Just received 9300: few questions/issues

Great forum, very helpful information.

Let me start by saying that I am not a gamer but like to play a game or two and I have not reformatted my hard drive and would not like to do it, and I just uninstalled a few applications.

I received my 9300i last week, please see my signature below, and I have a few issues/observations and have not contacted Dell yet:

1) Playback of the DVD on the media center with batteries fully charged is choppy, slow and sound is out of sync. However, with batteries using Power DVD the picture is fine. Both programs are fine with the A/C power supply. All this in full screen.

Also playing HD movie clips on apple.com using Quick time, with batteries choppy, with A/C fine.

Is this normal. Maybe I should have upgraded my graphic card, I have the 64MB.


2) I tried to install, 2004 NBA Live, this game is already installed on my desktop Win 98 SE. There are 2 discs. I started with disc 1 and it installed 48% of the program and then it asked me for disc 2, I inserted it and clicked OK but nothing happens, just the hour glass.

I am not a gamer so I do not know, do I have to uninstall the one on my desktop or can I use it on multicomputers. I paused the antivirus which is AVAST.

I installed the SIMS game with no problem just to try it.

3) I tried to uninstall Trend micro, but that program is stubborn. It did not uninstall, and it seems corrupt now as I cannot use it. It does not scan viruses. How can I get rid of it. I tried 3 other uninstall programs with no avail.

I did not uninstall too many programs, just AOL and some other online services.

4) My Monitor is an LG and love it. It has one dead pixel or 2 next to each other on the bottom left side. Minor bleeding and no sparkles.

At 96 dpi, the words are really small and at 120 dpi they are bigger and does not bother me much.

5) I had the Geek Squad come in and connect a secured (WEP not WPA) network between my desktop win98 SE and my new laptop. Also they allow me to share the printer which is connected to my disk top so I can print wirelessly. The only catch that I discovered is that my desktop has to be on or it will not recognize my printer.

I do not know why they used WEP instead of WPA, I think I can change it. I have the LinkSys router.

6) I got the remote control with the media center and it works great but you have to connect the receiver in the back which is kind of bulky.

Sorry to be long but would appreciate some input or comments on some of the points above before calling the dreaded Dell Technical support.

Thanks for reading.

_____________________________________________
9300i , M740 1.73GHz, 17" UXGA TrueLife (LG), 1GB RAM, ATI RADEON X300 64MB, 100GB 5400rpmHard Drive, 6-cell Lithium, Intel® PRO/Wireless 2915.
Received Dec 5, 2005.

 

DVD and Quicktime both do some form of MPEG decoding. This is mostly CPU intensive. When you're on batteries your CPU slows down (speedstep). If you change your power saving settings so that your CPU stays at full speed even when unplugged your video playback would be fine. Of course this would shorten your battery time.

I reformatted my drive as soon as I got it so I didn't have to deal with trend-micro. I would assume that would be one of the surer methods of nuking that spyware program (to me it's the worst spyware out there. Ranks up there with Real Media Player for impossible software to remove).

 

I would use Dell's Tech Chat instead of calling, trust me you'll get much better results and faster too.

I don't know why Geek Squad set up WEP instead of WPA, I don't trust other people to do security things on my computer, as I can already do it myself.

Now if you want to be able to print wirelessly without having to have the desktop on, I would suggest getting a wireless print server, its basically kinda like a wireless router, but designed for printing purposes.

You can also adjust text in some programs such as IE by changing text size. Same goes for many other common everyday applications.

There isn't much you can do about the bulkiness of your remote control reciever.

 

Thanks for the response guys

Actually, I have my battery setting at "Presentation" in the Quick Set, so it has the maximum performance and short battery time.

Today, I noticed that the choppyness of playback will stop if I minimize and then go back full screen and then it will start being choppy again when I repeat the process.

xbandaidx, actually I thought about the printer server and geek squad guy told me he can do it without it. It saved me about $70. So that sounded cool at the time until I tried it after he left and the printer will not be recognized unless the desktop is on.

Also, since I used the EPP, I can not use the Chat support, so I have to call.

 

Since you don't want to reformat, you might want to check to see what programs are starting up and running if you haven't already done so. This might be taking up alot of memory and CPU. You can do this by going to your start menu-->run--msconfig-->startup tab-->uncheck any programs that you don't want to run. If you aren't sure about what a program does, it would be best to google it first before turning it off.

I've never seen a complaint about the DVD acting the way you described, but it could be running better on Cyberlink because Cyberlink is the default dvd decoder. So even if you are using other software, cyberlink is the software that decodes the dvd. Like I said, I've never seen a conflict between Cyberlink and other software, but it could be a combination of things.

I had the same problem with trend micro. You can find instructions on how to delete it here: http://kb.trendmicro.com/solutions/faq.asp

As for your game, you shouldn't have to uninstall it from the desktop in order to install it on your laptop. Generally they will install on multiple computers with no problems. It might be some other piece of software is having a conflict with it. This is why it would be best to turn off any programs that you will not need to automatically start up.

SG

 

It is not a hardware issue, you have something screwed up is system. My P3 A30 on buttery @733MHz runs any DVD or .avi on full screen without a hitch, but I am on Win2k, but even if I switch HDs to XP system, it is fine as well.

Reinstall the windows, see if it fixes the problem, me is 100% sure there is defiantly a glitch in the system.

 

HD has MUCH more information to decode than a DVD has and for most .avi files.

DVD has 480 lines, each line contains some information.
720P has 720 lines, "
1080 has 1080 lines!

The more lines you have the more information that needs to be processed, so comparing DVD and AVI to something like HD isn't a fair comparsion.

 

I'm not giving up on the CPU Speedstep theory with regards to your DVD playback just yet.

Download and install i8kfangui from this link:
http://www.diefer.de/software/i8kfangui220.exe

Then download and place this file in the same directory as i8kfangui.
http://mckenziedev.com/files/i9kfangui/22103b/i9kfangui.exe

Here are the installation notes:
Installation Notes:
Install i8kfangui 2.2 - Download I9kfangui. Make sure that i8kfangui is closed Copy the i9kfangui to your i8kfangui installation folder, double click to run. (you can actually put the file anywhere you like, it doesn't matter)

Anyways the point of installing this program is so that you can see your CPU speed and CPU load. While watching a DVD monitor the CPU speed and see if there is a correlation between the choppiness and your CPU dropping to a lower speed.

If there is no relation between the choppiness and the CPU speed then I guess we can completely rule out the CPU throttling back.

 

Thank you SouthernGirl, goga, xbandaidx, kingjimmi. Much appreciated.

SouthernGirl, I got your response late but I removed some of the programs from the startup tab and the computer seems faster but the choppiness in the DVD playback with battery using the media center software is still there. Acutually, the whole media center seems choppy when I open it with battery. I have no problem with the PowerDVD at all.

On installing the game, just to prove a point I tried to install it on my desktop at work running in XP and it installed with no problem. I think you might be right about a conflict with other software, it might be that Trend Micro program.

Speaking of Trend Micro, I looked into the website you gave me and looked at uninstalling it manually, but it involves deleting some files in the registery. I will try that later.

kingjimmi, I will try that when I get home.

At this point, I am still within the 21 days return policy but I love the system otherwise. As much I as hate to reformat, it looks like I might have to do it. But all my network and printer setup done by the Geek squad will be lost.

 

Did the Geek squad provide you with a Network restore disk? If so your network settings wouldn't be lost. Making a restore disk is an option when you finish setting up your network.

 

Actullay they did not. Is it too late to ask for one.

 

Yes, they setup the networks individually. I believe you might be able to login to your router and do it that way...

 

Just to update you guys.

I did not have much time to spend on it yesterday, but I did install and run the I9Kfangui program, thank you kingjimmi.

This is really a nice program. After running this program I realized how hot my machine used to run. I ran the fans and it is running cooler now. Actually that improved the choppiness in the DVD playback. It does not do it as often.

The CPU speed stays the same all the time. However the CPU load was going up when I play HD Clips 80%-90% range and when playing DVD 15%-25%.

On the Trend Micro front, not much progress. I tried to manually delete the files recommened in the registery, of course after backing up the registery. I could not find all the files. The Trend Micro is still there.

I am thinking of deleting any file that has Trend Micro name in the registery but afraid that might mess things up.

 

it will be normal to see an increase in the CPU when playing DVD's. Cyberlink and other dvd programs do use a small amount of CPU. I really can't figure out what would be causing the choppiness unless there was just some software conflict. Its not related to hardware. 1.73 should be able to run any program easily, and you have enough RAM. You have the same specs of mine actualy except for my hdd is 7200rpm. I've never had the problems that you described.

What Trend Micro program do you have? Pc-cillin? I'll try to find out the exact process to delete it, and give you some tips.
SG

 

Yes, it is the Pc-cillin. Thanks SG!

 

what exactly is the problem with trend micro (why is it bad to have on your machine?).

 

Try playing your DVD's with either of these programs: VideoLan or Media Player Classic. They are both freeware.
http://www.videolan.org/mirror.php?...n/&file=vlc/0.8.4a/win32/vlc-0.8.4a-win32.exe
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Media-Player-Classic--for-WinkXP-Download-5655.html

If these don't help your DVD playback, I'm not sure what else to recommend.

 

okay lets try this to uninstall Pc-cillin

goto start menu-->run-->msiexec /x {7698EDA5-A90F-4205-99CB-8FF6F9048ED9} (i suggest just copying that and pasting)

SG

 

I do not think that the program is bad. It is just that it got corrupted on my machine. I think I did system restore one time and then tried to uninstall it and it is corrupted and I can not use it anymore. Although in the security center it is still showing that I have it for as firewall and virus scanner.

I can not install 2004 NBA live. It could be because I need to turn off the virus scanner (according to the instructions) but I can not turn Trend Micro off.

This is just a stubborn program to uninstall.

 

Thanks for your help SG but it did not work. It asked me if I want to uninstall and I clicked "yes". Then it says "This action is only valid for products that are currently installed".
I think when I used several unistaller progams before, it removed it from the registry or something. Even when I go to Control panel> add /remove programs it is not there.

I know it a mess!

 

Thanks for the suggestion but as I mentioned before I was able to playback the movie fine on the PowerDVD.

Sorry to make a big deal about the problem since I can use another player but because media center is the default player and the machine is new and I have enough speed and memory. Also I am not running anything else at the same time.

I just did not expect to have problem like this in a new powerful machine.

The real problem that I have is that I am not able to play some games like 2004 NBA Live on it, even though it installed with no problem on 2 other less powerful desktops.

 

Try running memtest86. A lot of games nowadays use some pretty intense compression on their installation disks. If you have any bad memory addresses in your RAM it could cock up your installation. This actually happened to me when I was installing World of Warcraft. I never knew the RAM I had contained some bad addresses until I tried installing WoW. So, I ran memtest86 and found that my memory wasn't 100%. So, I got new memory and it installed fine.
www.memtest86.com

I know this is a longshot, but heck sounds like you exhausted most of your other options.

 

Can you call Dell and tell them and get new RAM? I was having the same problem. I am going to buy new RAM I am putting 2GB in. But I still want to be able to sell the old RAM.

 

If it's still under warranty I don't see why not.

 

Finally !!!!!!!!!

I was able to install NBA Live 2004 and it is running much faster than my desktop.

I do not know what I did but I was able to delete most of the Trend Mircro Registry manually.

Before that I tried to install that game at least a dozen times and it will always stall after I insert the second CD.

I am happy now and the best thing I did not have to call Dell.

This is a 10 day old computer and I have at home warranty for 3 years.

Thanks for everyone who participated in this thread for their support, suggestions and patience.

 

Congratulations. Have fun ballin'. ****, I hate basketball games. Play Madden instead.

 

Thank you ! Maybe not football but soccer will be my next game.

 

Another update. Mestery solved.

I decided to call Dell Technical support and give it a shot even with the horror stories I have heard.

I talked to 4 people: 3 american men and 1 Indian woman with a nice american accent. Got transferred 3 times.

Total wait time about 2 and 15 min beteween the 4 of them.
The last guy solved the problem in about 20 minutes most of it holding while he checks something.

To fix the choppy playback of the DVD in the media center while running on battery. Go to properties>setting>advanced>powerplay>powerplay setting and then there are 3 options: plugged in, high battery and low battery. change the one for the high battery from optimal battery life to optimal perfomance.

Now it is not choppy anymore when I play DVD with battery although that will shorten the battery life.

Cheers !

 

congrats.... I'm glad you called and found out what is going on cause i don't think anyone or at least i didn't, hear about that setting

 

Thanks SG ! The Tech guy was puzzled by it as well and that is the first time he hears about that complaint. But the first thing he tried worked although he had to check his resources for a while.

The wait and transferring from one Tech to another was nothing short of rediculous though. But I am glad it was solved without having to reformat.