XPS 435 Owners Thread

[quote user="CosmosBlack"] [quote user="ispalten"] Cosmos, I posted this VBS script on another part of this long thread. Try this, copy the script :

Thanks Irv, I ran it and it returned 188 sec. Longer than my manual timings, which btw are pretty consistent every time.

From those who ran the script, seems like most are at 2 mins and over....

[/quote]

This is what I got with everything enabled, but running Raid0

That's the timing I get when I see a "fast" boot.  But in my case, and seemingly more times than not, it's taking over two minutes to boot.  It's hit or miss as to how long it will take but it's usally at one extreme or the other.  I have a single drive configured by DELL so I assume it's not running any Raid...

Curious as to the question.   I have had enormous issues with the ATI 4870 card.   On a brand new system, I was getting Catalyst Control Center stopped working errors out of the box.   I did a complete uninstall of the ATI video drivers, and the ATI Catalyst Control Center and then reinstalled with the latest ATI 4870 drivers from the ATI site, then installed the latest version of the ATI Catalyst Control Center from the ATI site.   First of all, it was very painful even accomplishing this as the install procedures kept freezing up or running into problems.  I'm guessing this could have been due to the uninstall of the original ATI drivers and software not being a clean uninstall.   Anyway, it took me several iterations to finally get a clean install of the new ATI drivers and Catalyst software....    Should be good, right?   Wrong.   My system keeps freezing up and the only way out of it is a hard reset.     I have spent days on the phone with Your Tech Team from Dell and we are still at the same place. Also FYI, what I just described was on a replacement system Dell shipped to me because the original 435T system I received had numerous problems out of the box (BSOD, the video problems and a host of other things I tried to troubleshoot with Dell for over two weeks).    To say I am at my wits end is an understatement.  Since this problem has now shown up on two brand new boxes, I have to believe someone else is seeing the same thing? Desperate for help! Also, FYI, I did update to the latest BIOS and did the typical things you would expect for troubleshooting a problem of this nature.

UPDATE---FOUND A FIX.    Well, after weeks of troubleshooting (with and without Dell) a system exchange and rebuilding the system several times, I found the culprit that was causing the system to be completely unstable (through no help of Dell).   One of the options I purchased with the 435 was the WLAN card.   When I disabled the broadcom driver in device manager, all of the sudden the system stabilized.   So, I completely removed the driver, and removed the card and I have been operating smoothly since.   Very strange since this is an option offered with the system.   One word of caution though....if you are like me and have been uninstalling and re-installing the ATI software and drivers trying to fix this problem, you may need to do a clean system install/rebuild because ATI software may be corrupted through all your efforts.

Curios to see if others have had this problem and identified the Dell WLAN as the culprit

UPDATE---FOUND A FIX.    Well, after weeks of troubleshooting (with and without Dell) a system exchange and rebuilding the system several times, I found the culprit that was causing the system to be completely unstable (through no help of Dell).   One of the options I purchased with the 435 was the WLAN card.   When I disabled the broadcom driver in device manager, all of the sudden the system stabilized.   So, I completely removed the driver, and removed the card and I have been operating smoothly since.   Very strange since this is an option offered with the system.   One word of caution though....if you are like me and have been uninstalling and re-installing the ATI software and drivers trying to fix this problem, you may need to do a clean system install/rebuild because ATI software may be corrupted through all your efforts. Curios to see if others have had this problem and identified the Dell WLAN as the culprit

I don't have the WLAN card, but I am having trouble uninstalling and reinstalling  ATI's CCC so I'm leaning towards doing a clean install here in the near future.  When you have a new system and you get errors by simply trying to remove CCC from "Programs and Features", there is definitely something not right.

UPDATE---FOUND A FIX.    Well, after weeks of troubleshooting (with and without Dell) a system exchange and rebuilding the system several times, I found the culprit that was causing the system to be completely unstable (through no help of Dell).   One of the options I purchased with the 435 was the WLAN card.   When I disabled the broadcom driver in device manager, all of the sudden the system stabilized.   So, I completely removed the driver, and removed the card and I have been operating smoothly since.   Very strange since this is an option offered with the system.   One word of caution though....if you are like me and have been uninstalling and re-installing the ATI software and drivers trying to fix this problem, you may need to do a clean system install/rebuild because ATI software may be corrupted through all your efforts. Curios to see if others have had this problem and identified the Dell WLAN as the culprit

I have the Dell WLAN card and have not had the same issues.  I initially had some issue I resolved by completely removing the Catalyst Control Center.  I never reinstalled it, as I deem it unnecessary.

Just for grins, I ran the script on my 435T... boot time was 64 seconds including the delay from my dual-boot prompt and the vista login prompt.

Config/Peripherals Attached:

• 3GB Dell Ram
• MS Natural 4000 Keyboard
• Logitech Wireless Keyboard
• nVidia GTX 275 Video Card outputting to Dual Dell 2407s via DVI
• Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick
• WD Caviar Black 1TB Drive
• Linksys USB Wireless Adaptor

Not sure why your boot times are so much longer, but this was a ground up Vista 64 install using the Dell CD. 

Ran the script again, now down to 118 secs from previous 142.  Got better time by disabling just 2 items in Startup....CCC and Windows Defender.  Disabling Realtek HD actually added 1 sec to reboot time so enabled that again.

Advanced Tools says that Windows Mail is adding 19.4 secs to startup so have to tackle that next.  I have managed to whittle down my saved emails from almost 19,000 to just over 4300 in the past week or so, so if I archive those to dvd, hopefully I can get startup times under 100 secs which will be more tolerable in the meantime.  Would rather not do a clean install at this time, I'll save that for a major or more pressing issue, instead of just impatience with startup times.

I don't know about the slow boots, but as far as freezing on boot and not continuing my 435T is booting fine and running great after the re-install from dell partition.

I still feel it was a hardware error after I downloaded the new A07 BIOS and all other applicable hardware updates. Careful downloading updates from Dell support. Do them one at a time a couple of days apart so you can test them and make sure they are not causing problems.  I've seen problem reports after the 10/100/1000 LAN was updated, same for realtek card reader and realtek hd audio drivers and of course CCC and the ATI 4870. I blame it on a harware error after new updates from dell were added. In every case the solution was updating from the manufacturers support site, not dell's.

Anyone experience the freeze and lock on re-boot or boot that did not get driver updates from Dell's site?

Raymond

Ran the script again, now down to 118 secs from previous 142.  Got better time by disabling just 2 items in Startup....CCC and Windows Defender.  Disabling Realtek HD actually added 1 sec to reboot time so enabled that again. Advanced Tools says that Windows Mail is adding 19.4 secs to startup so have to tackle that next.  I have managed to whittle down my saved emails from almost 19,000 to just over 4300 in the past week or so, so if I archive those to dvd, hopefully I can get startup times under 100 secs which will be more tolerable in the meantime.  Would rather not do a clean install at this time, I'll save that for a major or more pressing issue, instead of just impatience with startup times.

PowerForward... what "Advanced Tools" are you using that reports individual application boot times? 

[quote user="rettenhu"]PowerForward... what "Advanced Tools" are you using that reports individual application boot times?

Right click on Computer and right click Properties.....click on Windows Experience Index.....click on Advanced Tools on the left hand margin.....and at the top of the list should be "Startup programs are causing Windows to start slowly. View details" if there are any issues with something slowing bootup.  This isn't reporting all of the individual applications, just the ones that have been flagged by Windows.

Thanks for the assist and quick reply.  I'm coming from XP and this is my first Vista-based computer, so I appreciate the help.  I'll start looking at this this evening.

Thanks for the assist and quick reply.  I'm coming from XP and this is my first Vista-based computer, so I appreciate the help.  I'll start looking at this this evening.

I was a holdout with XP myself, so now I find myself fumbling around with Vista a bit.  Don't want to get too familiar with it though, I'll save that energy for Windows 7 that'll be around the bend shortly. :emotion-21:

I just received an email from Dell that says my 435T has shipped and I should have it tomorrow. The original estimated delivery was June 3. Anyway, it looks like I will be joining the Boot-up Timing Club soon. My current desktop is an XPS Gen. 4, which is over 4 years old. Anything will be an improvement.

I just received an email from Dell that says my 435T has shipped and I should have it tomorrow. The original estimated delivery was June 3. Anyway, it looks like I will be joining the Boot-up Timing Club soon. My current desktop is an XPS Gen. 4, which is over 4 years old. Anything will be an improvement.

I'm sure there's a logical explaination for the slow boots and from some recent posts I've seen from others, it might just be some startup processes...  Please let us know what your out-of-the-box boot time looks like and welcome to the 435T Owner's thread!

[quote user="rettenhu"]PowerForward... what "Advanced Tools" are you using that reports individual application boot times?

Right click on Computer and right click Properties.....click on Windows Experience Index.....click on Advanced Tools on the left hand margin.....and at the top of the list should be "Startup programs are causing Windows to start slowly. View details" if there are any issues with something slowing bootup.  This isn't reporting all of the individual applications, just the ones that have been flagged by Windows.

After I click on Windows Experience>Advanced Tools, it says: 

Performance issues--------------------------------------------------------

No issues reported

So apparently my Windows config doesn't think I have slow boot times... WRONG!  :emotion-12:

I posted this in another thread about BIOS and memory configurations in the 435T, but I figured it was worth going on record with here.  I purchased a 6GB OCZ memory kit [OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 1333MHz Intel Extreme Edition XMP Ready Series 6GB Triple Channel Kits Optimized for X58] and installed it in my 435T yesterday alongside the 3GB of Dell memory that the computer shipped with.

I'm happy to report that there were NO issues whatsoever with configuration, windows experience index, etc...  Boot-up is a bit faster as well.   CPU-Z reports all correct numbers and timings and all my Adobe applications are lightning fast now. 

And with that, I'm done modding my 435T :)