/email. A little word processing here and there. I already burned the pics to CD and that would be all the loss. Both my wife and I are very careful w/ emails and browsing. We never have problems with the computer so this is all new to me. I do occasionally game, but there hasn't been any good FPS War games released in the last year or two. COD II was the last great game. So really it wouldn't be a loss, the computer has done great for the time we've had it. I did replace the graphics card once, only because the original wasn't up to the task of MOH pacific assault...

 

[Royk]

I doubt this is it, but check your CPU fan to make sure it is working. A hot CPU will run slow, among other squirrelly things.