M17x BSOD possible hardware connection problem?

Well let me start by saying, this will not be a "I hate Alienware" thread.

I have had my Alienware m17x since August 26, 2010 and there were a few bugs. I received my alienware with a dvd burner that did not read/write or even detect media when inserted, so i called and they sent out a technician, 3 days later he came to my door, with new Optical drive and installed the drive.

DVD burner now works perfectly.

Before installing the new drive, the phone support at alienware prompted me to update the BIOS and all drivers that were out of date on my computer.

I had suffered the glitchy screen problems, and the AMD driver error which sometimes it repaired itself and would recover, other times it would BSOD and restart.

that was solved with the new A09 BIOS update, and the ATI driver and VBIOS update, the new problem that i am trying to solve is as follows:

This happened to me 3 times now, and now i have a probable cause, consistently. If i unplug my laptop and hold it with one hand, directly over the back of the laptop (around battery) this will cause my laptop to BSOD and crash. EVERY time.

now, i remember the technician saying that he didnt like how the video ribbon connected to the circuit board, said it wasnt a strong connection or something... im wondering if this connection is loose, or the sudden move of the laptop causes a short...

and it only happens when i move my hands around the back of the laptop, if i hold it at the sides, it doesnt BSOD. I assume if i was to jump with my laptop in my hands it would also BSOD.

Anyone else have this problem?

 

It's the free fall sensor on the HDD's. It's designed to park the heads when it detects that the laptop is in motion.

The resolution to this is. Do not jerk the laptop around when it's on. Although people commonly do, this is not a mini10, it's ment to be on solid ground.

I believe you can turn this feature off, but couldn't give you a link to a thread in here.

 

What does the windows event log show about the BSOD? My first thought would be:

1. Check the HDD Connection - make sure it is seated correctly.
2. Disable the free fall sensor and see if it still throws a BSOD when you hold it in the same place (check the control panel - I believe the interface is there).

 

Yup I had the exact same problem when I got my new machine. I couldn't even move it into the next room or a slight accidental bump to the table and it would immediately BSOD on me and restart.

I believe NZGeek had a cmd line you could use to turn off the hdd freefall sensor. You can also turn it on again anytime you like.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/519978-m17x-free-fall-sensor.html#post6729091

Cheers.

 

Just uninstall that(in red)



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well i get a blue screen, but its cut off, and has a black box border around pretty much half the screen, but i cant read what it says other than mini dump. but i have these two windows error logs from when it happened twice today while testing it.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 4105

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: a
BCP1: 0000000000000B70
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000001
BCP4: FFFFF80003093365
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
Bucket ID: X64_0xA_iaStor+4f496
Server information: d4f16176-9b2a-40fa-8e70-331392a8b985

and the second one about 10 minutes later when i just wanted to check it is:

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 4105

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: a
BCP1: 0000000000000B70
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000001
BCP4: FFFFF800030CF365
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
Bucket ID: X64_0xA_iaStor+4f496
Server information: c3926126-5027-41c8-8474-6b26083733ec

 

Iastor is mentioned in those entries. This is the intel matrix storage driver.
Like all others have mentioned, it is most probably the free fall sensor but if you disable it and still have the problem you know it comes from your hard disks.

 

thank you very much for the info, does this cause any harm if i disable this? I will try this out, and report whether that was the fix.

 

no harm will be caused to your machine, this is a useless driver that only makes problems on most machines. feel free to remove it.

 

Yeh I totally agree. It was so so annoying the first few days when I got my new R2 a few weeks back. I wasn't bashing or shaking the notebook. I was just trying to move it from room to room like I would any other notebook I used to own. Or sometimes I would accidentally bump the table and it would BSOD and restart every single time. So so annoying .

After I disabled it using the CMD line from NZgeek. All is good now. Haven't had a problem like that since. I can run around and dance with the machine bring it to clubs and stuff ehahaaha LOL. kidding!

Cheers.

 

oh yeah, thats the fix for sure, thanks guys for being helpful. Thanks NZgeek for the useful information. Now that this is fixed, and i have no other problems, i can truely enjoy my m17x. It is rather annoying find something cool on the internet, go to show someone else, and it restarts on you because you moved it. mine was so touchy that i would unplug my ac adapter too hard and it would restart, im assuming the sensor is near that back part of the laptop casing.

 

I'm glad I could help you all