>>>>
I just purchased a Dell Dimension 4100 and not more than a few days out of
the box had problems with system freezes, lockups, strange (intermittent)
faulty boot behaviors, shutdown problems etc. Dell technical support
advised me to do a full format/restore since they felt the most likely
culprit was a corrupt OS. Why the machine should need a format/reinstall of
the OS (Win98SE) after 10 days of receipt of a band new system remains a
bone of great contention. Bottom line - I did the reform/reinstall and
indeed it seems to have solved most of the problems. Whether Dell shipped me
a faulty OS or whether I mucked it up in the first day or 2 will of course
never be known.
>>>
I work at a retail outlet and there we sell HP computers built similar to the
Dell. And both from personal experience when I purchased my PC and seeing
other people come in and talk with me about problems they have had with there
HP PC's, computers that are sent out should not have any operating systems
installed. The reason I say this is because almost every computer I see leave
they have problems right out of the box, but when a format and reinstall from
the restore disk is done it solves the problems just like yours did. I do not
have a reason why but I will say that I suggest to the customers who purchase
a computer from me that before they put anything important on it they should
do a format/restore.

Bradley Marden
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