Latitude E6400 Owner's Lounge

I did a full reinstall of Vista32 a few days ago. Repartitioned the HD and reinstalled everything. But since then, I've had a rash of service crashes. It's usually the Windows Service Provider Host and it causes the audio service to stop (atleast that's what's obvious). It does restart on its own eventually.

I followed the driver installation order (well, almost; the nvidia driver came a bit later). In fact, the first install didn't even have the Dell system software installed until very recently but I never had a problem with service crashes. The first install was done by me (got a blank HD from Dell) and I hadn't even followed the correct driver installation order!

Does anyone have any clues?

 

For those of you who've wanted to try Vista but couldn't because of legacy software that won't run on it, there's a solution. Microsoft just launched the beta of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) that will let you run Windows XP and Windows 2000 applications on Windows Vista without the need for testing or migration.

Download link : https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=665 (reg. reqd.)

 

Where did you order yours from? Mine was ordered from Finland and assembled in Poland (side note: apparently, Ireland is not the only European factory now).

It might be that here in Finland customer services in general (i.e. Dell's and other brand's) are friendlier and more helpful than in other European countries.

 

I recall reading that the Dell assembly plant in Ireland will be closing once the new factory in Poland is running properly. Ireland is not longer the low cost place that it was when Dell moved there.

John

 

I ordered mine in Germany, it has also been assembled in Poland.

 

In that case I would expect good customer care, especially because Germany is usually a place of good professionals (my father worked there for a few months). Have you tried to call, instead of emailing?

 

is the poor sound quality and crackling only when using the internal speakers, or is it a hardware issue affecting headphones / external speakers?

 

I called first but didn't have any luck (read about it a few pages earlier). I thought now I'd try via mail, as the chat doesn't seem to work in Germany.
But I guess if I have no answer tomorrow, I'm gonna call them again.

 

That is surprising indeed. Maybe Finland is an exception? I hope not, I just recommended this laptop to my father back in Portugal in part because of the great service.

 

I am running Vista x64 that I installed on the machine, but I am seeing something similar, but only on wake up from sleep. Every so often, when I open up the computer the Windows Service Host is reported as having crashed and the audio is disabled for a while.

It's not that frequent, but it does happen.