Studio XPS 1645: random crash problem

For anyone curious, the modded drivers and Flash 10.1 beta 2 works like a charm. No problems at all, and I've been looping video for hours from various websites. Before, it would freeze up within 4-5 minutes. I'm no hardware expert, but it strikes me as strange that certain 1645's require a beta version of Flash and modded drivers to work correctly.

 

Glad to hear it worked Orry. Be sure to leave iaTa a rep because I think he was the one to suggest this in one of the many XPS 1645 freezing threads. Certainly fixed my problems with the XPS as well!

 

Orry, this has fixed my problems so far. No freezes and web videos play great. So far so good. Thanks!

 

Would anyone please direct me to where I can get the modded drivers and flash 10.1 beta 2?
I'm still having the lockup issue so far. Thanks in advance.

 

wow.. neat

 

Hi,

It's been a few day.
Are you folks who installed the ATI modded drivers and flash 10.1 beta 2 still happy?

I'm new to this so sorry for being so dumb.
I've not done this befor.

should i upgrade the BIOS first?

how do i see what ATI drivers and flash drivers i have?

can i just go to ATI's site, download the mobility modder and then the driver, install the mobility modder, then from the modder install the ATI driver?


with the flash driver do i just download it into a folder and click on it to install it and it knows where to install itself?

Thanks
D

 

We were all new at these things at some point.

I don't seem to be having problems with full screen flash video anymore, but I'm not exactly sure what solved it (if anything). I do not have the modded ATI drivers installed.

I would recommend updating the Bios just to have the latest one.

For installing the beta of Flash for Firefox, you can go to this url:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

I don't use IE so I don't have instructions for that browser.

So try updating the bios and flash for Firefox and see how your computer does.

 

How do i find out what BIOS I have?

i figured it out

 

Click the Start button and type in "System Information", which will list the item "System Information" in the start menu. Click on that to open it up and highlight "System Summary" on the left. In the list on the right, for me, next to "BIOS Version/Date" it says "Dell Inc. A03, 12/8/2009", which is the latest bios for the 1645.

 

My system crashing issue isn't really related to flash. It could just freeze suddenly out of nowhere, even when it is idle. Most often happens during the first windows startup after entering the login password.
Anyone with any possible solution pls help. I'm afraid by always forcing my system to shutdown by pressing the shutdown button could make it worse.

 

Yes, the full screen flash video issue is really a separate problem.

I also experience the random freezes and I cannot figure out any pattern. It is definitely not temperature related since I've monitored temperatures and they have been cool when the lockups have happened.

 

I'm curious, do you guys have solid state drives in your system or regular hard drives?

I had the freeze issue as well and it went away when I uninstalled the Intel Matrix Manager software. I also turned off the scheduled defrag of the hard drive in windows since SSDs don't need to be defragmented.

 

FYI, I have a regular hard drive. I do not have defrags scheduled.

 

I'm using the standard HDD also. No scheduled tasks nor Intel Matrix Manager software.

 

I have the SSD, this issue is hitting both standard HDD & SSD owners. Have not done a wipe & reinstall, but have the latest ATI driver, A03 Bios, & Beta 2 Flash. No more crashes during internet video, but 3 random crashes & have only had it 2 days. The next thing is to try the wipe & reinstall; anyone have an update?

 

I have random shutdowns. They are few and far apart so i'm not sure if this is related to what you mean. I've never had a "crash". But it just shutsdown and it's not temp related cuz I'm always monitoring temp.

Unrelated: I have to boot ubuntu like 2 times to get in. It doesnt work on the first try almost everytime. it just hangs @ the splash screen ughh...

 

I have the random freeze 5 times after I got my XPS 1645, after read forum, I decided to go a head and format using the CD available, and viola , no more random freeze.

It seems like the original Windows/Mod/Drivers has some issue.

After all the drivers from the CD installed, I had 2 missing device that not recognized, base system..., it is the RICOH Card reader, which not available in the CD, goto Dell to download the driver and everything will be in order.

Since the original setup is problematic, I even remove the system recovery partition, so I have 18GB more HDD space.

Good luck!

 

Random crashes in windows 7 could be due to your antivirus programme. Uninstall it and see what happens.
I had similar crashes on another Dell, and on removing my AVG antivirus, the crashes stopped altogether. Try

 

In case this helps. As soon as I installed the Creative SB X-Fi MB, I experienced two complete solid freezes (mouse, etc. all frozen). Once removing it, I have not had this problem.

I also did a full clean install.

I also happen to have two 1645's in front of me (a replacement). I swapped my hard drive into the new machine and it has worked great with FW A03. I did notice that the new machine has slightly slower Hynx Memory (7.3 on windows score) vs. the other 1645 with Samsung Memory (7.4 score). Both systems have run pretty flawlessly (same HD/Install in testing) with the exception of the two freezes that occurred right after instally the X-Fi drivers.

Maybe try removing those - you can always reinstall them if you have the disc.

Hope this helps,

 

Thanks. I'll give that a shot and report back.

I did try removing AVG antivirus (replaced with Microsoft Security Essentials) but this did not stop the lockups.

 

i get random crashes when watching video in full screen using KMPlayer.

 

As for A/V - if those tend to be the problem... Try Nod32. It's been great thus far for me on Vista and Win7 64-bit.

 

..... im using latest version of NOD32

 

I haven't had any problems using VideoLAN's VLC.

 

I've been having random freezes. Happens once or twice a week. No pattern I can see. I did a fresh format and install of Win7 pro on arrival (it came with vista), Microsoft Security Essentials for AV. 4 gigs of RAM. The freeze I had last night was when I was running IE (I usually use FF but was demoing a product to customers) on a website with just HTML, nothing else running. I was using my 90 Watt adapter instead of the 130 watt. It's kinda annoying.

Edit: I do have the X-Fi software installed as well. I'll try uninstalling it and see how that works.

 

How is it on system resources? is it as light as MSE?

 

I also got random freezes about once or twice a week. It's really random, most of the time was on the login screen before inputting any password, or as soon as it logged in after I input a password. Only those 2 occurring for me.

If no freeze at least 5-10 minutes after logged in, it will then runs normally throughout the days, no matter how many hours it is turned on.
But if I reboot the machine, it will have a chance to freeze again on the login screen.

Might there be something wrong with the startup items/processes?

 

For me, almost all of my freezes happen immediately after the computer finishes playing a notification sound of some sort (new email, login sound, TweetDeck notification, User Access Control sound, IE navigation sound, etc.)

 

also when using "Utorrent" i get random system crashes

 

I can't offer any explination why, but I too get these crashes (hard lockups) from time to time for seemingly no reason. I can be anywhere from blank desktop to several applications loaded up.

The last time it happened, I had just finished typing and immediately started moving the mouse around. As soon as my finger touched the touchpad, the system was toast.

Yes, I've got the 6GB of RAM, and yes I've tested this with 2 different Win7 installs, as well as gentoo (a couple lockups during a compile)

 

THIS MIGHT HAVE FIXED MY LOCKUP PROBLEM! I removed SB X-Fi MB six days ago and have not yet had a single lockup. I'd usually get 1 to 4 or so lockups per day, sometimes more. I have NOT done a clean install of Windows.

I'll report back again in a week if I still don't have any lockups.

 

I am having an issue with mine. It doesn't freeze very often now that I have gone through and checked all of the drivers but I do have an issue booting. I have already done a clean install. Mine hangs on the windows splash screen for a min or 2 and then take a long time to load the desktop after logging in. If I boot in safe mode it hangs on Classpnp.sys and disk.sys. I have not been able to track down the cause of this but I am tired of waiting close to 5 min for the system to boot. I also have another issue that I think is related from what I have read online. My dvd drive reads very slow. I was copying a file off of a cd and it was only transferring at about 30kb/s. I hope someone can help me with this issue.

 

I also had this same problem! I had this random lockup exactly when
- receiving a Windows Live messenger (toaster) popup notification (the popup is still displayed when the system froze)
- connecting a USB keyboard --> which triggers a 'new device added' notification sound.

I guess this might narrow down the main cause of the lockup.., hopefully the Dell engineers can take a look at it.

 

Have you tried uninstalling the Creative SB X-Fi MB software (or doing a clean Windows install)? I haven't had a single lockup since removing this software. And that's through about seven days of heavy use. For two months I had lockups every day, but apparently no more. I never did a clean install of Windows, FYI.

 

yeah, i did a clean re-install of Windows 7, but included the X-Fi MB back as well. i'll probably try uninstalling it when the next lockup happens again...

 

I'm having hard-locks too.. the mouse just freezes.
I just got it and it had been working fine for a week..now suddenly it freezes.
Also i noticed a midi sound playing when loading up games..then it crashes:S???
It's like someone hits a keyboard key. I've never heard this before?

I updated to A03 and installed latest ATI drivers with mobility modder.. what's going on?!


edit: are you guys running on external monitors by any chance?

 

hey, i just had a freeze while running on an external monitor. (i believe it's not the cause as i remember freezing even without connecting 1..)
This time it froze when clicking on a [> Computer [> DDrive (D tab in the Explorer navigation bar to go back to Drive D.. --> that is supposed to trigger a 'flip' kind of sound but the mouse pointer just froze there.

Now trying without the XFi-MB software, hopefully there'll be some updates soon if it's the cause...

 

I dont have the X-fi software and i haven't had any problems with the 1645. Maybe thats the cause?
btw I have the integrated sound card with SRS premium sound

 

Ah, actually just experienced my first freeze on my 1645, exactly as described here. It occurred just as it began playing a skype sound. Clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate with latest drivers direct from Dell. No XFi.

It looks likely it is a driver issue with the sound card.

 

Double check that you don't have the SB X-Fi MB software installed. In the window where you uninstall applications, the name didn't start with "Creative". It was listed closer to the bottom. I don't remember the exact name. I had lockups for two straight months until I got rid of it. Lockups were always right after a notification sound (of about any kind) played.

 

I just had my first freeze outside of a game!!
It just hard-froze in the middle of word (caps lock didnt work..mouse froze)

AGAIN it made this midi-piano sound before it froze, what is it?!?

Why is everyone talking about creative X-fi? I have a IDT soundcard

Exactly!!

 

I've had this laptop for a month, and so far it's been only freezing (sometimes) in Firefox on two sites:

- YouTube
- Napster

It occurs when I try to play video/music on those websites, not when visiting the sites. I'm assuming it's the problem with my browser or Windows 7? It never happens on my work computer (Vista).

The strange thing is that just restarting the frozen browser (alt+ctrl+del) doesn't help - I have to turn the computer on and off, and then it works fine. It happens about once a week, I don't know what the problem is...

 

It's the problem of flash I think. The 10.1 beta should fix these problem.

 

Wow, thanks so much, I'll try to upgrade it tonight I wasn't sure what exactly was causing the problem!

 

I was having the same issue (specifically, when playing full screen flash video, the computer would so radically slow down that the screen went black and barely refreshed. The cursor would still move though, barely). Updating to the latest beta version of flash solved my problem.

The lockup issue is different. It's a hard lockup and nothing moves, not even the mouse cursor.

 

Sound Blaster X-Fi MB is software. I believe this is it:

http://www.creative.com/oem/products/software/x-fimb.asp

I don't have a Creative sound card, but this software was installed on my laptop. Do you see anything like that listed in your Programs and Features control panel?

 

Guys, i've been able to reproduce the problem as many times as I wanted. I've created a youtube video of the crash, including the sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMeBQFk_E0

 

Does it lock up when the laptop is muted? Does it lock up if you have the sound card disabled? What audio related software is listed in the Programs and Features control panel?

 

Only sound related program installed is IDT audio (I did a clean win7 install when i got the laptop).

I can't check the mute/soundcard problem now because i've reconnected my external screen..i now have to wait for the problem to return.

But if it was a soundcard problem..why would disconnecting the external screen temporarily fix it?

 

I don't have any other ideas. Also, my lockups were always occurring after notification sounds played, and I've never connected an external monitor.