D620 boot problems

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,160
Hi guys,

Having an issue with my otherwise trusty D620. A lot of the time now it wont startup. I turn it on, the Dell splash screen appears, then I get a blank screen with a small curser flashing in the top left hand corner and.. nothing.

If I turn it off and back on again it'll do it again, and again until eventually it boots and then works perfectly for the rest of the session.

Any ideas?
 
Sounds like the HDD might be on it's way out. Try sticking Speedfan on there so you can access the SMART HDD logs, see if they tell you anything.
 
Hmm, odd. Is there any option in the BIOS to enable SMART for HDDs? Can't remember the D620 BIOS off the top of my head. I've got a D600 and it's enabled by default, guess it should be the same for the 620...

Failing that, have you tried running the diags from the BIOS screen? Think it's F12 to select boot option, then diags from the menu.
 
I have the same issue.... as do most in my office.
I assumed it was a crappy build but I'm glad to see others get it too.

On the SMART front - mine comes up fine in Speedfan.
 
When you press F12 do you get the boot menu? If so, it should offer the option for Diagnostics (just tried it on mine and it's there), this should run a test on the HDD. There's no option for SMART in the BIOS on mine either. You could try updating the BIOS to the latest version if it's not already at it (A10). The only other thing i can think is that there is an option in the BIOS for Fast Boot, if that is set to Thorough it will run all steps/tests on the boot process and would slow things down a chunk, i set mine to minimal (which is the factory default).

You can also download the dell diags CD from the dell website that would allow you to run from CD all the diag test inc the HDD/SMART tests.
 
Do you have any USB keys etc plugged in? My E6500 can take a long time booting with these attached.
 
Mike, I have seen this exact issue on a couple of DELL PC's but never a laptop.

Every time, it has been some odd issue I cannot explain but unplugging a certain USB device has always cured it.

For instance, I recently visited a customer with this exact issue on a Dell dimension desktop PC. If I unplug the usb cable from the printer the issue goes away.

Remember, the laptop may have some internal parts that function via the usb bus, perhaps bluetooth or similar?

:-)
 
Pull out the HDD and check for corrosion on the chassi around the HDD connector and signs of rust.

Other things that like to fail on these giving your error is Memory modules and HDD's, i'd be tempted to pull a memory module out and test them individually.
 
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