asdf Dell: RAM & HDD =/= motherboard

[Truce]

Earlier this week, my laptop started blue screening whenever I unplugged the power chord. From there it just all started going downhill. Blue screening ~5 minutes after startup, breaking installation of W7, not even wanting to reinstall W7, Vista, or XP.

The local computer repair shop said that the motherboard may have been damaged, so contact Dell (we're still under warranty) to see what they can do.

I receive a new HDD and two new RAM cards in the mail.

Obviously, that's not going to fix the problem. I popped them in the laptop just to make sure, and nothing changed at all. If only Dell would send the parts that were required... Anywho, they're now wanting to send a Dell support person to my house to take a look at it. motherboard pls.

Fortunately, one of my friends (Blobeh on forums) was nice enough to let me use his netbook until I can get this resolved.

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[Kyzor]

Yeah, my family's not too satisfied with Dell either right now. We recently had a RAM upgrade because our computer was being incredibly slow and we have Windows XP Professional 32-bit. The guy recommended 4GB of RAM. So, we bought it. Turns out 32-bit XP can only handle ~2.5GB of RAM. forget you Dell.

[Inv3rted]

32bit XP can only handle ~3.5gb, not 2.5.

[Kyzor]

Then why, when I removed one RAM card (out of 4 1GB cards), did the computer seem to run at the same speed as before the upgrade?

[Inv3rted]

Because RAM doesn't affect the speed of the computer? It doesn't work like that.

[zz_tophat]

32bit XP can only handle ~3.5gb, not 2.5.

This.

My laptop can have a max of 2gb but I have 4gb in there, however it only registers as 3.5gb.

On topic:
I am hearing more and more about W7 issues with laptops and battery power. It is almost always tied to power settings, change all your power settings like display brightness and cpu use to match those of your computer when it is plugged in.

If that doesn't work, don't unplug it and hope for a hotfix.

[Kyzor]

RAM affects the computer speed in the sense of how quickly you can open programs and multifunction through different items at the same time.

Which was exactly our problem, but seeing as my knowledge of computers is stuff compared to the knowledge of others on these forums and I cannot have a legitimate argument with any tech-head without embarrassing the hell out of myself, I'll just leave the thread now.

[Truce]

I am hearing more and more about W7 issues with laptops and battery power. It is almost always tied to power settings, change all your power settings like display brightness and cpu use to match those of your computer when it is plugged in.

If that doesn't work, don't unplug it and hope for a hotfix.

No no, even if it started out with that as the problem, the motherboard is whack now. You can't even go past the language selection when you try to install any version of Windows. Ubuntu can't even be loaded on it without it yelling at you. Hopefully Dell will comply sooner or later and send us a new motherboard; the laptop's great otherwise and I'd prefer not to have to buy a new one this holiday season.

[Miga]

My Dell Optiplex's motherboard's BIOS forgeted up on me for attempting to install a Core 2 Duo processor that was the same socket and everything.

[Truce]

Hm, I should go track down a screwdriver to see if I can put my shiny new RAM and HDD into this netbook. I'm assuming only one of the two RAM cards will fit, and I have high doubts the HDD will, but it's probably worth checking.

[Visage]

I predict the guy will say something like "OMG U OPEND YOUR COMP AND PUT IN RAM WE GAVE U? WARRANTY VOIDED BITCH GTFO!"

[zz_tophat]

No no, even if it started out with that as the problem, the motherboard is whack now. You can't even go past the language selection when you try to install any version of Windows. Ubuntu can't even be loaded on it without it yelling at you. Hopefully Dell will comply sooner or later and send us a new motherboard; the laptop's great otherwise and I'd prefer not to have to buy a new one this holiday season.

Your first problem is that you got a blue screen, in vista and W7 blue screen almost always means hardware failure. hardware failure = bad, vera vera bawd.

It should be more common knowledge (but isn't) that if you do something to get a blue screen in those OS's DO NOT DO IT AGAIN. In other words what could have been a redeemable software/hardware conflict turned in to motherboard melting clusterforget because you repeated the mistake. I won't ask how many times you unplugged your laptop and experienced the blue screen, just know that every time you did you moved one step farther from the "wait for patch" zone and a step further towards sapping your own sentry.

[Miga]

Your first problem is that you got a blue screen, in vista and W7 blue screen almost always means hardware failure. hardware failure = bad, vera vera bawd.

It should be more common knowledge (but isn't) that if you do something to get a blue screen in those OS's DO NOT DO IT AGAIN. In other words what could have been a redeemable software/hardware conflict turned in to motherboard melting clusterforget because you repeated the mistake. I won't ask how many times you unplugged your laptop and experienced the blue screen, just know that every time you did you moved one step farther from the "wait for patch" zone and a step further towards sapping your own sentry.

Yeah, but he even said that stuff happens in Ubuntu, which is very unusual, seeing as how my IBM ThinkPad T40 used to BSOD almost every 4 seconds because anything DirectX-related would make the GPU drivers crash, and Ubuntu hasn't done anything that bad yet.

[zz_tophat]

Yeah, but he even said that stuff happens in Ubuntu, which is very unusual, seeing as how my IBM ThinkPad T40 used to BSOD almost every 4 seconds because anything DirectX-related would make the GPU drivers crash, and Ubuntu hasn't done anything that bad yet.

He would not have Installed Ubuntu unless he had already failed trying to re-install W7. Meaning everything was already crapped up in there before he tried to install it.

[D3ATH]

Software can't forget up your hardware.