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RobtRoma

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19 years ago

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RobtRoma

8 Posts

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12951

January 10th, 2008 14:00

Intermittent Boot Issue with Precision 390

On occasion, my Precision 390 will lock up on boot at the BIOS screen (see the photo below).  It doesn't happen all the time though.  I can go several days without it happening or several days in a row that it will happen.  It was a couple weeks out of the box before I first noticed the issue.  I can restart the machine and sometimes it boots normally.  Other times it will lock up again.  I did a search here and followed some of the advice like checking the internal connections. 
 
I had found a thread after the first time this happened that sometimes there is a conflict between memory card readers and the BIOS on other machines (can't find that thread now).  The fix was to upgrade the BIOS.  I already have the latest BIOS.  I removed the internal card reader because the monitor came with one and I am using that one.  For now, if the machine freezes during boot, I turn off the monitor and restart.  So far I haven't gotten any lockups with it off but turning off the monitor shouldn't cause the integrated reader to turn off as well...  At this point, I'm not really sure what else to try before calling tech support.  Anyone have any ideas?
 
  • webfoo

    21 Posts

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    Posted January 10th, 2008 20:00

    IMHO never use those readers as they are worth more trouble.
  • RobtRoma

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    Posted January 16th, 2008 13:00

    I forgot that the front panel will give error codes... duh.  The lockup just happened and I checked the code.  3 and 4 were lit indicating an issue with the memory within the system (memory modules detected but a failure has occurred).  I just rotated the DIMMs and rebooted.  The machine strated up with no problem so hopefully that will fix the problem....
  • jmsandrsn

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    Posted January 20th, 2008 23:00

    May want to try going into the BIOS and in the USB section there is a setting for "NO BOOT".  Asuuming that you won't need to boot from a USB device change it to that setting.  That may not be your problem though since you were mentioning that the diagnostic lights indicated it was memory related..
  • RobtRoma

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    Posted January 21st, 2008 00:00

    Thanks for the suggestion.  Since I rotated the memory in the system I haven't seen the problem.  It's been intermittent though so if it happens again I'll try this...