Problem with Dell 8200

Hello Paul,

I tried to get this to run; I went to the selected file,
(cdd1206)clicked download, then clicked the saved exe
program to run and then it came up with a menu to select
1 of 4 options. I choose to save it to the HD in it's
original location but nothing happened afterwards.

I then went into downloads and clicked to open the file
and it flashed open/closed and is only 10K. So I must have
done something wrong? I tried this 3 times with the same
result.


Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I tried to get this to run; I went to the selected file,
(cdd1206)clicked download, then clicked the saved exe
program to run and then it came up with a menu to select
1 of 4 options. I choose to save it to the HD in it's
original location but nothing happened afterwards.

I then went into downloads and clicked to open the file
and it flashed open/closed and is only 10K. So I must have
done something wrong? I tried this 3 times with the same
result.


Robert

CDD1206 is an old-style extractor.
It won't run on my Win7 setup (x64) (meaning, the program
is a 16bit program), but it ran on Win2K x32.
So probably runs on WinXP x32 too.

"Please select from the following options:

1. Make bootable floppy diskettes (could need as many as 3 blanks)
2. Put the files on hard disk in the current directory.
3. Put the files on hard disk in another directory
4. Quit

I selected (3) for a test. And entered "C:\crap" when it
asked for a folder to use.

Diagnostics Deliver Complete!
Press any key to continue.... [cmd window disappears...]

Only problem is, the contents need to run in real DOS mode.
So dumping them into a folder like that, is a waste of time.

Only one option is really practical, which is (1)

1. Make bootable floppy diskettes

You will probably need three blank floppy diskettes
and a lot of patience. The floppy diskettes
need to be the 1440K kind. (I went to my junk
box, and actually found some floppies there
that were the wrong type.)

There is an obscure technique for taking an oversized
DOS environment like that, and loading it onto a CD
and getting it to boot. But it would probably take
me all week to get something like that working. Dell
should be doing that for us. Not torturing us with
floppy diskettes. Seagate uses such a technique, to
put their DOS disk diagnostic on a CD image. Seagate uses
a kit developed by a Russian developer, and it can make
bootable CDs with maybe 10MB or so of DOS stuff. Whereas,
the following recipe stops at 2.88MB (double sized floppy image).
This recipe wouldn't be enough for the Dell stuff above,
which has a bit more than 3MB of files.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080327...CD/Boot-CD.htm

*******

Contents of Dell diagnostic floppy set...

Volume in drive A is DELLDIAG1_3
Volume Serial Number is 1212-10E4

Directory of A:\

07/11/1995 09:50a 92,870 COMMAND.COM
09/27/2001 04:30p 180 autoexec.bat
09/27/2001 04:06p 670 INT15_88.COM
04/23/2015 08:52p 950,021 DELLDIAG.EXE
04/23/2015 08:52p 32,821 AMI_RAID.MDM
04/23/2015 08:52p 16,405 BIOSMP.MDM
04/23/2015 08:52p 73,772 CABLES.MDM
04/23/2015 08:53p 12,309 CPU.MDM
04/23/2015 08:53p 4,117 DDINIT.MIM
04/23/2015 08:53p 45,077 DELLSYS.MSM
04/23/2015 08:53p 1,510 DDINIT.MLM
11 File(s) 1,229,752 bytes
0 Dir(s) 0 bytes free
Volume in drive A is DELLDIAG2_3
Volume Serial Number is BCAE-AA63

Directory of A:\

07/11/1995 09:50a 92,870 COMMAND.COM
09/27/2001 04:30p 180 autoexec.bat
04/23/2015 09:06p 208,949 ADAPTEC.MDM
04/23/2015 09:06p 41,013 CACHE.MDM
04/23/2015 09:06p 98,357 CSAUDIO.MDM
04/23/2015 09:06p 168,001 DISK.MDM
04/23/2015 09:06p 49,173 DISKETTE.MDM
04/23/2015 09:06p 12,332 DVD.MDM
04/23/2015 09:07p 155,728 GENAUDIO.MDM
04/23/2015 09:07p 41,013 IAUDIO.MDM
04/23/2015 09:07p 24,629 IEEE1394.MDM
04/23/2015 09:07p 20,542 IMCHECC.MDM
04/23/2015 09:07p 41,016 IOAPIC.MDM
04/23/2015 09:08p 53,292 IR.MDM
04/23/2015 09:08p 151,610 KEYBOARD.MDM
04/23/2015 09:08p 36,917 LSI.MDM
04/23/2015 09:08p 57,422 MEMORY.MDM
04/23/2015 09:08p 24,620 MISCPCI.MDM
04/23/2015 09:09p 65,615 MOUSE.MDM
04/23/2015 09:09p 53,304 MPCACHE.MDM
04/23/2015 09:09p 36,910 NBBATT.MDM
04/23/2015 09:09p 12,309 PCI.MDM
22 File(s) 1,445,802 bytes
0 Dir(s) 2,048 bytes free
Volume in drive A is DELLDIAG3_3
Volume Serial Number is BCAE-AA63

Directory of A:\

07/11/1995 09:50a 92,870 COMMAND.COM
09/27/2001 04:30p 180 autoexec.bat
04/23/2015 09:13p 24,622 NBFAN.MDM
04/23/2015 09:13p 36,918 NBTHERM.MDM
04/23/2015 09:13p 36,938 NBSVC.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 196,670 NIC.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 69,685 NIC8254X.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 36,919 PARALLEL.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 24,620 PERC2ADA.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 12,341 PM.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 20,501 PNP.MDM
04/23/2015 09:14p 53,292 RAID.MDM
04/23/2015 09:15p 159,829 SCSI.MDM
04/23/2015 09:15p 41,022 SERIAL.MDM
04/23/2015 09:15p 94,252 SMBIOS.MDM
04/23/2015 09:15p 16,446 SMBUS.MDM
04/23/2015 09:15p 16,428 SMI.MDM
04/23/2015 09:16p 53,315 SYSBDMON.MDM
04/23/2015 09:16p 57,400 SYSTEM.MDM
04/23/2015 09:16p 49,205 USB.MDM
04/23/2015 09:16p 36,917 USB2.MDM
04/23/2015 09:16p 110,636 VIDEO.MDM
22 File(s) 1,241,006 bytes
0 Dir(s) 206,848 bytes free

Make your three 1440K floppies, and boot from the
first one, and follow whatever prompts it offers.
It might involve floppy-flipping, when running
tests, and it'll tell you when to change floppy
diskettes.

When I made my set, I used just one floppy diskette,
as I'm "out of blanks". I don't know where they've
all gone. Must have migrated for the summer.

Good luck,
Paul

Hello Paul,

If I understand you correctly, to get this
to run I need to buy (3) CD's to download to?
DVD-RW? However, I'm stretched pretty thin
at present.

As usual, it seems I've opened a can of worms

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

If I understand you correctly, to get this
to run I need to buy (3) CD's to download to?
DVD-RW? However, I'm stretched pretty thin
at present.

As usual, it seems I've opened a can of worms

Robert

Well, the first question to ask, is there a
3.5" floppy slot on the front of the computer ?

I've been looking and don't see one. Seems strange
for that vintage of hardware, as machines used to have
floppy drives back then (as well as CD drives).

Why would Dell even offer a floppy based diagnostic,
for a computer with no floppy drive ?

Preparing floppy diskettes isn't going to help
if there is no drive to read them.

The Dimension 8200 manual doesn't mention a diagnostic
option (as something that is already on the hard drive).
I'm assuming the fact that Dell put the floppy package
on the web site, under the 8200 page, means they
really think that diagnostic is going to work.

This is what the drive would look like. When your
machine is folded open (like in the pictures you took),
it would be mounted on the front panel area, with a
ribbon cable running back to the motherboard. The
connector on the motherboard end would be labeled
"floppy" or "FD" or similar.

http://www.austech.uk.net/thumb/800/...oppy-Drive.gif

This shows a floppy in the "resting position", inserted
in the floppy drive. It has to be completely seated
(pushed all the way into the drive), before read/write
can occur. When it's popped out like this, it is in
preparation for removal and putting the floppy diskette
back in a storage box or sleeve.

http://www.ashdistribution.co.uk/ima...40-3758_02.jpg

I have one floppy drive here, which is USB based, and so
that is a portable solution. But you can't buy those any
more, as Mitsumi stopped making the product years ago.
And on your 8200, you would not be able to boot from
one of those (so it would be half-a-solution).

Life is full of so many challenges...

Paul

Hello Paul,

No, I upgraded to a CD drive some time ago

I forgot I had a Seagate Utility disk
With Sea Tools Diagnostics until you
mentioned Seagate. It offers choices
for checking only the drives but better
than nothing at this point:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2ir3vk4.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/f3ubsg.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/33p6c7b.jpg

I selected Sea Tools for Windows
then selected a long drive self test:

http://i60.tinypic.com/v8q98h.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/28mhkqr.jpg

I then selected a long generic:

http://i59.tinypic.com/ke86r9.jpg

I was going to do an Advanced Test but it indicated
It might erase data or make the drive:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2chb5aw.jpg

Robert

In passing, I still have some 3 1/2 inch disks
which I used with my Sony FD-92 digital camera as
a secondary means of storage besides the magic stick.
Dated, I know but it worked well for the time. I
still have the camera too.

Its amazing how fast technology moves these days.

Remember the old Star Trek series? They used
something very similar to the 3 1/2 inch disks!

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
In passing, I still have some 3 1/2 inch disks
which I used with my Sony FD-92 digital camera as
a secondary means of storage besides the magic stick.
Dated, I know but it worked well for the time. I
still have the camera too.

Its amazing how fast technology moves these days.

Remember the old Star Trek series? They used
something very similar to the 3 1/2 inch disks!

Robert



I think you do have a floppy drive :-)

I reviewed your internal picture again.

http://i60.tinypic.com/2m51mqh.jpg

There are three ribbon cables. One of the ribbon
cables, is "less wide" than the other two. It's a
bit lighter in color as well. It goes to the bottom
area of the front panel. I suspect you have a
floppy drive located underneath that "flap" on the
front of the computer. The flap that covers the headphone
jack and USB front connector.

I tried and tried to find a picture of an 8200, with the
flap open, and a floppy drive inserted just below the
headphone jack. I was not able to find such a picture.
But the evidence in your picture above, suggests that
is where it is located. Open the flap area, as if you
were going to plug in headphones, and look for a "slot" just
below the headphone jacks.

Dell makes a "filler plate", to fill that area, for builds
without a floppy drive. But since you have the floppy cable
leading over to that area, I'm betting you do have a floppy.

As for the "right kind of floppy diskettes", my suspicion
is your camera uses the wrong kind for this job. It's also
(remotely) possible the floppy drive itself isn't the
right type.

I think there are at least three capacities you might
find in your junk box. 720K, ~1000K, 1440K. The 1440K
is what I've been using for at least ten years. That's
what I use for flashing the BIOS on my collection of PCs here.

When I went to the junk box, I found a half a dozen Macintosh
floppies, but they're only 1MB or so in capacity. And strangely,
no matter what PC I tried them in, the PC "ignored them".
Didn't even want to format them. Which tells me the
drive (which likely supports 720K regular density, and
the 1440K double density), wanted nothing to do with my
Mac floppy diskette. So I had to dig around some more,
before I got the 1440K one.

Paul

Hello Paul,

I do have the connections for a 3 1/2 drive but
as I said I switched to a DVD/CD-RW drive
awhile ago and I removed the 3 1/2 drive at the
time. I put a piece of cut foam board over the
opening to keep out the dust. You can still see
the eject button.


http://i62.tinypic.com/t7okno.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/u5xlj.jpg


Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I do have the connections for a 3 1/2 drive but
as I said I switched to a DVD/CD-RW drive
awhile ago and I removed the 3 1/2 drive at the
time. I put a piece of cut foam board over the
opening to keep out the dust. You can still see
the eject button.


http://i62.tinypic.com/t7okno.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/u5xlj.jpg


Robert

OK, here is another idea.

http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/recreate.shtml

"Note to reader: Booting the Dell Utility partition requires
a Dell bios recent enough to include that option on its bios
boot menu. If your bios does not have that capability, stop
here, since there is little point in creating a Dell Utility
partition on your computer."

You may have a utility partition on the hard drive.
Such as the one marked "DE" in that example article.

*******

You can use PTEDIT32 to check the partition table.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

Click that link, save as "PTEDIT32.zip".

If you unzip that, the "ptedit32.exe" is in there.
Double-click ptedit32.exe with the mouse and
this should appear.

http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/files/pteditde.gif

What that utility does, is show you even the partitions
that are hidden. The one marked DE is hidden. The one
of Type "07" is NTFS and that would be your C: partition.

With that proof in hand, have a look through the Programs
menu in your (barely) running WinXP on the Dimension 8200.
Perhaps there is an option to do "Dell Diagnostics" in the
program menu ? If so, the Dell may set itself up for a
reboot into the Diagnostic. The Dell may have some way
of booting off that "DE" partition.

Or perhaps there is a boot menu item when the machine
starts, to select "diagnostics" ?

The download with the diagnostic files, if you were
to follow the goodells article, is probably intended
for reconstruction of some part of the DE partition,
if the hard drive dies.

That diagnostic has to be on there somewhere :-)

So that's how they were able to run that diagnostic
without floppies. The second option is to extract
files, on one of the downloads. And the 3MB of files
or so, could be fitted onto a hard drive partition.
The "magic" part is having a boot time option to
select the contents of that partition. I don't
know how that part works.

Paul

Hello Paul,

I was reading though your post and started the 8200 to
confirm my partitions when it booted up normally! In
fact, it booted up faster than ever before, and very,
very quiet! It's as if all the problems disappeared by
themselves!

This sounds weird but the only thing I did was clean off
the front of the computer and 3 1/2 inch drive well before
taking the pictures last night.

So, I'm running scans to see if anything occurs. I'll
keep you posted.

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I was reading though your post and started the 8200 to
confirm my partitions when it booted up normally! In
fact, it booted up faster than ever before, and very,
very quiet! It's as if all the problems disappeared by
themselves!

This sounds weird but the only thing I did was clean off
the front of the computer and 3 1/2 inch drive well before
taking the pictures last night.

So, I'm running scans to see if anything occurs. I'll
keep you posted.

Thanks,
Robert

Some little hardware thing got bumped
while you were working in there.

It's a good thing you discovered this. I was
all set to give you instructions on testing
with a Linux CD :-)

Paul

Hello Paul,

The only thing I noticed on the 8200 was that the
upper fan with the power unit whines at times but
if I pressed it stops. So perhaps it needs oiling
although I'm very leery of doing anything to it at
this point. given it seems it be working normally
again.

I updated Avast to a newer version when checking
for updates within the program which required a
restart and again it booted normally and very fast.

The other thing I've noticed is that when I press
the power button on front it sometimes does not
always start and I'm wondering if your suggestion
for a new power is correct?

However, I did get it started and it booted normally
and had an Update for Explorer 8.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

The only thing I noticed on the 8200 was that the
upper fan with the power unit whines at times but
if I pressed it stops. So perhaps it needs oiling
although I'm very leery of doing anything to it at
this point. given it seems it be working normally
again.

I updated Avast to a newer version when checking
for updates within the program which required a
restart and again it booted normally and very fast.

The other thing I've noticed is that when I press
the power button on front it sometimes does not
always start and I'm wondering if your suggestion
for a new power is correct?

However, I did get it started and it booted normally
and had an Update for Explorer 8.

Robert

Just keep an eye peeled for additional symptoms. I
don't really think this story is over.

*******

When my power supply was going out (failing), it
took about two weeks before it was bad enough
to attend to. During that time, I got the "sizzling
sound". I got a "puff of smoke" at startup (not a
fire, probably smoke coming out of the leaking
capacitor until it warmed up a bit).

If a capacitor "blows" (which isn't going to happen),
it's like a confetti cannon. Only the confetti isn't
that nice. You get black particles, almost like soot.
Causing capacitors to blow, is a prank in electronics
class in university, and one of the students had to
impress us by pulling that one (reverse polarity).
When allowed to fail on their own, without help
from mischievous students, electrolytics are more likely to
open at the top and leak orange-brown stuff. Electrolytics
have a rubber plug near the bottom, and when the cap
is pressurized, the rubber plug can push out, causing
the electrolytic capacitor to "stand crooked". So if you
see a capacitor tilted at an angle, you look near the
base to see if any black rubber plug is showing. Which
means the seal has failed, and it'll dry out.

When mine failed, I don't think my multimeter readings
were abnormal until the very end. I didn't want to turn
it on any more, to do more testing :-) Just a chicken
I guess.

My favorite power supply schematic is here. C5 and C6 are
the "dangerous" ones, charged to 300V DC when running.
The resistors R2 and R3 next to them, are "bleeder" resistors,
designed to discharge the supply. The time constant "tau"
is 103 seconds. So once the supply is unplugged, you'd
wait 5*tau or 515 seconds or 8 minutes or so before
going inside. A technician who wants to live a long time,
assumes R2 and R3 have "failed open circuit" and all of the
charge is still on the capacitors. While the chances of
touching the hot rail are just about zero, never assume
anything while working in there. And those caps, if you
work out 1/2*C*V^2, hold a lot of joules. This is one
case where you do not stick a screwdriver across the
capacitor terminals - the noise will be loud enough
to damage your hearing. The old screwdriver technique
is intended for much smaller circuits than this one.

http://www.pavouk.org/hw/en_atxps.html

The fan on my power supply could be unplugged, but they're
not all like that. Some have the cable harness soldered
into place.

Paul

Hello Paul,

I monitored the 8200 again tonight and restarted
it several times and ran scans and it all seemed
normal and all the scans completed.

I'll check the pics again for any tilted capacitors
and will keep an eye on things. I'm still wondering
if I should use a can of compressed air for this:

http://i57.tinypic.com/muzp6p.jpg

and other areas on the motherboard and cards, fans
etc. or am I risking more harm than good? Maybe it's
better to leave well enough alone?

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I monitored the 8200 again tonight and restarted
it several times and ran scans and it all seemed
normal and all the scans completed.

I'll check the pics again for any tilted capacitors
and will keep an eye on things. I'm still wondering
if I should use a can of compressed air for this:

http://i57.tinypic.com/muzp6p.jpg

and other areas on the motherboard and cards, fans
etc. or am I risking more harm than good? Maybe it's
better to leave well enough alone?

Robert

If an item is caked with dust, that would
make an insulating blanket, and the item might overheat.

And at that dust level, fans can get clogged. Things like the
video card fan can stop spinning, and the video card overheat
(as the fan on that one is usually smaller and weaker).

In your pictures, the dust didn't look bad in there.
And given the evidence that working on something in there
with the case open, changed your symptoms, it could
also invite your problem back.

*******

My favorite story is about a computer at work. A Sun Sparc.
A person with long hair used to sit in front of it. So
one day, no one was there, but when entering that area,
the computer didn't "sound" right. I did a shutdown, powered
off and removed the cover. Those computers have three
fans for cooling. There was a hairball, with probably
close to half a cubic foot of hair in it, all packed
around the fans. Right up to the fan blades themselves.
No wonder it sounded funny - the computer had its own
"muffler".

After removing the hairball, the CPU heatsink was so hot,
it would still burn you after 10 minutes of being powered
off (65C). The machine had a Fujitsu upgrade, and I think it
was ECL logic, and apparently it could take the heat. As
it never crashed. And it also didn't seem to have
thermal protection. The CPU could get as hot
as it wanted.

So that's the most clogged computer I've ever worked on.
I don't understand how the person with the long hair,
wasn't bald with that level of hair loss :-)

So that's an example of where a can of compressed air
isn't the solution - rather it's a "job for a shovel" :-)

Paul