Here is the message that I get after many tries of trying to boot up. "Alert! Previous attemts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [Vopn]." I can not enter the bios, setup, or boot menu. Any and all help would be appreciated, thanks. Mario

On the dell 4550 does it have the DELL A , B , C , D idiot lights? these would be either on the front panel or located on the back panel probably around the USB ports. These lights were installed instead of using standard beep codes.... If they are present please reboot while watching the light configurations. They will turn green or yellow in a specific code. Please report the color code of the lights. They may still not help solve your issue simply because Dell wants you to call and use their support and the codes are kept secret....to some anyway :) No lights...ok then we have to look at this logically.... have you installed a dual boot system recently? Linux? Any major hardware changes? Issues ? BIOS upgrade? What about a reinstall using a Microsoft installation disc instead of the Dell restore disc/program. Dell does not support any other operating system(s) with their new embedded BIOS... and this is what I think is your problem... The embedded BIOS does a check of system during POST BOOT if all checks out it boots...if anything doesn't it fails to boot and gives you that message...in which you are suppose to copy (exactly) the message and call DELL Support somewhere in Bum F India. Good Luck. In The Matters Of Style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, Stand Like A Rock

From the Dell staff. Unplug system. Push the power on button a few times and hold it down. Then plug back in a try again.. May or may not help at all but is the first step.

Ok this is what I did. Found this suggestion on another site. I shut it down, removed the cmos battery to reset the bios, plugged the basic stuff in the comp and bam it booted fine with no problems. However, when I went to hook everything back up to the computer, i thought all was well, it froze again. (also to note, this is my neighbors computer) Well he had all kinds of things plugged into the back of the computer: webcam, printer, speakers, and something else.....he didnt even know what all he had on it. So I unplugged everything but the keyboard, mouse, and video and it booted up perfectly. Does anyone know why it wouldnt boot up with any of those things plugged in? And why would it coz a problem with bootup? I am going to run a cleanup on it after work to see if he may have any bad viruses or spyware screwing things up. Thanks for ur suggestions. Mario