Miscellaneous E1505 Notes -- BIOS

The following are some of my observations wrt E1505 and its 'as-delivered' state from Dell [Built and delivered o/a 23 Mar 06].

BIOS Options/Info [F2 key during boot]

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A. BIOS was version A02 dated 03/01/06 [I note there is an A03 version dated 03/16/06 on the Support page.... "Fix issue in which some systems may intermittently fail to complete POST"]

B. Intel 945GM video BIOS 1264

C. Audio Controller -- Sigmatel 9200

D. Modem Controller -- Conexant HDA D110 MDC V.92

E. Wi-Fi -- Broadcom Wireless

F. Boot Sequence [Default]

1. Diskette
2. HDD
3. USB
4. CD/DVD

fwiw I changed to...

1. CD/DVD
2. USB
3. HDD
4. Diskette

G. Integrated NIC was 'Enabled' with PXE Boot "Enabled"

For anyone interested here's some info on PXE

H. Video Brightness for Battery was set to '3'; For AC operation is was set to maximum value '8'

I. LCD Panel Expansion: Was 'Enabled' ; BIOS described this feature as...

"Expansion is enabled, and the image will be displayed on the entire area of the panel. This produces a larger image, but it is usually not as sharp"

The 'Off' Option was explained this way...

"Expansion is off, and the image will be centered on the panel with a dark border around it. This produces a smaller but sharper image"

You can select the 'Off' option from the BIOS and it will immediately change the display. Gives you an idea of what this looks like. You'll want to change it back to 'Enabled'. I believe this will only be applicable if/when you boot to DOS, but could be wrong here

J. Under the Performance 'tree' there was a section on 'HDD Acoustic Mode'. Had three options... 'Bypass' [Do nothing; needed for older drives]; 'Quiet' [Slower, but quieter]; and 'Performance' [Faster, but possibly noisier. Factory default was 'Bypass'. Not knowing for sure what to do with this I left it alone. Anyone know???? The Dell chat guy said that the drive I have [Fujitsu 80GB SATA] supposedly supports this 'option'

K. Power Management // USB Wake Support: Factory Default setting is 'Off'; BIOS had following notes...

'Enabled' = Allow USB devices to wake the system."

"This feature is only functional when the AC power adapter is connected."

"This feature is only supported when running Windows XP Media Center Edition"

fwiw I changed to "Enable"

L. Under "POST Behavior" // Fast Boot: Default value was "Minimal" I changed to "Thorough" [This gives you just a little more time to depress function keys during boot... but not much more. You still have to be 'ready' and/or use the tap-tap-tap function key technique ]

M. Virtualization: Factory Default is 'Off'.

I have no experience with this 'technology', but here's a link

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If anyone is interested I have an email from Dell outlining the BIOS settings and a bit on what they mean.

He/I could not find anything on-line describing the BIOS settings [go figure...] Not the greatest bit of info, but at least will give you an idea of what you'll see once you get in there. Just give me a PM and I'll be glad to provide. Or.... I'll post the info in a thread if everyone thinks that's a better idea????

hth

Mark

 

on the HDD, I believe that is talking about the sound coming from your HDD. Normally the faster you run your hdd, say at full speed, the louder it is. If you choose the bypass or quiet, you'll be running less than 5400rpm.

LOL, i'm not sure if you were wanting an explination on each or not, but if you do let me know, and I can give you a pretty good idea on what everything is. The standard options that you have listed here are pretty much the standard option for Dell BIOS.

A-E is just listing your hardware.

 

Mark,

Did you (re)install your BIOS? I think I need to do a ground up instalation or everything. Here's why:

I got my MD 2.0 reinstall CD, it loaded without a hitch. I then turned off the E1505 and pressed the MD button. Up came a MD screen, then nothing for ~1 min, then a BSOD. The BSOD said to run chkdsk /f if the BSOD reappeared, it did so I ran chkdsk, no help. Still get the same BSOD.

So for grins, I inserted the bootable MD repair CD. As before, I get an A: prompt, where everyone else gets an F: prompt.

I'm 90% convinced this is because I interruped the 30 min Dell banner after the first XP MCE install.

So I think I need to get this box to a zero point, which means a "clean" BIOS and build everything from there.

What would you advise?

Thanks,
Hermit

 

thanx for the summary, mark. now i know what to expect from the bios settings.

 

Thanks....

 

Hard to tell the present status of what you have/don't have

I'd probably go the same route.... Ditch what you have and start over.

wrt the BIOS update.... No I haven't done it yet. Not a prerequisite for what you need to do.

If it were me..... I'd not overly complicate things at this point and do the BIOS thing later after the rest is 'squared away'

Mark

 

Hey hermit, just an idea, but you might check your drive locations and see what letters are assigned to what. It could just be a simple rearranging of partitions that happened.

If you haven't flashed your BIOS since your reformat, I would also suggest doing this. Theoretically, your BIOS shouldn't be damaged or changed during reformat and reinstall, but several users have complained of problems happening that were BIOS related, and once they flash the BIOS (eventhough it was the same version), everything went back to normal.

Just my 2 cents...

SG

 

Thanks SouthernGirl,

Very much appreciate your thinking of me. Here's what I know:

So I flashed my BIOS from A02 to A03, a Windows utility that insisted I have both battery and A/C connected. Very easy. No help, still get the BSOD when I envoke MD.

Here's what I see when I boot from the DR-DOS Repair CD:
A: prompt, a DIR of this shows DOS-BOOT and Command.com, etc.
B: identical to A:
C: the main partition on the HD with Windows
D: Volume is MEDIADIRECT [empty]
E: invalid
F ... all invalid directories like E:

These are from a totally reformatted HD with XP MCE and MD 2.0 installed. Any clues SG?

Thanks,
Hermit

 

I'm remember you've had several problems with media direct, but where you one of the users that formatted your whole drive including deleting the Diagnostics partition?

 

Not the first time, I only deleted the ghost partition. My root problem stems from interrupting Dell's 30 min banner. Some how that got my system out of whack.

Subsequent XP installs with the 30 min banner intact did NOT correct my problem(s).

So yes, as we stand now the diagnostic partition is history. However, I believe that diagnostic routine is on the D & U CD.

Hermit

 

yeah it is. I was just curious about the media direct problem.

okay, lets try something else. On the BSoD, do you see any kind of information or errors?

Forgive me, but I can't remember what all you've done. I'll have to go back and reread the Media Direct thread.

 

Basically two things:
1] a warning to run chkdsk /f, which of course I did.
2] STOP: 0x00000007B (0xF9E4F528, 0xC00000034, 0x0000000000, 0x0000000000)

I assume those are memory addresses, Greek to me.

Hermit

 

from what i looked up, that is actually a boot error which makes sense since the media direct button is suppose to boot the partition. All that it is saying is that your media direct partition is damaged and it can't access it for whatever reason. Once you get your media partition back to normal as suggested in the other thread, the BSoD error should disappear. Hopefully you won't have to reformat to fix the Media Direct Partition.

 

I've deleted, in WinXP setup, the 1.4GB partition twice. Leaving me 1457MB of unpartition, unformatted space. I then insert the MD 2.0 CD, from within WinXP, and in ~2 min its done and happy, no install glitches.

Looking at the HD in Disk Mgr, there are three blocks:

1. ~35GB ID'ed as C: NTFS
2. ~216 MB unpartitioned, unformatted, no letter
3. 1.17GB NTFS with no letter

If I'm truely getting a boot error, with a new BOIS, then it must be a HD problem. So what is the lowest level format I can perform? Is the WinXP format, not Quick, the way to go?

Hermit

 

Where did your 1.17GB NTFS partition come from???

Mark

 

Hi Mark

The MediaDirect reinstall CD creates it.

When I do an XP install, the first partition is sized such that the remaining space is 1.45GB, unpartitioned. You then install XP on the primary partition. In my case there is only one partition.

So when XP and Dell are all done, the HD is in two blocks:
1] ~35GB C: NTFS
2] ~1.45GB, no letter, no partition, no format

Inserting the MD CD ends up with the 1.17GB NTFS no letter block. This all happens in Windows.

Hermit

 

Okay something isn't right with the partitions. I think you had to create a partition out of the smaller space and install Media Direct 2.0 on that. If what i've read is correct, you have to have the media direct in position 1.), then followed by your XP. The media direct disc repairs/installs media direct on the first partition - if i understood that right.

Media Direct is really picky about what it is installed on to, and how it is installed. I would start over by deleting all of your partitions (using the XP disc), then follow Rob's step on how to get Media Direct back on your system.

If it was a BIOS problem, your laptop wouldn't even boot up to XP. Something is wrong with the Media Direct partition and is not allowing you to boot from it which is what is suppose to happen when push the button. If your laptop is off, Media Direct boots from that smaller partition, but if it is damaged, it can't do that.

It is the same thing with the HD. If it was the HD failing, then your laptop wouldn't even boot up into XP. The only difference between a quick format in XP and the other format is that quick doesn't do a chkdsk. That's why the other format is so long. It looks like you'll have to reformat your HDD, but just go with a quick format. You can run chkdsc at a later time or do it now if you want.