Hi all! I have been having serious Dell Latitude Problems, and I need some help. BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT THESE PROBLEMS HAVE OCCURED BEFORE THE INSTALLATION OF WINDOWS XP. I was working on it one night. I installed the .NET Framework 1.1. The next night, I left it for a few minutes, than came back. All of a sudden, it started making a very very loud high pitched noise that was just about as loud as a smoke detector! It froze then. After I restarted, it worked for awhile. Then the screen turned blue, and a message came up with an octaldecimal number (like this 0000000x00012345). And with that message, it named a file called Fastfat.sys. The computer then rebooted. It did it again 3 times that night, so I left it off for the weekend. The next Monday Night, I uninstalled the .NET Framework. Later that day, it overheated. The fan came on continously. Finally, that blue screen message appeared again. The computer has never overheated since then!!! After I let it cool down awhile, I turned it on again, and tapped the surface of the computer with my finger----not real hard. Then, the computer locked up after I did that. Later that night, I tried to turn it on. The power LED stayed lit for 5-10 seconds. Nothing was on the screen, no post, no beeps, no power to CDROM, no nothing. Then, the LED went off. Sometimes, it will come on, and work fine. Then it would lock up when I would click on things. It would even lock up sometimes when the computer was cool to the touch! I have tried a lot of things to help the situation. I have: Set the CPU Speed to minimal, to see if it was the CPU overheating. But to no avail. I have tried working in Safe Mode in Win 2000. But to no avail. I have tried uninstalling the battery, and the CDROM, but to no avail. I have tried upgrading to Windows XP Home Edition, but to no avail. I have tried uninstalling the .NET Framework, but to no avail. I CANNOT USE DocMem to test the memory, because there is no Floppy Disk drive installed, and I don't have one to install. I really need your help on how to get these problems fixed! Thank You in advance. Learn how to use DOS. It may be your life saver in restoring Windows. It was me!

Possible hardware problem?

refer to post #60702. Did you check the fan?

No, I didn't check the fan. The Cooling fan, I checked, but not the CPU fan. How do you check the CPU Fan? I don't know how to open the case of laptops; Desktops I do. Learn how to use DOS. It may be your life saver in restoring Windows. It was me!

Before you do that I suggest you download a manual for the laptop. Find out what the high pitched sound is/was. It may or may not be heat or the memory.