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E4300 locking up
I'm new here, so bare with me. We have several X-imaged E4300 laptops with the solid state hard drives that continually lock up. Has anyone else experienced the same behaviour? We have several E6400 and E6500 laptops with SATA drives not having the issue.
Philber
7 Posts
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April 17th, 2009 07:00
The information about the workaround is certainly credible, because that workaround has been well circulated on this and other forums (no thanks to Dell).
The information on the timing of a solution is probably not credible, because it is just another vague promise from Dell of a fix to come. Dell has made several promises of solutions to this problem, and given timelines, but has failed to deliver each and every time.
As an example of the misinformation that is coming from Dell on this issue, when I ordered my e4300 in March, I asked my sales rep if they were shipping with the new motherboards, because I knew that there was a problem with the original boards. Her answer was "Oh yes, I heard about that problem too, but they started shipping with the new motherboards a couple of months ago." That was clearly nonsense, because Dell had acknowledged that they had no replacement motherboards until late March. It seems that Dell salesfolks will say just about anything to sell a computer, including making up information when they don't have a clue. Once the computer is sold, they will say anything to avoid a product recall, which is clearly what should have happened in the case of the original e4300's. Instead, Dell simply went silent on the issue, apparently hoping that people with problems would assume it was an OS or software problem and not hold Dell accountable for its faulty hardware and shoddy quality control.
Evil_Trunk_Monkey
9 Posts
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April 17th, 2009 08:00
Your mileage may vary, but we have had good luck with the last 8 units in the past month and a half. We have been slowly getting the original 16 replaced (they are already deployed all over the NW). It's funny that we still have to fight certain Dell techs when scheduling a replacement. They insist on burning an hour trying to come up with a diagnostic code. We explain that "we know what the problem is (already replaced 6 of them), send us a replacement". If they don't, we hang up and get a new technician.
At least the new units have been solid.
elleirdad
3 Posts
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April 17th, 2009 08:00
I was on the chat line with Dell support yesterday and they sent me the following:
"Latitude E4300 system shipments have been suspended due to customer reported system freeze/hang conditions. These system hangs are due to an interaction from some E4300 motherboards to Intel® Core™ 2" Duo SP9300 and SP9400 processors. Dell and Intel are committed to providing high quality systems and are working diligently to resolve the issue for this platform."
Wow. Shipments have been suspended. I guess they have an incentive to fix the problem.
BTW -- after much discussion -- they agreeded to replace my motherboard. However, they made me agree that I understood that Dell does not think this will fix the problem.
hansenc0705
9 Posts
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April 17th, 2009 11:00
Well the system that was just built and shipped to me last week is locking up daily.
elleirdad
3 Posts
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April 22nd, 2009 21:00
Well, just had my motherboard replaced today. It has only been 10 hours, but so far so good.
The old motherboard had a date of 8/15/08 printed on it with the words "Made in China" and "V1".
The new motherboard has a date of 3/24/09 printed on it with the words "Made in Taiwan" and "V2". This motherboard came with the A05 BIOS, which I upgraded.
Looks like there is a new motherboard design and a new motherboard production facility.
hansenc0705
9 Posts
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April 22nd, 2009 21:00
I have given up on this product line. my rma is being processed and i placed an order for an m2400.
elleirdad
3 Posts
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April 24th, 2009 13:00
OK ... I do not want to jinx anything .. but, it is now more than 50 hours without a lock-up.
I suggest asking for a new motherboard and be sure that it has a date of 3/24/09 printed on it with the words "Made in Taiwan" and "V2".
Gerard McGovern
3 Posts
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May 3rd, 2009 10:00
The E4300 is by far and away the worst Dell laptop I have ever owned.
Once a day I will get a blue screen of death with error code 0x0000009f (driver_power_state_failure). Absolutely no idea what driver is wrong but I am running the latest versions of every driver (except of course the audio driver because that is well and truly broken).
Dell support in the UK refuse to acknowledge any issues and tell me it must be because I installed Photoshop.
We were about to upgrade 500 of our laptops to the E4300; absolutely no way now. Unless Dell pull their finger out our entire order and all future ones will go to Lenovo.
Absolute joke.
hansenc0705
9 Posts
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May 4th, 2009 07:00
I gave up on that product line. i now have a Dell Precision M2400 and couldn't be happier. Its a little bigger than I would like but at least it works. It also feels like its a better build quality.
AdamKW
1 Message
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May 4th, 2009 20:00
Its been nearly 2 weeks since 'Flagship1234" posted - any fix for these issues as we are stuck with over 100 of these and they are not meeting expectations at the moment.
Motherboard replacements disabling various BIOS settings have not worked.
rlwaff
1 Message
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May 29th, 2009 09:00
Hi All,
We are also having issues with the D4300, random bluescreens that indicate an issue with iastor.sys.
Have any of you experienced that also, and does anyone know of a fix?
stanvsam
2 Posts
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July 4th, 2009 00:00
We have bought E4300 few weeks back (June 1st week) and the machines are having a common problem that all of them freezes and the sound that comes from the system after the hang is like when a CD gets stuck in our player. I have read elsewhere in the forum that some of you have got the MOBO replaced. Has anybody faced the same issue in the Middle East? If so please let me know of what resolutions are available.
idanlevitan
7 Posts
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July 4th, 2009 02:00
Hi stanvsam,
I'm from Israel and I've had the sudden freezes and lockups with my E4300. I've contacted dell support and they have replaced my motherboard which fixed the freezes.
However, there still is a problem with the sound, which suddenly hangs. It has come to my understanding that the entire series Latitude E is having sound problems.
stanvsam
2 Posts
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July 4th, 2009 03:00
Hi idanlevitan,
I've just flashed the BIOS with A07 and am waiting for the response from the users if the problem still persists. I am also keen on knowing from you when was your purchase date for the laptop, coz i read in some posts that the MOBO of the laptops purchased before May was replaced and wanted to validate if our laptops were eligible for that.
Thanks for taking time to write and highly appreciate your response.
Kind regards
idanlevitan
7 Posts
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July 4th, 2009 04:00
Hi stanvsam,
I purchased my E4300 sometime in December 2008 and I currently use BIOS A06. Though if you dig through this monster thread, you will be able to find how to identify which motherboard version you have and which version is the faulty one, if I remember correctly.(regardless of the time being purchased)
Idan.