Media Direct 3 & Outlook -- CPU cycling

First of all, many thanks for all the posts from this community. I had a Media Direct 2.0 error (PCM2.exe) on my e1505 / MCE system discussed in http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=105298 , but I was unable to solve it. So I decided to go ahead and clean/reinstall to purge the previous users' junk using the instructions (and proper MD part numbers) gained from many hours of research here.

Since I had software support, I was able to call for the MD reinstall CDs. Since this is MCE, it doesn't need Media Experience (only for XP systems), but the India support rep did send both MD 2 and MD 3 CDs as well as ME and other OS reinstall CDs. So, following Amber's fabulous XP/MCE/MD reinstallation instructions at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=88032 , I repartitioned and reinstalled using Media Direct 3.0 and MCE.

All was fine until I installed Outlook 2003... then the 'CPU cycling from 10% to 100%' problem that others have seen cropped up. Couldn't find anything here, but did find some clues in an article on Dell's Forum Site ( http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...oard.id=sw_office2000&message.id=32652#M32652 ) .

Lo and behold, I had a similar but not exact same problem with Outlook 2003 and MediaDirect 3. While MD 3 works fine with the standard, fresh install of Outlook, as soon as I started importing my Contacts and email folders into the new/clean folder, the cyclical CPU spiking problem began -- going from 0 to 100 percent, then back, over and over.

So the diagnosis began. Where the other guy's problem was with PST folders not in the local drive, I finally diagnosed my issue to be with Contacts and MD3. Since I use standard email folders and PSTs on the local system, MD3 worked fine -- for a bit. Then the CPU cycling started with the Contacts folder: Import/Copy into Contacts and the CPU spiking begins. Remove all Contacts from the default folder, and the CPU spiking problem goes away. Start with one or two contacts, and it's fine. Add 25-35 more, and it starts again. I honestly don't have that many as I know people with hundreds/thousands of contacts... some on the exchange server, and some in their local Contacts folder in the primary PST.

My guess is that since the Instant Office part of the MD 3 application monitors a variety of folders in Outlook/Office, there is probably a bug that gets worse when you have more than just a few contacts.

The net result is that I had to uninstall the MD3 app. Remember, there are 2 parts of MD3 installation: the original system setup (partitions, OS setup, et al) and the actual application install. So I uninstalled the MD 3 application via Windows but did not touch the partitions, so that if Dell or someone else can resolve the bug I can reinstall. Maybe it's a registry setting for how often it monitors Contacts or some other configuration parameter

Nonetheless, I also am posting this here because others may save a lot of time diagnosing their similar issues with CPU cycling.

Unfortunately, the net of this is that if you have MD3 and Outlook 2003 -- and use a local Contacts folder -- your CPU may cycle wildly, and will not stop. If anyone has any clues...