Inspiron 5160 problems...

[Johno]

Hey,

I have had this Dell Inspiron for around a year now and everything was fine until a few months ago when it started to freeze and lock up. One day, the laptop froze completely and I had to do an improper shutdown, when I went to turn the laptop back on the system started as normal until it froze at around 75% on the start-up screen (The one with the DELL logo)

I found this unusual and attempted it again and then tried to enter Setup and boot using the last good configuration. Neither worked and it would always crash at this 75% mark, it then started reaching 75% and then restarting continually. Today I managed to get it to start up but I have no idea how I managed to do this, I think it was just a fluke.

I dont recieve any STOP errors or blue screens, it just simply seizes up and stops at the 75% and then restarts. I cant get the PSA Diagnostic DST to run, however it does seem like the laptop passes post. The optical drive shows activity and the Scroll Lock, Num Lock and Caps Lock light up etc.

This is an image of the screen and how it looks before it restarts (This is where it freezes everytime): http://uploadpicz.com/images/9NH7SCN.jpg

I have reseated the memory, HDD, CD ROM Drive and the modem. However the problem still occurs.

I think the fan may be clogged so I am looking for a "High-Street Retailer" as such (Like Halfords or something) that may sell tins of compressed air as I dont really want to order it online.

Any other ideas to why it may not be working are welcomed however, I dont think its the BIOS as such as it has started around twice out of 25 attempts.

Thanks (Sorry for the amount of reading lol)

.:; Johno

[Recursion]

Have you updated windows recently?

My dad updated his UMPC (Vista) and a Windows update rendered it dead. He had to fully reinstall Windows.

[Johno]

Hey,

AFAIK there were no major updates to Windows apart from the usual security ones. Once again, I believe it to be an overheating problem as it has started and when it did, it worked fine (of course, until it crashed and it was bloody scorching on the bottom)

The laptop itself is around three years old so during this time, a whole lotta' crap could have gotten in the fan lol :)

I think the fan may be clogged so I am looking for a "High-Street Retailer" as such (Like Halfords or something) that may sell tins of compressed air as I dont really want to order it online. (Re-posting this as I want to try this just to see if it helps)

.:; Johno

[Tomm]

PC World sell compressed air although you should be able to get it from most electrical retailers.

[omgDAN!]

I've found the cheapest place for the tins of air to be Staples :)

[-Eliminate]

hardware failure?