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"Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:31 am
by unfaithfulsfan
My neighbor brought me his mom's Dell OptiPlex 755 with XP Pro. The only details I have on it are: (1 That it was "Hacked" at her home (somehow, neither of them can tell me exactly what happened other than it was from one night to the next morning); 2)"She cannot boot or connect to the Internet." OK, I have not met her but I know neither of them are "techies".

Here's as far as I've been able to get:

It boots to the desktop, eventually, but there is no mouse or keyboard (both are USB-There are no PS2 ports). They both show power but apparently the drivers are gone - I have verified them both on my PC and both are good.
The keyboard works in BIOS and I tried reloading the defaults based on a thread I found on another forum. It did not work, obviously. There's not much else the BIOS lets you do, not that I really think that's the issue anyway.

I'm guessing I'm just going to have to reload the OS unless I can miracle up an emergency boot disk for this computer, right?

Thanks,
J

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:59 am
by unfaithfulsfan
Actually, never mind, I think. While continuing to look into it, I got a couple of BSODs. HDD might be bad after all. Running diagnostics again now.

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 8:32 pm
by skier
Was going to say, to load the drive in another PC to see if you could run diagnostics (CrystalDiskInfo) or a MalwareByte's scan

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 9:14 pm
by unfaithfulsfan
Yeah, now I'm beginning to think the mobo bit the big one. HDD & RAM both tested good.

Somebody has apparently "worked" on it in the past. Strange but there's 3 GB of RAM installed: 2 GB of DDR2-400 and 1 GB of DDR2-333. The stock 80 GB HDD has been replaced with a 750 GB Seagate. Mouse, kb & CD-ROM all work fine in DOS/BIOS, etc..

I cannot imagine any other hardware failing at this point since I get blue screens only when I try to run Win setup. Seatools and MemTest run without any hitches. On-board diagnostics confirm this, too.

I'll just sleep on it tonight and see what the morning brings but motherboard is what I'm thinking right now. Fortunately, they're pretty cheap right now.

Thanks,
J

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 6:31 am
by KnightRid
Umm, why replace a MB in a computer that is so old? I did a quick search and you can buy the whole thing for under $150, refurb of course. :lol:

I love building and fixing computers but when it comes down to having someone spend money on a computer that is probably slower than then cheapest new computer you can find, it's time for them to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

Now if they are going to have you upgrade the MB, cpu and ram to todays standard, have a blast!

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:12 am
by unfaithfulsfan
In a stranger turn of events, I let MemTest run through the entire cycle even though I figured the RAM was good after a few minutes. In my experience, the test lets you know almost immediately if something's amiss. I rebooted and when it came up I tried moving the mouse and, lo and behold, it worked. I was able to log in and connect to the Internet.

Re: "Hacked" Dell OptiPlex 755

Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 6:05 pm
by Major_A
In the past (DDR 1 days) I had a stick go bad. I suspected it was bad at the time because of the behavior. Problem was Memtest didn't find and error until like the 5th or 6th run during the middle of the night. Since the days of DDR2 and now DDR3 I have never had a stick go bad or have one DOA. I think at the time(SDR and DDR) the RAM was more involved with an overclock and high clocks + high temps murdered a few.