A few problems...

So my M17x R2 is having a few problems..

1.Windows takes so long to load up now and firefox and other programs randomly don't respond,or just take a long time to open etc.

2.My BIOS is A02 and when i try to upgrade to A08 the winflash just says not responding when it starts to flash.

3.Whenever i unplug the power cord the laptop freezes, it never used to do this (just got another random Firefox freeze)

 

I would start with a fresh clean installation of Win 7, and download all the updated drivers and that may fix the issues your having with the system. Might have some currupt system files or drivers. Pretty difficult to trouble shoot that stuff, and in the end you'd likely save some time. Maybe somone else will be able to offer better advice.

 

ah ok, well i managed to update to A08 so ill update anything else i can and see what happens

 

What GPU do you have anyways?

I think I've read the ATI 5780's needs vbios updated or something.

 

I have dual 4870s

 

Do as DR650SE said fresh install of windows will perform miracles.

 

ah ok it seems i have no other choice thanks for the help guys.

 

Just one more question, is there a thread on how to do a fresh clean and then how to install everything back properly?

 

Joker has a wikinposted in his sig I'm on my iPad right now so It is a little harder to search around but just find any of his posts in the a08 thread.

 

You can just insert the Win 7 dvd, install windows. Pretty simple. You may want to reformat the HDD, but that may remove your image backup or system restore that comes with the factory HDD. If you don't have that I wouldn't worry about it then. You can then just install the drivers in the order they are listed on the Dell Drivers download webpage.

 

so i tracked the problem down about the windows 7 slowing down and not responding programs, and its something to do with aero and graphic drivers i think, i found this solution on the Microsoft solutions forums,

Disabling "Desktop Window Manager Session Manager" fixed the "Not Responding" in various programs instantly; anti-virus programs had nothing to do with it.

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate: Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools -> Services -> Desktop Window Manager Session Manager -> Disabled

Has anyone looked into this in more detail?

 

I would uninstall your ATI drivers and run driver sweeper to make sure that the old driver is completely removed. I would then reinstall the most current drivers from Dell for the 4870s. Running driver sweeper from safemode would be the best way to do it so that you are in VGA mode when it is done. I just have one question, are you using a 240 watt power adapter? I would assume that you are because the bios would let you know and so would windows if you were not. These are just recommendation of things to look at.

 

I have looked into a similar issue, however the delay was btwn logging in and desktop loading. There was a thread on this 'awhile' ago and I posted a knowledge base article link to the thread. There was also a mention of certain background images causing problems, or I should say lack of images causing problems with session manager. Ultimately the solution was to disable the session manager service.
A clean OS install and all updated drivers should do the trick. If not then this OS issue bears further investigation.

 

ooh ok i see and these are all the newest drivers and in correct order as DR650SE said ?
Then it seems ill just have to get an external hard drive cause i dont wanna download all my steam games again.

Drivers & Downloads

 

Reinstalling the OS may end up being the only solution. But since this procedure is so involved I aways recommend the easy things first. You can
also verify the integraty of the system files by doing a scan from the elevated DOS prompt. This procedure is described on the net, just search for it. If that does not work then yes reinstalling the OS may be the only option left.

 

oh ok i see, i have the program advanced system care doing a scan and it found 11 problems with the system optimization and its defragging as we speak but the windows defragger didn't find all these files that needed defragging

 

That's good, optimization of your system will help speed it up a little. But
the scan I was talking about is a built-in capability that windows has to scan its system files for corrupted files. When having problems like you are having it is always a good idea to make sure that the system files are not corrupted.

 

ok thanks ill start that scan too.

 

So it seems i needed a registry cleaner and that fixed it up plus the reformat i suppose thanks everyone for your help