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    "repaired" Inspiron 6400 reformat problems

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by NK1969, May 8, 2008.

  1. NK1969

    NK1969 Newbie

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    About a month ago something fried on our just-over-a-year-old Inspiron 6400. The speakers appeared to have shorted out, the LCD monitor was beginning to fail and lastly the cooling fan died. Luckily we had extended the warranty another 2 years so we sent it in to be repaired. As directed we removed the hard drive and battery, packed up the laptop and power supply and sent it out.

    Two days later it arrived as "repaired" and we had some problems that I don't want to relive anytime soon. Basically, the motherboard was fried and we had to jump through some hoops with tech support to convince them. In the process we almost lost all the data on the hard drive, but we managed to get it back and now have a portable hard drive. After about a week or so of back and forth calls we sent it back in.

    Well, now it's back and due to the problem with the hard drive we had to reformat it. Things are only halfway back though and there are several issues that have me scratching my head:

    1: I'm wondering if maybe the soundcard was fried all along with everything else that has been replaced. I've tried reinstalling the Soundblaster drivers and the installer tells me that the hardware can't be found. The only sound the computer makes is the system beep because there's nothing available to be the default sound device.

    2: The refresh rate on the monitor is not too good; there's lots of flicker even when scrolling through text documents. I'm guessing it's not up to playing back DVDs or running graphic-intensive games!

    I understand that with the reformat and reinstall that a lot of drivers have to be downloaded. I've found a few on dell.com to get just about everything else up and running but these A/V issues still remain. What do you guys think I need to do? Please don't say "get an Apple" because this laptop is only a year old and we'd like to get at least another 2 years out of it. After that I'm pushing hard for a Macbook!
     
    NK1969, May 8, 2008
    #1
  2. pixelot

    pixelot Notebook Acolyte

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    What does the sound look like in Device Manager?

    Have you tried updating the display adapter driver in Device Manager?
     
    pixelot, May 8, 2008
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  3. NK1969

    NK1969 Newbie

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    That's the issue: there is no audio device in the Device Manager. Just codecs.
     
    NK1969, May 10, 2008
    #3