Dell is making it really hard to love them

I have been researching getting a new laptop for about a year. I loved my old one, a HP, but the time had come. In the past, I have owned very few laptops. I tend to take very good care of them and that serves me well. So I wanted to get a laptop that would be bad as hell now and pretty good in the future. I wanted one I could keep for awhile, ya know? And as much as I hate to admit it, I allowed myself to go to www.dell.com for that laptop...

In the past, well, we all know Dells reputation. I can recall making fun of the Dell commercial many times very fondly, "Dude your getting a Dell. Your ed!" but I after much research, it would seem Dell had changed its ways. Maybe it was a reputable company. Maybe not. Who knows? I never believe what I read so I kept researching to try and find a consensus. The one that I found is Dell can be really great or really ty. Its a dice shoot. I decided to take my chance.

I found the Dell 1737 to be my best option. Good screen size, good graphics and great price. I got it on sale and the sort. So I ordered it, patiently waited Dells extremely stupid month wait that they have and finally got it. I was very pleased indeed.

I opened up the box and all looks fine. I power it up, good to go. But I noticed something. Oh no, I exclaimed, they forgot the backlighted keyboard. Not a big deal. I set it up and everything is well. After all is good, all software and personal stuff set up, time to take a break. Lets watch a movie on this brilliant screen. I can only tell you how good the first 30 seconds of Two Girls One Cup is because the $900 laptop I just bought in a cup of its own.

This over glorified paper weight has caused me more problems than I could have imagined a computer to. Ill list my problems

1. 90% of the time I watch a video, usually streaming on the internet, the screen freezes, sound skips over and over and I have to do a hard shut down.
---IVE ALREADY TRIED THIS---
Updating BIOS, drivers and every POS software relating to it. Dell replaced MoBo, Graphics Card and keyboard. Turned off Hardware Accel in Flash. ed with all Flash settings. Run diagnostics and its all fine. Pretty much everything on every forum that exists in Googles database (FYI, thats all of them)

So if anyone has a solution to suggest, I would appreciate it. I like the laptop but I cant stand it anymore. They are sending a replacement laptop BUT Im still not satisfied. I want to know WHAT WAS WRONG. Ill be House, you can be Cameron, Chase or Foreman, your choice. Lets figure this problem out.

And a little more ing: Dells customer service sucks. The only award its ever won is the tiest Customer Support award. 7 chat sessions, 4 calls, 3 emails (all of them promising me that what they are doing will fix it) later and I still cant watch a ing video on this bad laptop. For shame, Dell, for shame.

 

Which browser are you using to watch the video streaming from the internet? Which website?

This will go a long way to helping you out.

 

Every browser. Not related to the browser at all. Happened in Firefox, Opera, IE etc.

Ive also installed a codec pack (K-Lite I think)

I think the way we need to think about this is the path that the data has to take and where it could be going wrong. Obviously not the MoBo or Vid Card, because those were replaced... And I cant remember if the tech replaced the CPU or not... I forgot to look. But RAM is still the same.

I assure you the basics are covered.

 

I use to have that same problem on my Dell Inspiron 1420. It was due to a rogue FF plug in. I just play Flash on Chrome.

So does Flash movies skip if you play them in VLC?

 

Ive never used VLC but its worth a try.

Also, I just noticed something. When checking my specs on CPU-Z I noticed my BIOS Version was not the one I updated to. Even though it went through and flashed completely, the update didnt stick. Ive installed the latest, verified the flash and need to test it out a bit more. Boy, wont my face be red if it was a Troubleshooting 101 issue (In my defense, I did install it... I just didnt verify it installed correctly)

Either way, I get a new 1737 out of it... hehe... Ill test it out on VLC and through the original means and report my findings.

Oh and also... I was getting a error code in Event Viewer that seemed to correspond with when it crashed... 0x800010000 or something like that... I know it was 8 and a 10000 at the end... Pretty sure the one I showed is correct. Anyone know what that one means?

 

Probably time to hit up google. Few people, if anybody, memorize these error codes.

I just want to see if this skipping is related to the Flash plugin or to all Flash media/media files in general.

 

Update:

The problem is still happening but a clue has presented itself. The problem happened again, this time without video playing coming out of sleep mode... The windows little bells that plays when you wake it up was playing and skipped. Only this time it only lasted about 5 seconds and when it happened, my sound card was disabled (A little red X on the speaker icon in task bar) which leads me to believe I may have a corrupt audio driver that is causing the issue. So Im going to find my cards driver and codec and try that.

Oh and this issue has happened when I was playing Non-Flash videos (DVD etc.) so its not Flash related.

 

Well that helps a lot.

The old Inspirons had audio driver issues. I never read the threads cause it didn't happen to me.

Good luck there.

Does it skip if Klite is uninstalled?

 

Just finished re-installing drivers and IDT Codecs. Now it time to watch the newest Curb Your Enthusiasm to test it out. Hopefully Ill get through it this time. I really want to see this episode...

UPDATE:

Crashed again. But this time, after restarting and trying to change audio properties, windows said something like "Windows has detected audio enhancements from *My device* may be causing problems. Disable Enhancements?"

So I clicked yes but it didnt say which enhancements. So after some looking, I think it might have been the HDMI Audio Output enhancements that were causing problems. So I disabled some things on top of that so we will see if it works or not...

 

You should start out slow. Install the bugger and see if it works. Then turn on settings one by one. It helps you from being overwhelmed when troubleshooting. A notepad of all your changes also comes in handy.

 

After reading this and Looking at the error I think its memory, you may have a bad memory chip

What OS? Vista or 7 ( there s a big difference in how they work 7 is more stable then Vista)

Drivers?

Is it 32 or 64 bit?

finally for the love of God if you really have a problem coming on here and telling us will not fix it better then using the warranty and customer service, if its a defect ( which I think it is) Dell will fix it, but you have to contact them, they have no way to know its a problem until you do.

I just had my keyboard fixed, I called them and it was fixed here in my home within 24 hours ( today) it cost an extra 39 for the visit but in my case I did not want to send it out.

 

DRFP: Dell is already replacing the laptop. Ive been working with them on and off since it started happening (a half hour after turning it on for the first time) and they are sending me a replacement laptop already. I just want to figure out what this issue is because Im that kind of person and it may help somebody else in the near future fix one of their issues. Also, it costs you money to get a tech sent to you? Ive had 2 techs out. Not a penny extra.

64 Bit Windows Vista, all drivers (and I do mean all) are up to date. Probably unrelated but Catalyst Control Center will not launch (which also means a lot of my video settings I have not been able to mess with because it wont) and Ive been working on that issue as well.

Its very frustrating. I feel like I have not even got to use the computer yet. All Ive been doing is fixing it. But I NEED to figure out what was wrong now. Its a matter of curiosity. Ive done everything I know how to do (Ive been in the support/repair field for Macs and PCs for years) and thats a lot. Ive done everything I can find that I didnt know how to do. Now its all a mystery to me. Somethings wrong and I dont know what it is. That will not do.

EDIT: Also, Ive been leading towards a memory defect as well. The error seems like a memory dump problem and Im pretty sure the techs have not replaced the RAM. Before I send this one back, Im going to swap out RAM and test it out. See if that was the issue. At this point, in my mind, it has to be a hardware defect and nothing we do short of replacing it will fix it.

 

I don't think it's a memory error. Because that's one of the things Dell's diagnostic software tests.

 

Agreed. Most serious memory errors will cause your machine to halt during POST anyway, and it's rare indeed that memory passes POST and then causes problems. Swapping it out though is not going to hurt.

Personally I think it's because you were watching 2 girls 1 cup; your laptop was disgusted and has therefore decided never to work for you properly.

But seriously, it does sound like it's audio related. Could be drivers, but not convinced because Dell would have no doubt had you update all of them by now, in fact you even mentioned that you've done this yourself anyway.

Did you ever find anything on that error code in the event viewer?

 

Might seem like a simple question but... Did you ever reinstall the OS and re-do the drivers from scratch to see if that fixes the problem?

Sometimes when you update drivers, they don't update cleanly. Hell, I've dealt with drivers that don't even uninstall cleanly let alone update properly...looking at you ATI...

 

True but I had a bad Dimm that the test did not detect, I found out only by replacing it and Magic, the error went away.

So I don't know? WIthout seeing it and trying it It could or could not be?

 

This is true. Bad Dimms can still POST. It takes a MEMTEST to fish those out.

 

Dells (and Windows for that matter) diagnostics suck hard core. Ive narrowed it down to a problem with ACPI and Power Management, Audio etc. Beyond my scope of repair. However, the problem has gotten worse. It freezes randomly doing anything for now on so Im pretty sure its not a Audio/Video SPECIFIC issue. Meaning that I dont think its made worse by either of those, although I guess ACPI is directly related to them.

I just got off the phone with Dell and finally got some solid info on my system replacement. I have a smile on my face because after all my ing, they upgraded my system, without telling me... Here are the upgrades they gave me:

Model: From 1737 to 1745
Processor: From 2.0 Ghz Intel w/1 MB cache to a 2.2 Ghz T6600 w/2 MB L2 (The one I wanted originally but never ordered to get my system faster... didnt work)
Display: From normal stock LCD to 17'' Bright LED w/TrueLife (havent seen this in real life personally but hear it makes a WORLD of difference... very exited to see it)
RAM: From 4 Gb of DDR 2 to 4 Gb of DDR 3 (DDR 3 is only upgrade, but I will notice it both in power consumption and speed, Im sure)
HDD: From 320 5400 RPM to 320 7200 RPM
Graphics: From ATI 3550 (I think) to ATI 4570 (Both 512... havent researched difference yet)

And as a added bonus, my Win 7 kit shipped today. Not sure if Im upgrading yet, still waiting for initial reports, but Im still happy to have it... Dell is redeeming themselves a bit I would say. My girlfriends Dell (Inspiron something or other) had its hard drive take a a few days ago. They replaced it and I installed it today. Running like a champ...

Dell is making it easier for me to love them again...

Oh and I still dont know what is wrong with my current one but I want to find out someday...

ADVICE NEEDED: Is it wise to swap out Hard drives or should I just get a clean start on the new one? Id hate to have to transfer all my data again... Also, anyone know a easy way to transfer data from one laptop to another (I said EASY, burning DVDs isnt easy to me) When I worked for Apple, we had this cool program built in that did it. Cant remember what it was called. Any ideas on something similar for Windows?

PS- Thanks everyone who helped me out and posted here. You guys rock like no others!

 

What about the temperature of your CPU, graphics card and whatever has a sensor build in?

And does it happen if the battery is in or out (battery out off course with power plugged in). Or doesn't it matter?

 

You shouldn't try to move one installation into a different machine.

You should use Windows Easy transfer. It will try to move as many programs as it can and then list the programs and data you will have to reinstall.