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Dell Xps Gen 2, put back together and now crashes

post #1 of 30
4/21/10 at 3:54am
Thread Starter 
Hello there,

After a having it sit around in bits, I've just put a new power connector on the motherboard of my Dell XPS Gen 2 as it was rather wobbly, put the laptop back together as per the dell service manual, but now that I have done so, loads of weird things have happened.

On turning it on, the screen went blank white, so i turned it off. I turned it back on and then needed to change the settings, then I had a message saying that I had an incorrect battery in and I would have to press F1 to shut down. I restarted, let unplugged the mains let the laptop get past the bios screen at the beginning, then plugged it in and got to the Windows screen.

The problem is that once in Windows, I had what looked like a disturbance across the screen, followed by the laptop crashing.

Everytime I have started the laptop, the same thing has happened, so could someone suggest how to fix this one?

Please help!

K
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post #2 of 30
4/21/10 at 4:03am
Pop in an installation CD, boot from it and see how it reacts.

cheers ...
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post #3 of 30
4/21/10 at 4:05am
Thread Starter 
Ah, okay, I'll give that a try tonight and let you know how I get on.

Thank you!
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post #4 of 30
4/21/10 at 4:20am
Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

cheers ...
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post #5 of 30
4/21/10 at 10:11am
Booting from a "live" cd would be good as you can stress test also if your particular copy has the tools on it.
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post #6 of 30
4/21/10 at 10:34am
Thread Starter 
Sorry, Stress Test?
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post #7 of 30
4/21/10 at 11:00am
Yeah, things like memory testing. Have you tried reseating connections?
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post #8 of 30
4/21/10 at 11:06am
Thread Starter 
I assume you mean everything that I took apart, in which case, no, not yet!

I'll try the software option first (more in hope than anything else) once I find the utilities CD.

By the way, not sure if you can help me on these questions, but what should I be putting the thermal paste on other than the CPU? And the fan is quite noisy; what could be causing that?
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post #9 of 30
4/21/10 at 11:27am
CPU/Graphics both use paste. If you forgot to use or not proper you might have issues
For boot CD try your install CD as suggested.*
Fan could be failing or full of hair. If processors get hot you might have goofy issues.

* Easy quick thing is to try a bootable CD of any type. Install CD is a great suggestion by qhn.
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post #10 of 30
4/21/10 at 11:34am
disturbance across the screen!?
also is you gpu on board or dedicated?
paste should also be applied on the gpu if you disassemble it also to much paste is as bad as too little.
noisy fan can be caused by either been seated improperly which might bent the fan casing causing it to rub or dry motor rotor or dying fan (can be caused by spinning the fan to fast using compressed air or vaccum cleaner to clean the fan) or particle stuck in the fan.
but again please explain what kind of disturbance?
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post #11 of 30
4/21/10 at 12:05pm
Thread Starter 
Hi Ataxy

I'll try and take a picture of it tonight, and upload tomorrow.

By the way, how much paste is the right amount and how do you spread it out? I ended up just "moving it about" with the syringe I had...
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post #12 of 30
4/21/10 at 12:52pm
the amount of paste should be just enough to put a thin layer over the die, no more then the thickness of an hair as its only there to fill in the irregularity of the mating surface in order to optimize heat transfer from one surface to the other, as for spreading out i also use the tip of the syringe and try to make it as even as possible so that it does not ooze out on the side, this is particularly important with paste that are conductive like as5.
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post #13 of 30
4/21/10 at 4:32pm
Thread Starter 
Well that's gone horribly wrong, I turn the laptop on and all I get is a blank white screen.

I'm guessing I need to take it apart and check everything is securely connected?
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post #14 of 30
4/21/10 at 10:01pm
yup.
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post #15 of 30
4/22/10 at 3:14am
Thread Starter 
Cool, I'll have a go this weekend.

Oh, and for the record, he's a rather shaky photo of the disturbance I mentioned.
LL
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post #16 of 30
4/23/10 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Okay, so the issue I am having is I've had the laptop apart twice and after putting it together, on start up the screen just goes white.

What could cause that?
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post #17 of 30
4/23/10 at 6:52pm
Nothing happens with an external either?

cheers ...
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post #18 of 30
4/23/10 at 10:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
Nothing happens with an external either?

cheers ...
yep i second that have you tried an external monitor
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post #19 of 30
4/24/10 at 4:09pm
Thread Starter 
Just plugged in a CRT I had hanging around; dead as a dodo...
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post #20 of 30
4/24/10 at 4:12pm
GPU fails, epic!

cheers ...
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