nths). > > The 8300 booted to the desktop find when I picked it up Friday. But when I got it home I realized that there was no audio. Not when XP boots up and not when I open a media player. In fact, attempting to play a DVD or MP3 using any media player causes the computer to stop communicating with the monitor and the screen goes black. (It also did this once while booting up). > > I then have to re-boot, which is difficult, because the power supply and processor fans start to turn and then stop after about a second. Then when I try a second time they continue, except that the monitor will still have a black screen. I have to pull the computer AC plug and plug it back in after a few seconds and then press the "on" button to get the computer to start sending a monitor signal. Sometimes I have to do this several times to get the monitor working again. (There is no on/off switch for the power supply at the rear of the case). > > Attempting to play an MP3 file or a DVD movie wi
th Windows Media Player, Real Player, or KMPlayer will immediaately stop the computer from communicating with the monitor. (And VLC Player causes this to happen just during it's installation, so I can't install it). > >
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/...mputer/ComputerProfileSummary_zps8f873f40.jpg > > Anyway, the hard drive from the Dimension 3000 works. (At least as a slave in the 8300). So I'll have to through that PC in the trash. > > Thanks. > > Darren Harris > Staten Island, New York. So you think there is a video problem with the 8300 ? When I get a computer, I go through the same set of tests each time, to "prove it is a computer". No matter how shiny a computer is, you have to test it. I use memtest86+ to prove the memory has no stuck-at faults. Prime95 Torture Test, which exercises processor and memory. And in some cases, if there is a power supply problem, the screen would go black as soon as you start the Prime95 run. By using Prime95, it d
oesn't do any appreciable video, so that's a way to tell a difference between a CPU or power problem, and a video card problem. For video (Direct3D), I might use an old copy of 3DMark. If some driver file isn't installed, sometimes that will tell me I didn't do part of it right. You can also use the built-in "dxdiag" to review the availability of acceleration on the video card. There are a few things like that you can methodically work through. For the audio, I start with Device Manager, and see if any drivers are missing. Look for the yellow marks. A Dell probably doesn't have a BIOS setting to disable the audio, but you could check that setting in the BIOS as well. ******* Some of your Dells have a four LED diagnostic display. And if the box crashes early in POST, the LED display has some combination of yellow or green colors. And you can look up those codes to see what has happened. ******* You like the Dells, but not all models of Dell are winners. Some had a high inciden
ce of the "bad capacitor" problem, and with those models, really *no* instance of the machine is safe. If the seller can tell you the motherboard was "re-capped" and all the caps were replaced, then it would be worth buying. On a couple years worth of Dells, the power supply connector does not follow the accepted standard. If you replace a power supply on those, you have to be careful to compare the cable harness colors (on the 20 pin main cable), and see whether the original supply is a "standard" type, or the Dell screwup type. Dell eventually stopped doing that. Making your own power supply standard, really doesn't do you any good at all. PowerPCandCooling company, used to make pin compatible replacements, but they were bought by OCZTechnology, and OCZ went bankrupt and it's hard to say whether there is a business unit any more making those Dell supplies. You'd be at the mercy of some random Chinese supplier now, or have to build your own adapter cable, to convert from "st
andard ATX" to "Dell". The later Dells are all standard. You can find all sorts of web sites, with the standard power supply wire colors shown. Just a matter of figuring out where pin 1 is.
http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml Paul
Nothing under video or audio in Device manager has a yellow question mark.
And attempting any video or audio test in "dxdiag" results in the monitor going black.
I beleive there are four diagnostic lights near the mouse and keyboard inputs at the rear that eventually setting sown after booting to all green or green for "A", "B", & "C", with "D" being yellow.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll257/Statenislander/Computer/8300Diaglights_zps1ea4ef57.jpg
No, I don't like DELLS. They just happen to be the last three desktops I got. All but one of the rest of about a dozen PCs going back 15 years were other brands. (HP, Compaq, homebuilt, etc).
Anyway, I've changed the power supply, used different ram, swapped around cables to hard drives and DVD drives, and reformatted and installed XP again. I don't know anything about the PCI audio card or the PCI ideo card which had twin monitor connections. But I'm thinking that the problem may not be either card since attempting to play audio or video will result in the monitor going black. So it's probably something they have in common.
As for drivers. Any idea what I may try downloading from here?
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/Product/dimension-8300
http://ftp.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/dimension-8300.html
(I can't remember ever installing standalone drivers exept off of a CD so I'll have to look up how this is done).
Thanks a lot.
Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
The diagnostic LED table here here. Four green LEDs
indicates a "normal start". You have one yellow LED
that I could see in your picture. Check the table to
see what code you've got.
(See page 2)
http://downloads.dell.com/Manuals/a...ktops/dimension-8300_service manual_en-us.pdf
The chipset on your system is 875P (I have one of those).
(There are two chips, 875P Northbridge, ICH5 Southbridge.)
The ICH5 chip has a problem with USB ports. The chip
is large, and normally doesn't have a heatsink on top.
The Northbridge has a heatsink (but doesn't fail),
whereas the ICH5 Southbridge has no heatsink. Sometimes,
the USB ports go into latchup from static electricity,
and the bond wires supplying 5V to the Southbridge,
they burn out. On some systems, the computer is dead at
that point. This would be what the chip looks like on
a totally dead system. (Some systems don't die totally,
and just the USB ports no longer accept plugged in
devices - no USB keyboard or mouse would work.)
http://i.onfinite.com/TFG42bkgd.jpg
So that's the biggest concern with 865/875 family,
is the ICH5 or ICH5R Southbridge. I have read postings
from around 20 different people with that problem.
One poster lost a total of five motherboards with
ICH5 chips on them. For some reason, mine is still
intact and works fine. Just luck.
*******
You can check Event Viewer in Windows, to see if
the black screen causes any events to be recorded.
If the OS has a problem, it has two choices. It
can BSOD and present a blue screen with an error number
on the screen. But, by default, on a BSOD, the OS is set
to restart Windows, and the BSOD doesn't stay on the screen.
You can adjust the system settings, so the computer does
not restart on a BSOD. And then you can write down the error.
IF the screen goes black, that could be a video card or
video driver error. The symptoms could be the result
of the output port removing sync signal - some monitors
will report "loss of signal" depending on what signal
has gone missing. Or, they report "out of range", if a
multisync monitor is driven with a sync signal which
is outside the acceptable frequency range.
*******
The Dell download site has three audio drivers. Two are for
SoundBlaster PCI cards. You would look in the PCI slot area,
for a sound card with three or more audio connectors on the
faceplate. The OEM Soundblaster, worth around $40, has four
audio connectors on it. Some flavor of that one, can be
bundled with a Dell. More expensive SB cards might have
a few more connectors (even some with gold plating on them).
If you no longer have a PCI sound card present, no faceplate
with 1/8" jacks in the PCI slot area, then next you look to
the I/O plate area provided by the motherboard itselt. The
sound chip there is SoundMax (Analog Devices) AD1980 AC'97.
Because it is AC'97, you won't be having any problems with
Microsoft UAA driver. But you still need to download the
SoundMax package to get your sound working.
On some motherboards (like mine), you can go into the
BIOS setup screen at startup time, and turn off the
motherboard audio. That would prevent the driver package
from installing.
I have a SoundMax which is only slightly newer than yours.
And these are the things I see. Mine is HDAudio instead of
AC'97, so the driver file names won't be the same. It's just
to illustrate what it would look like with a driver installed.
The Dell Audio section on that web page you showed, has
an AD198x driver suitable for that purpose.
http://i61.tinypic.com/2jcc0gi.gif
The ICH5 problem either causes the USB ports to be unresponsive,
or the computer dies altogether (will no longer boot). I don't
remember anyone having trouble with AC'97 because of one
of those failures. But examine the top of the chip, for
burn marks or discoloration.
Paul
