HELP! M1330 randomly goes into a sleep like state

So, it's happened 3 times already, 1 time during when I was playing quake and 2 times during unreal tournament

I would be owning some enemies and then the screen suddenly goes black and all the leds turn off except the power led...

And then I can't get hte laptop to do anything and am forced to just hold down the power button to restart the thing...

Is this a video driver problem, vista problem, or something else?

Thanks,
Freelancer

 

Check settings in the following order:
1. Power
2. Video Driver
3. System, CPU and GPU temperatures

If Power and Video Driver settings are okay, then your system could be overheating and shutting off, so check the temperatures. Hope you haven't overclocked anything.

 

I don't know how to overclock =P
I wouldn't risk doing so since I'm not experienced with these things

Power shouldn't be a problem, the laptop is plugged in
The video driver recently updated by microsoft's updates thing
The temperature should be fine...
Iunno, it's weird

 

I had the exact same problem for my 1st m1330...what I did was requesting for a replacement system...It's definitely not a software issue.

 

Really?
A replacement?
Ahhh....I've spent more than 20 hours trying to fix things on this laptop
Installing stuff/changing settings/calling dell to come switch out my motherboard which in the end didn't do anything/etc.

Sigh...
I'll think about it

I'm also afraid that the replacement will turn out to have more defects...
For the m1330 I have right now, the only 2 problems with it, other than the gaming/screen blacking out thing, are cpu whine and this tiny gap and the top of the screen...

I have no dead pixels and I also have the nice Toshiba screen...

 

yup, sounds like the CPU or GPU are overheating, and they are turning off the system in order to prevent them frying up!

Does it happen when you are just on the net, or word processing, etc? Or only when doing insensive things like gaming?

 

Nope, only gaming...

So it's actually normal?
So then, the whole laptop not responding when it's in that state thing is normal right?
It locks all the buttons because it's trying to cool itself down?

 

I have the same problem with mine. It happens during game play. But once it happened while i was doing nothing.

I have a new system (but they sent it with motherboard revision a01, so i'm making them replace it again.) The new one has a perfect screen, i'm afraid i'm gonna get another crappy screen. But i haven't tested it long enough to see if it's gonna start putting itself ot half-assed sleep again.

From the guy above who said it turns itself off. It doesn't turn itself off. the power led is on and the bluetooth led is on, wifi goes off, and the fans keep spinning. I think the load light is also on, can't remember though. It responds to nothing except holding the power button for 10 secs.

It's annoying and I'd be very embarrassed if this happened in public (like in class )

EDIT: I also found that setting the power settings to high performance before playing games causes it to not shut itself off (Well it doesn't actually turn off, but it might as well be off) My original guess was it for some reason thought i wasn't using it and tried (and failed) to go to sleep.

 

I just ordered a replacement...
I've posted this question else where but no one is replying so I'll post it here:
The dell rep said that once my newlaptop arrives, I could just swap the harddrives so that I don't have to reinstall everything/etc. But wouldn't there be compatibility issues? Is it really that ez? Just swapping it?

 

I responded to this in your other thread, and my answer stays the same...NO!

Cos Window 2000/XP/Vista all create unique hardware ID's! As soon as the hardware changes, a new ID is needed. But if a MAJOR piece of hardware is changed (such as CPU or mobo) then a fresh install is needed, cos it's the equivilent of installing one copy of Vista on several machines! M$ wont allow you to do it!

 

Oh sorry,
danggg
The dell rep told me wrong then >_>
argh, it's going to take up so much time reformatting/reinstalling everything again...arghghghgh

 

When the dell tech came to switch out my mobo, I didn't have to do a fresh install...all he had to do was re type in the service tag..and that was it

The harddrive wasn't affected by the new mobo at all..

Iunno...

[sorry for the double post, i forgot that I had already posted >_<]

 

thats probably why...the hardware ID will probably be linked to the service tag stored on the BIOS...your new system will have a diff tag.

You can try and swap 'em over to see if it works, but I highly doubt it will.

 

I'll probably just call dell and ask once I get the new system...

 

Well...as I upgraded my Vista to ultimate, I just back everything up then use the easy transfer option and I can finish restoring everything within a day. But still, it is annoying. Also, my current M1330 doesn't have this problem. I am wondering what are the combinations to have this happen...:-/