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D830 Painfully Slow in Dock
I've had my D830 (XP SP2 now) for about 10 months. When I put it into the docking station things which otherwise would go quite smoothly tend to get bogged down.
When I upgraded to SP3 the speed degradation nearly killed me so I went back to SP2.
Running dual monitors while in the dock seems to bring things to a halt more quickly than anything else. (Dual monitors without the dock works with no hassles at all.) One monitor on the dock and there seems to be a noticeable slowdown, but not horrible.
I can't say what exactly is happening, but one symptom is that programs which normally use a large percent of the CPU (say firefox or iTunes or norton) seem to use far more when the machine in in the dock. They also tend to use an elevated amount of CPU for longer than when not docked.
I'm stumped at this point in time. Makes me want to run another OS ... the problem is that I can't really do that and be productive in my work environment.
Any ideas?
duderino_
4 Posts
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January 29th, 2009 12:00
I've bought my D830 end of june 2008 and since the beginning of january I'm having similar problems. Everything is slowing extremly down after some minutes if the cpu is used intensively (but even flash applications in firefox can cause slow downs). In the docking station the laptop slows down even faster.
I tried a different graphic drivers for my nvs140m but this didn't help. Also a bios update to version A14 didn't improve the performance. I've checked the cpu and gpu temperaturs (cpu ~50°C/120°F, gpu 74°C/165°F) but the temperatures don't seem to be too high. However, one fan in the laptop is blowing the whole time.
Currently I'm thinking about installing Vista but I don't really want to do this if I can avoid it.
Have you found a solution?
sharkinlet
2 Posts
1
January 29th, 2009 13:00
No "solutions" yet ... but I some things that have helped me a bit ...
I've been using XP Process Explorer and have found that:
1 - there were a lot of hardware interrupts and deferred procedure calls ... my DVD drive had apparently switched into PIO mode so I switched that back. It helped.
2 - Symmantec antivirus brings the machine to a crawl.
To work around the problem, I'm using a CPU monitor (rainmeter) and when things start to spike (like if symmantec is running) I try to close down all the other things using CPU.
Even so, whenever I use the DVD drive, things slow down quite a bit by the time iTunes finishes ripping a CD.
Better than before, but still unacceptable performance because you would think that in the dock the machine could handle whatever it could handle out of docked mode.
For what it's worth I hope that helps ...
duderino_
4 Posts
1
January 30th, 2009 12:00
Thank you for your suggestions. I checked the transfer modes of the ide channels and they are all running with DMA. With the process explorer I can see sometimes hardware interrupts and deferred procedure calls but not a lot. The DVD drive doesn't seem to be the problem (with my laptop).
Did you ever try to remove the DVD drive by the USB dialog in the notification area of the taskbar?
Anonymous
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January 30th, 2009 14:00
I usually start docked troubleshooting in 2000/XP by deleting the docked profile while the system is undocked. Not that I think that's a fix, but it gives me something to do while I'm thinking.
duderino_
4 Posts
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February 18th, 2009 04:00
Since I found no solution for the problem I installed Vista. However, the slow down behaviour is still the same. Therefore I think that it is a hardware problem. I sent an e-mail to the support. If I get some helpful information I will post it.
duderino_
4 Posts
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February 26th, 2009 13:00
I have contacted the support and seems that this problem is already known. They replied that the mainboard (and graphic card) must be changed. Maybe it has something to do with this: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/703/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad
The technician came today and changed it and now everything works properly. By the way, the ventilation slots were full of dust. Maybe this was also a reason for the problems.
tmdivine
2 Posts
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December 20th, 2012 08:00
I have a similar problem: my laptop often boots very slowly when it's in the docking station. It's evidenced by slow movement in the Windows welcome screen, followed by extremely slow response to keystrokes in the login screen. Logging in is difficult, but, if I actually accomplish it, the machine runs very slowly.
The solution, for me, has been to turn off the external monitor when booting. I've never had a slow boot when the monitor is off, and I have a slow boot most of the time - but not all of the time - when booting in the dock with the monitor on.
My company's in-house tech has updated and reloaded drivers, and other things, all to no avail. Dell replaced the motherboard, and maybe some other hardware. It worked for a few days, but began to boot slowly again before the week was out.
I've finally installed an appliance timer to kill power to the external monitor at 0400, and restore it at 0430, so the monitor will be off when I arrive at the office. I turn it on after I boot. So far, it works - as long as the external monitor is off during boot, I don't have any slowdown problem. I get the expected performance with the external monitor operating, as long as I turn it on after the login screen pops up. The critical moment is probably earlier than that, but I'm not inclined to experiment further.
Here's my setup: Windows 7 Enterprise SP 1, 64-bit; Dell Latitude E4310, 4 GB; 750 GB aftermarket disk; docking station, model PR03X; Logitech Anywhere MX mouse, Dell flat panel monitor, model SP2208WFPt; AC adapter HA65NS5-00.
tmdivine
2 Posts
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June 13th, 2013 12:00
I previously reported that I got slow performance after booting in the dock when the external monitor is connected and powered on. I've since learned this: If I've foolishly tried to boot while the external monitor is turned on, and I consequently get slow performance, I can proceed to boot normally by putting the machine to sleep, shutting down the monitor, and waking the machine back up. Since it takes a hugely long time to shut down normally while running slow, this trick saves me about ten minutes.
Windows 7 Enterprise SP 1, 64-bit; Dell Latitude E4310, 4 GB; 750 GB aftermarket disk; docking station, model PR03X; Logitech Anywhere MX mouse, Dell flat panel monitor, model SP2208WFPt; AC adapter HA65NS5-00.