Problem booting laptop

[richardhowell]

I have a Dell Inspiron 2500. Lately I've had problems in booting which are becoming more frequent. It gets past the first phase (I'm on xp) where the windows logo appears, but never reached the WELCOME message. Screen remains blank. Only solution is switch off and try again. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 attempts. I'm not very hardware oriented, but this sound like a hardware problem. The machine is clean of viruses, and I regularly run spybot and ad-aware.
Power supply unit maybe???

 

[M3Parker]

most likely not the power supply. sounds like windows is just having trouble loading, and could be missing some files.

you might want to try and see if it will load into safe mode and defrag the hard drive and run a virus scan just for safe measure. if that doesn't do anything I would just reload windows.

 

[richardhowell]

I was reloading windows when I received your reply. This didn't do anything, in fact I was unable to boot at all after many attempts. Switched everything off for an hour or more and tried again. Booted first time. Is it something to do with over-heating? I notice the fan kicks in every few minutes, or less.

 

[KevinADC]

if it always boots up cold, it could be a heating problem. But if it were, the laptop might also shut down after being on for while, and you didn't mention that as a problem. If you have a lot several programs running at startup (and who doesn't on a windows machine?) that could be the problem. Try disabling any programs that you really don't need to launch during start up. You can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL (all together but just once) after the computer boots up to see a list of programs that are running at startup.

 

[M3Parker]

not sure about the overheating issue, but probably not the issue here. a few of my friends have dell laptops and the fan does switch on at high speed every few minutes which is normal. Hopefully everything is working for you now.

 

[PMRiley]

Are you having getting problems with Windows freezing (After you get Windows to load fully)?

If so, you may have problem with the connectors inside the machine. I had an Inspiron 5000 with similar problems (Would often freeze up immediatly after the welcome screen, or if it loaded Windows it would freeze up if I attempted to anything too heavy graphics-wise such as games or video playback)

I took the laptop apart carefully (Was waaay out of warranty), removed and re-seated the graphics and processor cards and the machine returned back to normal use for a few weeks. Unfortunatly for me the problems returned and become more and more regular until now when Windows will load fully for about 1 or 2 seconds before freezing again (Even after re-seating the cards again)

 

[richardhowell]

Thanks for all your responses, unfortunately to no avail!
No - I don't get problems with windows freezing after bootup. When it's up it works fine. Also I think I've eliminated overheating as it's been failing on 1st attempt after being off all night.
Could it be something to do with partitioning? Some time ago I created a small second partition in order to install (don't laugh!) a Greek version of windows 98.

 

[KevinADC]

This is a rather drastic suggestion, but if you have already tried running scan disk and defrag and any other maintenance software you might have, all to no avail, you may be looking at a reformat and reinstall of the OS and see if that helps. Sounds almost like your windows installation has become severly hosed up.

 

[richardhowell]

Yes, I'm coming round to the idea of a clean sweep. If someone could just convince me that this is, in fact, a software problem.....

 

[DTSMAN]

My bench tech guy just replace the circut board in mine that is responsible for charging the battery and now mine is doing that. I get the xp splash screen and it goes blank, I hit the power button once and it comes right on to the login screen. I am working on finding the fix this weekend. If I do I will post back or hopefully someone else has seen this and knows the fix.

Bo

Kentucky phone support-
"Mash the Kentrol key and hit scape."

 

[KevinADC]

Yes, I'm coming round to the idea of a clean sweep. If someone could just convince me that this is, in fact, a software problem.....

trying to remotely diagnose problems like this is always going to be a bit of a guessing game. A clean reinstall of the OS and software drivers sounds about like the next logically step to take to me. But don't do it until you are convinced it's about the only thing left to try besides taking it into the shop.

 

[KevinADC]

Bospruell,

sounds like you may need to adjust the power management settings.

 

[richardhowell]

Decided to bite the bullet, format disk and reinstall xp. Wasn't such a big deal as my laptop is more or less a clone of desktop, so I had backups of data already.
Well, this hasn't exactly fixed the problem, but my success rate for booting up is much higher (80 - 90%).
Actually, I boot up successfully EVERY time. It's just that I can't always see my desktop. I discovered this by trying the keyboard commands to log off on my blank screen (Ctrl/Esc, U, U) and sure enough it powered down gracefully. Sooooo... this has to be some kind of hardware malfunction I guess.

 

[mainegeek]

Do you have a mouse attached to this laptop?

Also, your hard drive may be failing.

 

[richardhowell]

Yes, I normally have a mouse attached as I hate these touch pads!

 

[mainegeek]

Try it with out the mouse for a while.

 

[richardhowell]

I've tested a mouse-less environment and it doesn't make any difference. I've also plugged in an external monitor, which behaves in the same way as the integral one.
OK guys. I think I can live with the inconvenience of this. At least I know I can boot the machine at the n'th attempt and when it's up, everything seems to work OK. Thanks to you all for showing interest in this thread.
Richard

 

[KevinADC]

strange problem but glad you got it to a point you can live with.

 

[spongmonkey]

I'd say that if it doesn't work any better with a fresh installation of Windows, and having read all the suggestions above, it is most likely a fault with your mainboard.