Studio 1535 and the depression surrounding it!

Hi, I'm not sure what to expect from writing this here, but it's my last resort..
I signed up for this forum just over 1 year ago when I was looking to purchase a new laptop, and the Studio 15 was just released and caught my eye.
It started badly with delays and the likes but when it finally arrived, I was over-joyed. ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3924941&postcount=186 )

So the year went by and of course it had little problems such as media lights flashing, taking absolute ages to wake from sleep sometimes but I assumed they were just little problems and didn't take much notice as the laptop seemed to work fine..up until well, this week. About a week ago I got an email asking to extend my warranty which I didn't take much notice of, kinda wish I did now.

Out of nowhere the whole laptop has pretty much started crumbling in front of my eyes! I've done nothing out of the ordinary with it, it's been lyin on the same desk for most of the year, and yet in the past 2 days, I've been fed with blue screen upon blue screen, I could just about boot into safe mode to try save some of my files but alas it'd just end up blue screening. After I tried everything I decided to try the Dell Factory image reset thing in startup recovery, which started ok, until midway an error message popped up with basically, nothing in it. Just a red x, I hit ok, as it was all I could do and rebooted. Then I was faced with a partially formatted aka brick of a laptop. Now when I try to put in any of the recovery discs, or basically anything, the laptop goes straight to
"Memory Write/read failure at such and such, read something, expecting something.

To resolve this issue, try to reseat the memory. (which i've attempted twice to no avail)
Decreasing available memory
_"
and nothing happens after that basically. I'm currently sitting looking at a pretty expensive paperweight. Do you think anything can be done to fix this? Is it even worthwhile contacting Dell? I tried to input my service tag on the website and get onto live chat, but a message happily informed me my warranty was up. I'm really annoyed as I customised it to some pretty nice specs only for it to turn into a brick at this stage..especially one week after the warranty ends!

I really don't know what to do, I know people have had problems with their Studio 15's (the 1535 one anyways) and ended up with repairs or replacements, but I'm guessing none of that is any use to me now that my warranty is up. Is it worth it to extend the warranty and get it looked at then?

I'm so frustrated at the situation as this happened at the time I need the laptop most, just before I go back to colllege!!

Thanks for reading this..it may be a bit of a messy post but I hope ye get the general jist!!

 

I'd maybe suggest to start with that you press the Fn button and the power button to turn the machine on (then release both buttons). This should start some diagnostics (if memory serves me correctly) and allow you to check if everything is ok.

 

Cheers, didn't know about that lil trick. However, it started as "Diagnostic Boot enabled" or something along those lines and went straight to the memory write/read failure.

EDIT: Oh and my volume down media key is flashing. How useful!

 

When you said that you tried decreasing memory - do you mean you took both SODIMMs out and replaced one of them?

I'd suggest you try this:

Take both out.
Put one into slot A, try boot diagnostics.
Put the same SODIMM into slot B, try boot diagnostics.
Remove that SODIMM and try the other one in slot A and run diagnostics.
Again, try it in slot B.

I think though that typically with something like that you'd get a flashing light error and no BIOS boot screen - the light sequence would be ON FLASH FLASH (to indicate that your machine can't see any memory modules) or ON FLASH ON (to indicate a failed module). However, can't hurt to try.

 

Sounds like you might have bad memory. Luckily, even if you're out of warranty, RAM is pretty cheap; you can easily get a 2x2GB kit for $45. DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz SO-DIMM 200-pin memory is what you're looking for.

I would try reinstalling Windows from the recovery DVD rather than the recovery partition on the hard drive.

 

Yea..hopefully it's just a memory problem...I'm trying to use the recovery DVD but midway through that it decided to blue screen yet again. now the optical drive won't even eject the disc!

 

Did you try what I suggested with the memory modules? I'd seriously do that before trying to continue with the install - it will only continue to blue screen at you otherwise.

 

Yep, took em both out, put one in slot a, boom, memory error again

however..i tried the second one on its own..and I appear to be getting places...it's running diagnostics now and so far so good!

Hopefully it's just 2gbs that's messed up and somehow this works out!!

I'll keep you posted..

 

It sounds like that one memory stick is faulty.

 

Yep, that seems to be it..hopefully I can survive on 2gbs for a while!! Suddenly I'm feeling a lot more confident bout the situation!! I was not looking forward to having a very expensive paperweight on my desk for the foreseeable future!! I'll add some closure to the thread once all this setup stuff is finished ..thank you kindly for your quick help Fragilexx & Mastermushroom...

 

You are most welcome. Also, consider installing the X0D firmware for your touch-sensitive media panel; it allegedly prevents the eject and volume keys from sticking and acting up.

 

Make sure you try the memory module that you know is working in the other memory slot, just to ensure that it's not a problem with the connector on the motherboard. I'm sure it will be fine, but no point buying RAM if it's the connector that's busted.