optiplex GX280

[goldendays_2003]

welll a lot of things dont know where to start... i jst bought a new (fo me atleast) pc. which of course is dell optiplex gx280. thats a big step forward fo me as i jst ditched my stoneage's compaq intel 815 supported pentium 3. first thing to know about my pc is that its second hand. m from pakistan n the only branded pcs we can get are the one which are second hand n shipped in here as junk.

now to the real story. since the day i bought it m jst not feelin rite about it. there have been more problems than i can count.... first it doesnt hav ps2 ports so i hav to resort to usb to ps2 connector which although has resolved the issue but has its own share of problems. the problem with it is that whenever i turn on my pc everythin is jst fine but when i reach the operating system n logon screen all usb ports are dead so i hav to replug my keyboard mouse n my wireless internet connection to make them work. the same thing happens when i put it on standby mode. keyboard n mouse jst die. so i hav to press the power button to shut it down n restart again. i hav searched deeply enuff for drivers formatted hard drive changed operating systems. nothing works. secondly its cpu fan is very alarming. sometimes its totally quite i mean it works but doesnt gives any sound but sometimes it jst makes noises jst like a cdrom at full speed n i can feel the vibration in my table. another issue is that it hav no space for IDE hard drive. i cant do widout it. so i removed the floppy drive put the hard drive in here. got a dual connector power n data cable. n after that i was able to make my harddisk n dvdrom work at the same time. before i changed the cables ther was no hard drive issue. but jst 10 mins after changing cables my IDE hard drive crashed (it has a SATA too) i wasnt able to acces any of my drives. i tried chkdsk but wasnt successful. so i formatted all the drives n retrieved some of my data after tryin atleast dozen of data recovery softwares. the conclusion is that m now too afraid to open the casin. n m already thinkin of gettin rid of this piece of junk. help please..............

[ApPy10]

This might help:
Troubleshooting Device Conflicts with Device Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=133240

It really sounds like you either have incorrect drivers for your motherboard or a device conflict.

You may want to try running setup using the /p i switch at setup. This switch tells Setup not to report the existence of a Plug and Play BIOS.

See this article:
Description of the Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me Setup Switches
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=186111

[goldendays_2003]

i m more than 100 percent sure that its not a driver issue. i got the drivers from the dell website. exactly made fo this model. win 98 n me are out of question. why someone would want to use them. problem is with xp. service pack one n two. fresh clean installs on formatted drive along with freshly downloaded drivers. device managers doesnt give any errors at all. infact there are no errors of any kind. just the mouse n keyboard are all stuck at the log on screen same goes to my internet. i have to unplug n replug both devices at the usb ports to make them work. its simple as that.