HELP - Is my Vostro about to Die!!??

I have had my Vostro 1500 for around 18 months now and it has been problem free so far until yesterday evening.

Basically my girlfriend was doing a bit of surfing and I had some music streaming at the same time. All of a sudden there was a loud clicking coming from the laptop.

I thought it was the music at first! but I managed to mute the sound and it was the laptop. It was quite a loud click happening at least twice a second.

Then, nothing would respond on the machine. Firefox faded to 'Not responding' and I had no mouse cursor either. In short I could not do anything. I had to hold the power button in and it switched off.

I left it for a while basically thinking it was doomed. I switched it on again about 15 minutes later expecting a world of system errors.

All i got was the 'Windows not shut down correctly' screen and proceeded to load the OS as normal.

It booted up fine and it has not happened since. Is it the Hard Drive. Is it telling me it is going to pack up and die?

Or, could it be a fan issue? I have taken the two most accessible covers off to have a look but they were only the memory and the wireless card. No issues there.

To take the main cover off involves a lot of unscrewing. Not sure whether to do this or not to be honest.

Any advice here would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Check the disk for errors. Make sure to do a thorough check and to correct errors automatically.

 

Which area of the machine did the sound seem to be coming from? Could be a dodgy fan causing it to heat up but it does sound like your HD may be on the way out.

 

I suggested that the HD was the cause because he said he did not hear noise afterwards. A busted fan if it starts making noise, it usually stays like that. But it is also a possibility.

After you check the disk for errors, if you detect any unusual problems or hear that sound again, try to determine as best as possible where it is coming from (put your ear close to the exhaust to see if it's the fan). Also, put your hand near the exhaust and see if the air keeps getting hotter, in that case it might be a busted fan.

A broken HD is not the end of the world, in fact it is fairly easy to replace.

Oh, and IMPORTANT: before you do anything (even the disk check), BACK UP YOUR DATA!

 

Is it still under warranty? If yes, then get it serviced.

I would agree that it sounds like the hard drive. Try running chkdsk/f from Run (Command Prompt) You can also try running sfc /scannow from the Command Prompt. They might fix any problems if it is not hardware related. If it is the hard drive mechanical, then you will need a new drive. As stated above, backup your data-now.

It could also be overheating. Have you blown out the dust?

 

its unlikely that its overheating, if it is, you'll get a message at the next startup during the bios POST saying that the system had shut down due to overheating.

so as stated, back up your data, run the disk check or dell diagnostics. even if it dosent detect an error, call dell before your warranty runs out (if you have the 2 or 3 year warranty) and get them to replace the hard drive

 

A clicking noise is likely the hard drive.

Press F12 at the Dell logo screen on boot up, select diagnostics. Post the error if you get one, and I can tell you what it means.

If needed, the service manual is here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1520/en/sm/index.htm

 

Morning

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry for the delay in replying to this. I tried to reply from work but I could not log in for some reason.

I only had a 12 month warranty so I cannot send it away to Dell or get it replaced.

Having said that I have had no issues since (touch wood)

I checked the disk for errors and it found one issue which it corrected but I cannot remember for the life of me what the issue was. Is there a log I could look at and report back?

I will try the diagnostics thing on my next reboot and I will post anything untoward.

I have also backed up my most critical files to an external HD. Is there an easy way of doing this however? I have just been copying things across to it like photos, documents and music etc but a more comprehensive backup may be in order.

Thanks once again for all the help here!

 

There are specific backup programs, but IMO they're more hassles than benefits.

I think it's better to backup irrecoverable stuff, like you did, and then just format and reinstall.