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Jul 25th, 2008
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Early death of the XPS

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I have a Dell XPS desktop system that is a little over a year old (I think)...

the other night I ran the windows dos based program that does many things...the thing I had it do was overwrite "free" disk space.Cipher.exe is the program that i used...i used the /w command .... from what researched I covered it appeared to be the command I wanted to use.

Anyhow, I woke up the next morning with a frozen screen. I simply shut down the system and turned it back on. From that moment on and now the computer will turn on BUT the monitor won't turn on w/ it, the keyboard and mouse are not detected and the fans are going at full force. The fans sound like they would when you FIRST cut on the computer for like the first few seconds but, it continues the whole time till you hold the power button for 5 sec and it shuts off. I tried to check the hardware to make sure everything was intact...it appears to be.

I guess its not going through the "POST" system

nothing is reading...monitor/keyboard/mouse

the fans are staying at full force

Any help with this would be awesome
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 25th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

Overwriting unallocated drive space with the /w switch can be frought with danger if your unsure of exactly what your doing.

Remember that Cipher does not lock down the drive so its possible that you may have destroyed your windows install old chap!

Can you enter the bios on boot or even get to windows in safe mode?
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digitalocksmith is offline Offline
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Jul 25th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

No, I am not able to load anything.... the keyboard/mouse/and monitor are all not cutting on.
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 25th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

If your not getting any error beep codes on start up, then the system is reaching and passing POST.

Im guessing the keyboard and mouse are wireless or USB?

If possible try using a PS2 interface and see if that will give you function to enter the bios.
Then boot from your install disc if able.
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digitalocksmith is offline Offline
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Jul 25th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

it seems as though only power works w/ this system now... no lights/beeps... the fan to the cards come on; but the main power fan comes up and its on full blast it seems like. as far as everything else (keyboard/mouse) is plugged in usb. Its kinda odd
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 25th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

the fans ON the cards come on... just no recognition on the plug-ins and monitor...
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 26th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

Thats because the OS boot files are destroyed.

Use a PS2 keyboard and mouse to enter the bios on boot and configure it to boot from your DVD/CD drive and then use your install disc to boot from and reinstall windows.

You can try the repair console or a repair install if you like.....Go for a clean install if you have no important data on the HDD that you need to save.

Regards
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digitalocksmith is offline Offline
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Jul 26th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

how can i enter the bios when the monitor isn't responding either?
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 26th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

ok so what would make a computer not respond to anything including cdroms except for power coming on? Someone told me it could be the power supply itself not giving enough to the cpu. thats crazy though because the fans are blowing full force, i think louder than ever before...

i ran cipher and this all happened
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bigdawg24 is offline Offline
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Jul 26th, 2008
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Re: Early death of the XPS

ok, I'm not familar with the newer monitors (I'm used to laptops) so... idea. I can use my laptop on a TV screen. If you don't have another monitor perhaps plugging it into the TV will work for now... get one of the old-style keyboards with the circular port (not the USB) and forget the mouse for now. It's no good until you can GET to Windows.
Now, can you get the CD drive open? If not I found this that might help:

After powering down the computer, if it still will not open, there is a little hole below the tray; you should be able to put a pin in it and get the CD tray to open. If that doesn't fix it when it reboots, you can unplug and replug the CD drive into your computer.
One of those methods may work.
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FragFighter is offline Offline
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This thread is more than three months old

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