M17x: Complete freeze

I've been using this computer for the better part of a year now without serious problems. But during the past week I've had three freeze-ups, each requiring a hard reboot. Each time it has happened, I was doing something different.

First time: I was watching House M.D. online. Uptime: More than a week. Video paused and there was no feedback from mouse or keyboard input until I did a hard reboot.

Second Time: I was zooming in on a photo in Photoshop. Uptime: 1.5 days. Screen froze in mid-zoom and there was no feedback from mouse or keyboard input until I did a hard reboot.

Third time: I was tracking an order from inlinewarehouse.com. Uptime: 2.5 days. Screen flickered and went blank! No feedback from mouse or keyboard input until hard reboot. I even tried pressing Cntrl+Esc key down to bring up the Windows Menu and typed "shutdown -f" and waited a couple minutes. This was my way of confirming that there was no response to mouse or keyboard input while the screen was blank.

These are so completely unrelated that I'm inclined to think that the problem is hardware related. But, intermittent problems like this are difficult to track.

Also, a different set of applications had been open each time this has happened.

I had the A03 BIOS installed for the first two freeze-ups. I had the A05 BIOS installed for the latest freeze-up. About a week before the first freeze-up, I installed the latest GeForce 200M drivers from Nvidia.com.

As a final note. I have been "thinking" I've been seeing minor fluctuations in screen brightness. But it's so subtle and periodic that I've been thinking it's my own eyes and not the screen. However, I've never noticed anything like that before these freeze-ups.

Any help and insight will be appreciated.

 

I had similar issues like this a couple weeks back. Try running a diagnostic test. When you boot up the notebook hit F12 to bring up the boot menu and then select Diagnostics. Run the tests and see if you get any errors or warnings.

I have also heard other people report these as just nvidia graphic driver problems however I thought mine and others could also be hardware related.

In the end my problem turned out to be a bad LCD or a bad LCD invertor to be precise. Dell sent out a tech to replace it and it seems fine now. Cheers.

 

Hi reborn2003,

I appreciate your feedback. I'm going to try doing the diagnostics when I have some time (I seem to recall that it takes awhile).

If the possibility exists that it could be the latest Nvidia drivers, I'm wondering which driver version I should revert to as a test to see if the problem goes away.

 

If your using the P07 graphics driver released recently on Dell's website then there appears to be affecting a number people with lockups etc. I recommend going back to the P06 driver to see if this has any effect.

 

This is the driver I'm using, from Nvidia's site:

Verde Notebook Release 256
Version: 258.96 WHQL
Release Date: 2010.07.19
Operating System: Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 64-bit
Language: English (U.S.)
File Size: 143 MB

I've been using the most recent releases from Nvidia thus far without problem. Has anyone experienced lock-ups with this driver?

 

I have had my m17x for about a year and just the last few months, my laptop will randomly lock up. Sometimes it will do this twice with an hour of booting up the laptop, other times it will run for days without locking.

To answer your question, I have yet to successfully install the new NVIDIA drivers. Nearing the end of the install, the LCD goes blank and will not turn on when rebooting the PC. I have to go into safe mode and delete the video card drivers, then reboot and let Windows Vista Ultimate x64 re-install.

I have also tried installing different versions of the Dell video card drivers and older versions of the drivers from the NIVIDIA website...nothing seems to work.

 

If you go back to the A rev Dell drivers, does the problem go away?

 

Just had my fourth lock-up, while viewing an episode of House MD online. My screen and sound scrambled and locked in a scrambled state. Hard reboot was necessary.

I am presently going back to the "Dell" P07 drivers. I couldn't find the P06 drivers.

I'll report back after the next lock-up. If someone knows where the P06 drivers are, I'll try those next time I lock-up.

 

Just had my fifth and sixth failures, both today. I'm presently using the P07 drivers with the A05 BIOS.

First failure: Windows reported the following error twice after my display flickered on and off a few times:

Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

Both notices were shown within 2 minutes of one another. Then within two minutes again, I got the blue screen and a core dump.

I rebooted, ran virus and mal-ware scans (all clean), did Windows updates, defragged the drive, and continued on.

Then as I got back to work, my screen flickered and went blank and stayed that way until I did a hard reboot.

Now I'm going to roll back/forward to the A03 video drivers, which were apparently released only two days ago.

Any thoughts?

 

I just checked the A03 driver. It is the same exact driver as the P07 driver. So, nothing is going to change for me now that I've made this update. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

go back to P06, apparently some R1 users are having issues with 2xx.xx drivers (P07 and A03 are 2xx.xx). that will solve ur random freeze.

 

I'll do that. Does anyone know if Dell plans to fix these random freezes so R1 users can have up to date drivers?

 

similar issues here with my R2..I get freezes requiring a forced reboot everytime I suspend or hibernate.

 

Try the new VBIOS for HD5870 GPU's along the latest dell beta drivers:

NEW BETA VBIOS for HD5870 Mirrors and Installation Guide