Computer Guys, question.....

[rs4pro3]

Ok we have a Dell C600 Laptop my mom uses for work, In june the Hardrive crashed. I purchased a brand new one and installed it and installed XP. Computer worked fine untill a stupid windows update screwed it up. I had to reformat the harddrive and reinstall XP, It gave me trouble and I had to reformat off my windows 2000 disk then install XP. It ran good for a while but then one day the Harddrive suddenly clicked and the computer froze up. I noticed it felt very hot, and hadn't heard the fan ever come on, I replaced the fan with a brand new one. But still after using it for 30mins to an hour the harddrive will Suddenly click very loudly, sometimes the computer will continue to work other times it freezes up. And I still don't ever hear the fan running. I'm thinking it's overheating but not sure why? Motherboard bad?

[clavinZERO]

sounds like bad HD again, or bad processor heatsink/cooling devices and is over heating.

[rs4pro3]

I think it's just overheating, The underside of the laptop is very hot to the touch, and the fact that I never hear the fan come one where as it used to run almost all the time

[James Crivellone]

HD Died, if you need data from it toss it in the freezer for about 30 min then toss it in and start copying, should buy you some time.

In terms of the fan, see if dell has a bios update for the machine, usually fan issues are related to an old bios revision on dell laptops.

To manuall test the fan, hop on this site

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/

that utilility has worked on many dell laptops and is a great way to see if the damn fan at least works.

[benDASHDASH]

that utilility has worked on many dell laptops and is a great way to see if the damn fan at least works.

:shock: remind me not to buy a dell laptop

[Brant]

:shock: remind me not to buy a dell laptop

Dell is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to computers!!! you get what you pay for I guess though.

[rs4pro3]

Thanks James, I'll download it and try it out. Any idea why the new HD failed so soon? it's an IBM Travelstar unit.

[Dave]

:shock: remind me not to buy a dell laptop

Dell is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to computers!!! you get what you pay for I guess though.

I have 4 Dells at home and the one at my desk here at work is as well. Never had any trouble.

[Brant]

:shock: remind me not to buy a dell laptop

Dell is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to computers!!! you get what you pay for I guess though.

I have 4 Dells at home and the one at my desk here at work is as well. Never had any trouble.

No offence, but most Dells I have seen/used have been junk (mainly their Celerons). They use very slow cheap parts and over charge you for them. Even though a $400 computer sounds like a great deal, you can build the same thing for $200 with better parts, but it will probably still suck.

Homebuilt is the only way to go in my opinion but I guess not everyone know how to do that. There are plenty of good brands of computers I just don’t see dell as being one of them.

Another thing non-performance related to dell is that when you buy a computer from them they put sooo much crap on the hard drive that you will never use. My friend got a dell laptop and the first thing we did to it was reformat and reinstall the computer with a fresh copy of windows. I think he gained 20GB of space back!!

[h0lmes]

Well ive got one big happy solution for everybodys computer problems...get a Mac.