M15x annoyances

Hello there, first time alienware owner here with a couple of issues with my M15x. Wondered if anyone could tell me a way to solve my problems.

1. When I have a disk in the drive, every minute or so it revs up and spins, making a fair bit of noise in the process, it's just a bit irritating. This happens even if I am not using the disk.

2. When I go into the alienware command centre, and try to change something like the width of the vertical scroll section on my touch pad, it comes up with the error "Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component." and doesn't apply the new setting I gave it.

3. My p button is a little less sensitive than the others, leading to my typing missing "p"s from time to time.


I'm not holding out much hope for 3, but the rest I was hoping someone might be able to help me with?

Thanks,

 

Disabe indexing and other options in the HD

Reinstall command center

not at the computer to walk you through it

click my computer then right click C: then click properties and it should all be there

 

Thanks for that. I can disable indexing on the C drive, but I can't do that for the D drive, which is the one doing all the spinning and making the noise. Will that still work?

I think I may have tried reinstalling command centre, but my memory is a bit fuzzy, so I'll try do it again!

 

I'm afraid I tried uninstalling then reinstalling command centre, and I still get the same errors.

Edit: actually, it doesn't matter because now the changes save anyway.

 

Hey the d drive is the cd drive ...

 

for #1 go here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=442411
#3 call tech support get new keyboard

 

That's great, thanks for the help guys. Still have one question though, I read the section in that forum that says "This is a Windows 7 issue, I think, and it took me a while to narrow down the problem: It's the virtual disk service loader, which loads (surprise!) the virtual disk service. For whatever reason, the service loader loads the service every 60 seconds, and it must stop almost immediately thereafter or else the service loader wouldn't load it again.

"This cause me HUGE problems when I was playing blue ray DVD's because the movie would hiccup every time the service loader started. So...I went into the services console, and I disabled the Virtual Disk service. That was three weeks ago, and to date I haven't had any problems, nor has my DVD drive been spinning once a minute and annoying the hell out of me.

The virtual disk service executable is vds.exe. It is loaded by vdsldr.exe, which is causing your problem (you can check this--look at the task manager...right before your drive starts spinning, you will see vdsldr.exe pop up for a second). If you disable the virtual disk service and kill all instances of vds.exe and vdsldr.exe, you should be good to go.

Not sure why this problem arises, and I never did find anything about it on Google."

vdsldr.exe does pop up just before it starts spinning, so this is exactly my problem. However I'm not sure how I go about disabling the virtual disk service, and what it's actual purpose is? If I were ever to need it?

Cheers again.

 

maybe try task manager. I wish i can help more, but i have a clean install of win7 and took most of the dell crap driver out, so i don't have that.

 

Thanks again for the help guys, I located the file, then after a bit of fiddling finally convinced windows to let me move it out of the way, and now the problem has stopped. Let's just hope I don't need that file .

You've been a great help, cheers.

 

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, and look for the Virtual Disk Service. Disable it, and then use task manager to kill all instances of vds.exe or vdsldr.exe (they won't come back after you disable the service).

I still have not figured out what the virtual disk service is for, but if you ever decide you need it just go back to services and enable it. If you want to watch Blu-Rays without the movie stopping literally every 60 seconds, though, disable the service and kill the executables.

--Hank

 

Two Dead Pixels (Have been there from the start)

Can't Play NFS (lol A03 Bios FTW... FAIL)

HDD making weird sound, if/when watching movie, the movie stops for 1-2 sec, then resumes. Occurs sometimes rapidly.

Only 3 USB Ports... (Need 5 for: G13, G35, G9, External HDD, USB Flash Stick)

Displayport not HDMI: I know Displayport PWN's HDMI but noboddy uses it yet.. (And i know, i have a converter)

If i had it with me i probably could think of more
But. I still Love the machine

 

Annoying is the fact the M11x has more usb ports and HDMI (even though the converter is like $20) and the HDD makes that clicking sound. All fairly minor but annoying I guess. One thing that bothers me is the sound pops and hisses when you use headphones in the middle port, even when idle with no sound playing.

 

How slow the M15x runs while on battery is annoying....even on high performance setting.