Inspiron e1705/9400 memory parity error

First of all, I AM AN IDIOT!! I just wanted to clear that up so I can say this:

My bro bought one of these 1705's and it worked well for him, but he did not want vista. He had programs that would not run on vista and vista related problems. So we got a *legal* copy of XP from Wal-mart and I reformatted and reinstalled. Here is where I did the first stupid thing. I deleted all the partitions (but the quick media one) thinking they were vista-oriented (I still have XP and don't know much about and don't care about vista). So I deleted the backup that could of restored his lappie to the bloatware filled default vista just like he had when he opened the box.

Well he got everything setup to his liking and everything was going fine, until one night it began randomly restarting. It was about 10 minutes apart and would do it with no warning. It was fully updated, had anti-virus and firewall protection, and had no hardware errors.

Well later that week it restarted on me and then windows would not reboot. It kept trying to boot into the media mode. I restarted with the windows disc to repair and the windows partition was gone. No trace of it on the system. So I reformatted again (getting rid of the media partition) and reinstalled windows yet again. Got everything mostly set up and then later I got a Memory Parity error BSOD. It will still randomly restart and I am out of ideas.

The memory would be the first place to start, I know. But it would not have caused the hard drive to wipe itself... So Im utterly confused. Any ideas?

 

Call Dell see if they can help... or give you a new system?

 

Yea thats probably what is going to end up happening... I shudder at the thought of trying to get through Dell's infamous tech support...

 

I'm not sure if anyone even visits this discussion, but I'm sure somewhere down the line someone will search for "Memory parity e1705" in Google as I did, and I'm happy to be able to give some answers.

First of all, lemme say that just recently a friend let me have his e1705 laptop to use to help him do some web development work. He did warn that "It crashes to blue screen randomly" saying it was "some kind of overheating issue". Sure enough, after the laptop sat running for anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, it would go right to the dreaded bluescreen of death that I know you all have already come to loathe.

Well that would never do. This was a really nice laptop - 2ghz dual core processor, 2 gigs of RAM - and I wasn't just going to accept that this was something it "just did". So what to do?

First, I considered it might be a drivers issue, which doesn't make a LOT of sense, since it was a memory issue, but what the hell. I went to Dell and updated all their software. Rebooted, held my breathe and waited... CRASH

Then I scanned for viruses, malware, spyware, and general disk errors. Reboot, wait... CRASH

I understood that laptops don't generally just start overheating so this was most likely a cooling issue. Unfortunately I will say it's a freaking 2 hour ordeal to get to the fans, but it is possible. Please note that doing this yourself WILL VOID YOUR DELL WARRANTY, but if you're brave enough and you have a small screwdriver, you can find everything you need here : http://repair4laptop.org/disassembly_dell.html. Note that you will have to remove the LCD screen to open the case (yes really) but it's not as bad as it sounds.

So I open the case and remove both cooling fans (on cools the processor and one cools the video card) and I was horrified to find a mutant caterpillar living in each one. Okay, not really, but the size of the dust bunny in each was amazing. This thing sucks up dust better than my vacuum cleaner! It was apparent that this was the problem. With this giant dust ball blocking the sensitive equipment the fan was supposed to be cooling, this was obviously the problem! The parts were overheating from not being cooled and BAM! I cleaned and dusted the internal parts thoroughly, flossed dust from the blades of the fans, reassembled the laptop, patted myself on the back, powered it up and all was well... for about 45 minutes. CRASH!

After much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, I decided to test the memory directly. I had already run burn-in tests and the memory passed with flying colors. This is because memory errors are somewhat random on the chips. Burn-in tests can assault the chips, but if it doesn't hit the problem area in just the right way, the memory will work. I mean, you can boot into Windows and use it for a while, right? No reason why the memory wouldn't pass a test. But just to be sure, I took out one of the chips and rebooted. The laptop actually seemed more responsive on the one chip. Maybe this is it, I thought. I used it for about 15 minutes and CRASH!

This is going nowhere, I thought. Such a shame too because it's a really nice laptop. So I swapped to the other chip, rebooted... and it's been running for 2 days straight. Hasn't even hiccuped. I can now say with at least 95% assuredness that the problem is solved.

So let me back up here. The MAIN problem is the fans aren't / didn't cool. This problem MUST BE ADDRESSED, otherwise if you swap bad ram out it's just going to get fried again. But chances are this is just bad, cheap RAM (who the heck is Hynix anyway?) and was destined to fail anyway. Nevertheless, there are plenty of good components, and although 1gig of replacement RAM is only $26, you should price the processor and video card! If your laptop is over a year old like this one, expect that yours has the same buildup.

I hope this serves you well. Your laptop isn't broke, Dell tech support is a joke for not knowing how to fight this problem, and if this fix saves your day, feel free to drop me a tech support donation at my Paypal account - [email protected]... but an email of thanks would be good too!

Your techie pal in the know,
Rush Montgomery III

 

ok I stand corrected. The items I performed gave my e1705 a little more life, but I went right back to getting the BSOD. The problem here is the architecture of the e1705 isn't layed out particularly well to combat overheating. That's why Dell isn't very forthcoming on the solution to this problem, because to admit the problem would force them to do a recall on the e1705. It's just bad architecture.

The solution to the memory parity issue? Combat the heat. Download and install I8kfan, which will give you precision controll over the cooling fans inside your laptop. Usually they come on when components register as too hot, but with this utility you can force them to come on when you power your laptop up, and they stay on as long as you want (or all the time), or you can set them to click on only at certain temperatures.

Once the peripherals inside the laptop were being cooled properly, I have yet to have another crash, even leaving it on overnight. This is the fix to the e1705 memory parity error.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html