The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Take a look at this faulty ebay laptop what do you think the problem could be ?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by jamieuk23, Aug 28, 2008.

  1. jamieuk23

    jamieuk23 Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    88
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    jamieuk23, Aug 28, 2008
    #1
  2. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    543
    Messages:
    2,871
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    probably the startup file is incorrect... if that is the case, then it is fixable.

    but wont know for sure as the laptop is not here and i cant play around with it.
     
    wobble987, Aug 28, 2008
    #2
  3. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

    Reputations:
    441
    Messages:
    3,667
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    My first guess is that the seller's friend didn't know how to fix Windows OS/driver problems. My second guess would be that the laptop is having NVIDIA GPU-related problems, probably thermal, which would be less bad under Linux if the GPU stayed in 2D mode and Windows kicked it into 3D. Taking apart the notebook, cleaning out the dust and applying Arctic Silver 5 to the CPU and GPU (use ArctiClean to clean off the old gunk) might be adequate if it is indeed a hardware problem. I'd bet on software.

    If you can get a good enough price it might be worth the risk? I'll let the Dell regulars advise you from here.
     
    brianstretch, Aug 28, 2008
    #3
  4. ScifiMike12

    ScifiMike12 Drinking the good stuff

    Reputations:
    801
    Messages:
    2,529
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Continuous restarts could be many things.

    • Bad motherboard.
    • GPU or CPU overheating.
    • Faulty AC adapter or battery.
    • Memory.
    • Hard drive with bad sectors.
     
    ScifiMike12, Aug 28, 2008
    #4
  5. rezendevous

    rezendevous Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    112
    Messages:
    526
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    with most of these options.....wouldn't it still give problems with linux as well???
     
    rezendevous, Aug 28, 2008
    #5
  6. JTOverath

    JTOverath Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    83
    Messages:
    672
    Likes Received:
    17
    Trophy Points:
    31
    It's not up any more, but it seems weird that the sellers mostly sells clothing.
     
    JTOverath, Aug 29, 2008
    #6