Inspiron 8100 very slow to boot/run

[netmerc]

Hi all, just got back from a 3 week vacation and I am now having some problems with my old Inspiron 8100. Before I left for vacation this machine was working fine, with no problems. I disconnected the power from the machine before I left. After getting back last night I plugged it in and turned it on. However, when the machine posts it does so in a very slow process that can take 5 minutes or more. When it progresses to the windows xp boot you can see the progress bar move for 3-5 seconds then the machine pauses/stops for maybe 10 seconds then continues to run in this start/stop cycle. I did notice that the machine lost the current date and time information while I was away.

Im going try removing the batteries, ram, hd tonight but if that doesnt fix anything I dont know what to do. Since this problem begins during the post I know it isnt a software problem. If anyone else has had gone through a similar experience I could use some advice.

Thanks

[Nick Evan]

I did notice that the machine lost the current date and time information while I was away

So the battery drained while you were away. It could very well be that the bios has changed back to defaults settings which means your Frequencys and voltages could be set wrong (read: slow and low). If you change these back to normal you'll be up and running again.

Regards Niek

[netmerc]

Yeah, the batteries were drained. I pulled the batteries, memory, and hd out and reseated them and noticed the batteries were drained when I pressed the status button on them. Once everything was back in it started up no problem. Strange that the batteries didnt charge over night when it was plugged in after I got home. First time this has happened to this laptop. Thanks for the info. michael

So the battery drained while you were away. It could very well be that the bios has changed back to defaults settings which means your Frequencys and voltages could be set wrong (read: slow and low). If you change these back to normal you'll be up and running again.

Regards Niek

[dcc]

That could be hard on the lithium ion batteries, they don't like to be completely discharged, I wish you luck. You also may want to look at the CMOS battery, it sound like that may have gone as well.

[jbennet]

yes , if the motherboard battery one loses power thats the common cause for looosing the BIOS info. Theese are relatively cheap and easy to replace on desktops, dont know about notebooks

[manojchavda]

Hi there,
I'm having exactly the same problem with my Inspiron 8100; the problem started without any warning.
It's not a software problem, as the machine starts up really slow, and when I enter the bios-setup, you can see the screen characters being drawn one at a time.
When Windows boots, the progress bar moves very slowly but booting doesn't complete -- the computer reboots after a while and the cycle repeats.
I tried removing the battery but still same problem. I also disconnected the bios battery (to try to reset everything) but that didn't have any effect.
Does anyone have other ideas?
thanks

Hi all, just got back from a 3 week vacation and I am now having some problems with my old Inspiron 8100. Before I left for vacation this machine was working fine, with no problems. I disconnected the power from the machine before I left. After getting back last night I plugged it in and turned it on. However, when the machine posts it does so in a very slow process that can take 5 minutes or more. When it progresses to the windows xp boot you can see the progress bar move for 3-5 seconds then the machine pauses/stops for maybe 10 seconds then continues to run in this start/stop cycle. I did notice that the machine lost the current date and time information while I was away.

Im going try removing the batteries, ram, hd tonight but if that doesnt fix anything I dont know what to do. Since this problem begins during the post I know it isnt a software problem. If anyone else has had gone through a similar experience I could use some advice.

Thanks