Studio XPS 1640 ERROR 0200: Failure Fixed Disk 1, BSoD, delays

Hey everyone, long time no post.

My SXPS 1640 has been giving me a lot of trouble lately after running fine since 2009. It all started when I began experiencing delays/crashes while using Firefox, and delays when using memory-intensive programs like Photoshop. Since then, the Firefox delays have gotten so bad that I had to stop using it and instead use Chrome, which didn't crash as much for some reason (I tried doing a clean install of Firefox and that didn't improve anything). The delays while photo editing are horrible, to the point where Photoshop and Lightroom often become unresponsive for five minutes at a time. A couple weeks ago, when I was booting the computer, I got two beeps and the following error message:

ERROR
0200: Failure Fixed Disk 1

Press F1 to resume, F2 to Setup

I ran diagnostics and it found nothing wrong. If I pressed F1, the computer would boot but still have the same delays and crashes. I was told it was probably an issue with the HDD, even though it was a WD Scorpio Black that I had purchased only a year prior to these events. Not wanting to lose a bunch of photo stuff, I cloned that drive onto a new Seagate hybrid drive and replaced it. The problems were still there, and now have been getting worse again. If I leave the computer on, even with no programs running, eventually it will do a BSoD. Every time I boot the computer now I get the Failure Fixed Disk message, and the delays/crashes remain.

Does anyone know what's going on and what I can do to fix my computer before it completely craps out on me? I have no idea what to do. I'm thinking it might be an issue with the CPU/motherboard, but I don't know how to tell for certain and wouldn't know how to replace it if that was the issue.

Thanks for any help, and let me know if more information is required.

 

I assume the 0200 ERROR is from the BIOS? What is the error on the BSoD?

 

Hard to tell from the photo I got, but I believe the BSoD says:

KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR

 

An update in case anyone might have ideas. I called a computer repair guy, and he said it was probably a problem with the hard drive and that I should run chkdsk, do a memory test, and then reformat if I was still having problems. Since the computer was getting worse and I already had a clone of the hard drive, I really had nothing to lose. I did chkdsk with repairs, and it found and repaired tons of bad sectors. However, after this, the computer functioned even worse than before, to the point where it would become completely unresponsive only 1-2 minutes after booting. It would function OK in safe mode though, so I ran a memory test and the RAM was fine. Because my computer was now basically useless, I deleted everything off the hard drive and reformatted it (keep in mind this is a brand new 750 GB hybrid drive that "inherited" the problems from my old one when I cloned it).

Until today everything was working great after the reformat - no delays, no crashes, etc. But yesterday when the computer rebooted after installing updates, I got the ERROR 0200: Failure Fixed Disk error, and everything has been getting worse since then. Yesterday it was some minor delays using Firefox, the fan coming on when I was just using Photoshop, etc. Today when I booted, the computer was even worse. I got the FFD error again upon booting, then Windows failed at configuring the updates it installed when I shut the computer down last night. Using it now, Firefox is experiencing delays and crashing, and the fan is coming on high at random intervals with the CPU idling at 40-60%, punctuated by brief periods at 0-1% (which is what it should be for just using Firefox!).

Anyone know what might be the issue?? Any help will be appreciated!

 

Also, though the fan keeps coming on, the computer is not hot to the touch. In fact, it's just barely warm.

 

If it's not your HDD, get the RAM out and reinsert

 

Thanks for the help! It gave me an additional idea - I just replaced the RAM with the old sticks I took out a couple years ago (they weren't defective, I just wanted to upgrade from 4GB to 8GB), and although things were looking good at first when the computer booted completely silently with no FFD error (yay!), now that the computer is running it is having the same issues. With the different RAM sticks in there, the fan is still going high and the CPU is idling at 40-60% (or more).

 

Now that the computer's been running for a while it seems to have calmed down a bit, the fans have gone off and the CPU is idling at 0%. However, the fans still seem to come on quick when I use a program like Google Earth. I'll keep the old RAM in here for a while and see how things continue.

 

Just rebooted and got the FFD error again, plus the fans came on as soon as the computer booted. I'm really at a loss as to what could be the problem.

 

Tried resetting bios settings? Blow out all dust as well

 

Yep, did the BIOS a couple days ago and blew out all the dust when I was replacing the RAM. Still the FFD error. :\