Help! My new Dell Studio XPS 13 Laptop keeps on freezing up!

If you got MSDN, you can put on the Win7 RC right? If so, I'd either go that route or wait for the release in October or so.

Well, either way it's a speedy HDD for a laptop, I am really loving the loading performance of applications!  Even Firefox loads quickly, now THAT's a welcome change  :emotion-5:

I wonder why they did that. You know it's a mistake because the SATA drive and the "SCSI" drive use the same media bay to plug in, and the two connector types are physically different.

[quote user="fourells5"]My Studio XPS 13 shows a "WDC WD32 BJKT-75F4T  SCSI" as the HDD device name even though the Western Digital site shows it is a SATA drive, so I can see why Jangla thought it was a SCSI drive.

Mine had SCSI written on the label on the device itself.

I have another question for the masses too - is there any reason why I can't put XP on this thing? Technical support claimed it was impossible - the engineer said there was no reason why I shouldn't be able to. I've tried by just chucking in the boot install disk but it BSOD's about 60 seconds into the install.

I have seen a poster on the Dell forums who put XP on his 13 to test a different issue he was having, so I know it's possible. The main problem you will run into is finding XP drivers, as Dell has none posted. The reason for the BSOD (stop code 0x0000008E, if memory serves) is that you are not using the correct SATA driver, if any. If you can find the XP SATA driver for the controller and copy to an external floppy or slipstream it into a new copy of the XP installation disc, you will get past the BSOD. You could also boot to BIOS and change the SATA operation to get around it if you don't slipstream or install the SATA driver from a floppy during setup (the "Strike F6 to install a third party controller" thing). You might also run into problems with Microsoft Activations later if you did not purchase a new OEM or retail copy of XP, as well.

Everyone can get the RC1 I thought? Anyway, yes it's a definite consideration.

See, that's what annoys me about the technical support - they clearly have no clue (or they're just being M$'s lapdog). They were absolutely adamant that it was physically impossible. I might try installing the correct SATA drive I reckon...if I can ever get the thing fixed so it will stay stable long enough to install anything. And I've had an MSDN subscription for some time so I've got licensed versions of XP. Having said that, I'm pleasantly surprised at the speed of Vista but I reckon once you pass a certain spec, it can fly but a shade under that spec and it's a dog.

P.S. Anyone notice that SP2 for Vista bugs you about that fact you've turned off the UAC now? An icon in the systray is fine but to post a little dialog everytime you login is just annoying. Bring on v7.

I am throwing in the towel.  After my laptop came back from from Dell Repair Depot, Windows was corrupted.  When I try reinstalling Windows, the computer freezes - the same old freezing that the repair depot was supposed to fix in the first place.

I have the number for Customer Care and I am asking for a refund.  I refuse to spend another evening trying to get this laptop to work.

Wish me luck.

Good for you and good luck! My experience with repair centres in general is that they just replace a bunch of parts and send it back out as soon as possible without bothering with sensible testing i.e. does it turn on? Great - send it out.

Hi everyone,

I'm back, after originally seeming to fix this pile of poo of a laptop by reinstalling the os as support had directed me several times, and I have to say the support centre are useless, I was so annoyed and angry that I didn’t post what I had done or how bad support were because I had wasted so much of my time, I bought this machine as I am an IT consultant and thought it would be a great product, one of my account managers told me it would be, ha.

To fix the problem initially and prove it was a dell driver issue I reinstalled the OS from the recovery partition (for the 4th time) I left the machine on my desk and just used it without connecting it to a network or installing anything else, for a working day (it did not freeze once) then I did windows updates and no dell updates (again left it for one day), still no freezing or hanging...yeah. I then did the dell discovery thing to do the auto updates, less than 2 mins later my machine hung, at least I had narrowed it down.

 I then went through the whole thing again except I manually downloaded the dell updates (looking in device manager to make sure dell had posted the right drivers for the hardware, I don’t think dell’s site is correct) to a USB drive and manually installed only the hardware updates and recommended or urgent (can’t remember terminology on site), then hey presto it worked and I had no problems, I think I can say I proved it was a dell update, I had support telling me it was a windows update problem or a software problem and they would charge me to fix it, I refrained from swearing.

I now have the same problem and more, after recently doing an update (from the dell web site) I keep getting either a freezing laptop or the BSOD (BSOD is a power_driver can’t remember rest except it talks about uninstalling any hardware I have just installed, guess what I haven’t installed any) or the hard drive thrashing all of the time with the fan thinking it’s an air conditioning unit turned onto hot. Again I did some of my own testing and when I uninstalled the network driver, the problem seemed to fix itself (so far), well not quite the hard drive is still thrashing.

I can only surmise, don’t buy a dell product, if you have a problem, and I think that this is par the course with computers because they are not fool proof, you will not get the support you need.

BTW, and to give you an idea where I am coming from as I noticed that dell people also try and help on this forum, I also commissioned a high end dell equallogic solution costing over 100K, and guess what I had the same sorts of issues.

It’s about time dell started listening to their clients, and put a product out that worked out of the box, so many of the other manufactures can do it.

 I think you can tell I am annoyed again.

Engineer arrived for the second refit - brought wrong fan :emotion-6:

Laptop crashed 20 minutes after he left.

Words cannot describe how angry I am with Dell and this heap of useless black plastic.

How many attempted service calls is this now?

@david2009

What BIOS version are you running currently?

@Jangla

Can you send me a private message with your service tag, shipping address, email address, and daytime contact number, please? I will try to get your case routed and resolved through my EMEA contacts.

2 engineer visits this week plus one missed visit as he hadn't got the parts (today he admitted he was literally on my doorstep before he realised he didn't have them yesterday!). It did take me over a week of badgering tech support to convince them to send out an engineer at all though.

What wasn't perhaps clear from my previous post was that the visit today did result in the replacement of the motherboard, hard drive and some of the cooling systems. It was just the fan on the graphics card that was missed through being the incorrect part. The engineer also did the OS and driver installs himself so I'd expect them to be done right.....and it still died. I did have to show him how to enter the service tag in the BIOS though which is a little concerning. Even the guy he had to call to find out how to do this didn't know! Nice guy though - professional, courteous and punctual. It's not his fault the hardware's bobbins.

All-in-all, given the fact that there's now very little of this machine that hasn't been replaced, I'm of the opinion that there's an inherent design fault rather than being a single hardware issue.

As an aside, when will Dell list the drivers that need to be installed in the order they actually need to be installed in?! Where's the sense in putting them in any other order?! If something HAS to be installed first, put i at the top of the list - don't make us wade through all the help files first. The one that absolutely has to be installed first is about 13th on the list and you can't find that out without clicking each link and reading the installation instructions for every single one up to that point unless you've done it several times before and can remember which one it is! Absolutely senseless piece of software design.

@david2009 What BIOS version are you running currently?

At the moment the engineer has left it with A06 on it. If I can keep the thing up for long enough tonight I'll try and download A07 but I'm not holding my breath.