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    M15X stutters/freezes when picking it up and moving it around.

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by EGM92, Jun 8, 2010.

  1. EGM92

    EGM92 Notebook Evangelist

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    Hey guys,

    Recently i had my video card, 260gtx, fail on me. I had the tech come over to replace the screen and the video card itself, I watch him do every step with the service manual and we both didn't miss anything. I was very satisfied with the work that the tech did (unlike all of the other techs who had physically damaged the laptop somehow).

    The laptop is pretty much stationary unless I'm moving it from my office to my bedside table or something. Well if I pick up the laptop and by the back lefthand side and bottom righthand side it'll stall the entire system, I'm not applying any stress to the body. The entire system will freeze until I put it down. If I'm in the middle of listening to a song or something it'll go "GRRRRRRRRRR" from the speakers (not the HDD) as soon as I put the system down it stops and continues to work like nothing happened. After testing it a couple of times, the video drivers fail, screen goes black then it reloads. I get a windows message saying the video drivers have stopped working. I ran a couple of HDD tests everything is functioning well within safety perimeters.


    I'm going to make a video of this but that'll have to wait till I get my camera back. Hopefully someone will be able to help without me having to shoot a video.

    Anyone have any idea what's wrong?? anyone experience something like this before?
     
  2. inap

    inap .........................

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    could be the free fall acting up when you you move it.
     
  3. EGM92

    EGM92 Notebook Evangelist

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    free fall sensor activates when it sense G's. I could pick it up from the Back righthand side and front lefthand side and the problem doesn't happen. I'm going to shoot a small video as soon as I get a chance to show what's wrong.
     
  4. Wattos

    Wattos Notebook Deity

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    well, just to be sure, can you disable the free fall sensor temporarly? There is an option for that in the control panel.
     
  5. EGM92

    EGM92 Notebook Evangelist

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    Well as I was doing the test, the system went blank then froze. I'm on the phone troubleshooting with an agent from Quebec (thick French accent) who barely has a grip on the English language. Seems the motherboard just went as it's not booting any longer :( Just my luck. HDD is fine, I booted it on my desktop and its working like a charm no errors, no stalls/freezes etc.
     
  6. inap

    inap .........................

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    try disconnecting the coin battery then do a power drain and reconnect, see if that could get it to boot up. good luck man.
     
  7. EGM92

    EGM92 Notebook Evangelist

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    we went through that, it's been confirmed that the Mobo is fried. Great :(
     
  8. inap

    inap .........................

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    dude sorry to hear that bro, hope they take card of you right.
     
  9. EGM92

    EGM92 Notebook Evangelist

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    They're going to send someone over with a mtoherboard sometime within the next 2 days. Hopefully its the last guy he knew exactly what he was doing and was really great to talk to. Shared a lot of inside info :p I should get used to stuff breaking around me, I went through 3 164x studio XPS series laptops before I bought the m15x.

    If stuff keeps going this way I'm leaving Dell/Alienware for life and it will go with a strong recommendation that my work (One of the Big Five Banks in Canada) Cancel all ties with Dell and move over to Lenovo, we did it with Toshiba and my Admins and IT personnel are fed up as it is.
     
  10. inap

    inap .........................

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    well thing like this tend to happen with high performance rigs, so much power and heat. all manufactures with similar setups will have these problems, but out of all of them i consider dell warranty and service the best. thats why i have a 4 yr warranty,lol.