Dell Dimension Difficulty (3D)

AlekSmart

Hi All.
My Dell Dimension 2400, P4 3.06 gHz, 1.0 Gb RAM,XP PRO SP3 has been acting the goat lately.

First manifestation was the constant flashing of the front case power LED in amber mode.
No amount of pressing the power button would change the thing or allow it to spring into life.

Unplug and go to bed seemed the best method of dealing with it and by Golly it worked...everything normal next day.
However....the problem repeated itself and has worsened since.

Now virtually every time the PC is switched off it will go into this sulk.
Only way to revive it is to unplug the power cord and constantly flick it whilst pressing the power button at the same time,which usually allows the HDD to "catch" and the amber light to change to steady green.

One clue is that when starting after this the machine gives a "New Hardware Discovered" message baloon which refers to a new drive with a random string of characters as its description.

When I go into Device Manager to check on this new drive I find it ensconced along with my Maxtor STM 3802110A (Which shows as being in location 1)
The "New" gibberish drive shows as being in location 0.
When I disable and delete this invader it reappears at next startup with a different string of random character attached...?

The gas thing is that once started the PC performs just tickety-boo with no other issues ??

Back to you in the Studio..???

Silenceisbliss

go into BIOS and have a look at your boot priority and see if that makes sense.

AlekSmart

Thanks silenceisbliss,checking the boot sequence reveals the following.
1. IDE CD ROM Device
2.HDD Drive C
3.Floppy (Disabled).

Is this a normal sequence,bearing in mind my machine does not have a floppy drive fitted.

subway

sounds like a power supply issue.
more than likely its on the way out, happened me with an older dell a while back.
picked up a psu on ebay for 15eu.

i think that particular dell uses standard atx power so you can get one anywhere

AlekSmart

Just to check back wit a weather report,it looks as if Subway was on the money.

I ripped the gizzard out of the Dumb Dim and then changed the Battery first and worked on from there....Changing out the PSU brought immediate relief.

The Dell item was rated at 250W and the (really lightweight non branded) replacement is 300W so a bonus there..?

It also looks like I had a dodgy CDROM drive as the string of characters reloaded on my disc drives...
Changing that eliminated the gobbledegook and the system now sees the replacement disc drive in the correct location...Looks like a result..Thank You