Hi PCH, occaisionally I'd notice my 1 year old laptop do something strange on startup - it would take much longer to boot and the fan would be spinning at top RPM but this past week it has been doing this everytime I turn the computer on. Dell Inspiron 6400. When I restart the laptop its ok but because its happening all the time I'm a bit concerned. I've had a look on the web and found another person with the same problem and the same laptop and the conclusion was that it was a BIOS bug initiated by using the standby/hibernate function. I'm only a novice so I don't want to fool around with the Bios. I'm also a bit miffed, if its a Bios problem on Inspiron laptops why has Dell not addressed the problem? What should I do? I've emailed Dell but they have not replied.

Hey bud,

I suggest you do something real simple, access BIOS and hit "Load Defaults" or "Load Manufacturer's Default" should be one of those, and Save and Exit, and see if it fixes it. If not, get back to me and I can help you get dirty with the BIOS (safely)

I've been doing some more searching on the web and it seems to be a very common problem (and quite old problem) for any Inspiron 6400 users who use the hibernate/standby function. I think I'm going to try the BIOS update from Dell and hope that fixes it, I'm just a bit miffed that I couldn't find the answers to my problem easily and quickly on the Dell support pages (since its such a common problem) but perhaps its just me being very dull and perhaps I missed the info. Thanks PCH ,always reliable. Ali

Be careful when flashing the BIOS.. If it messes up (power cuts out or something) it can render your laptop dead in the water