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

was double talk... (edit)

Hmmm, weird - I just got an auto email from this thread but the post in question isn't here. May have been xanh's edited post above I guess.

Anyway, in the interests of completeness and to address the points raised, here's that missing post and my response:

Dude, 1. You never had a SCSI drive in it... 2. Sata is not inferior to SCSI.. 3. Are you sure that the hard drive you got replaced has the same rotational speed as the new one? Some hard drives run on Sata 1.5 and others on 3.0... If you find the model of your hard drive, then you can find out this info by using google...

1. I figured that out a while ago but the label on it definitely said SCSI - the engineer confirmed this and was as confused as me.

2. That depends on a number of factors I suppose but that isn't a discussion for this thread.

3. Yup - both 5400's. Windows Experience Index (hardly scientific I know, but still...) gave a 5.9 to the first drive and a 5.4 to the replacement. As I said, it's hardly scientific but a 5 point gap is big no matter what.

Regardless, the whole issue is now moot as I replaced it with a Precision M4400 which I'm very happy with. Absolutely flies, doesn't get anywhere near as hot and has a ludicrously good monitor resolution....plus is scores over double what the XPS 13 did in 3DMark05.

Regardless, the whole issue is now moot as I replaced it with a Precision M4400 which I'm very happy with.

Just out of curiousity, how exactly did you get Dell to refund your money??  I'm currently beginning the process of backing up my computer and will be going back to Best Buy where I purchased it to see if it is possible to fix it/replace it/return it because I'm sick of the freezing when on battery power -- I can't keep carrying a wall adaptor around with me to use my "portable" computer.  I'm loosing my patience here and beginning to wish (probably past beginning) that I had never bought a Dell.

Good to hear, at least, that the larger laptops don't have this issue.

hello guys - i'm another one of you!

first, dell came and replaced the heatsink. the second time they replaced the motherboard.

the issue is still there. i'm guessing its something to do with nvidia sli configuration/nvidia drivers.

now dell is going to replace the motherboard(again!), the harddisk, the heatsink(again!) and the hard disk! and i asked them, "why dont you just replace whole laptop?" and they are telling me they wont/cant. i mean, i honestly dont know what to say at this point.

i dont want to disable any of the features, i mean whats the point of doing that? doesnt that defeat the point of paying for an "XPS"?

apart from my work/study stuff, i am a regular gamer. so SLI is important...otherwise its just sllooooooow.

i wonder if these dell engineers follows these threads...hmm.

hello guys - i'm another one of you! first, dell came and replaced the heatsink. the second time they replaced the motherboard. the issue is still there. i'm guessing its something to do with nvidia sli configuration/nvidia drivers. now dell is going to replace the motherboard(again!), the harddisk, the heatsink(again!) and the hard disk! and i asked them, "why dont you just replace whole laptop?" and they are telling me they wont/cant. i mean, i honestly dont know what to say at this point. i dont want to disable any of the features, i mean whats the point of doing that? doesnt that defeat the point of paying for an "XPS"? apart from my work/study stuff, i am a regular gamer. so SLI is important...otherwise its just sllooooooow. i wonder if these dell engineers follows these threads...hmm.

SLI on a Studio XPS 13? Maybe you have an XPS 17xx? What system model do you have and what BIOS rev are you currently running?

Dell Studio XPS 13 (1340)

BIOS : A07

and yes, the studio xps 1340 has SLI. ('GeForce 9500' aka 9200+9400 Hybrid SLI)

yes i have. and im running 64-bit now. ive tried 32-bit as well. still happens.

i'm used to leaving my computer at all times, so its basically always on. I do this because, updates, defragmentation, downloads, virus scans, IM/email, etc all run when i am asleep. BUT, i can no longer do that, because every morning when i check my laptop - its frozen. most of the time with hard disk curruptions as a result.

No I didn't have that problem! I bought a Toshiba!

Have you updated to the latest webcam driver? Are you running 64 or 32 bit?

Dell Studio XPS 13 (1340) BIOS : A07   and yes, the studio xps 1340 has SLI. ('GeForce 9500' aka 9200+9400 Hybrid SLI)

I was being a little too literal. I had the conventional, 2-card SLI in mind. Wasn't even thinking Hybrid SLI when I read your post. duh on me.

lol thats fine. Well its got two cards literally, but its called hybrid SLI because one of those cards are the integrated (9400) and the other other is the dedicated (9200), at least thats my understanding of it.

anyways, any hints on my issue? do you have any clue how i can resolve this or why this is happening?

Have you updated to the latest webcam driver? Are you running 64 or 32 bit?

If the webcam driver was causing this, wouldn't disabling the webcam prevent the freezing?  Has Dell done anything with the NVIDIA drivers or audio drivers, since so  many of us have reported that disabling those features seems to make a difference?  I'm amazed that computer engineers haven't solved this yet.

are  you *sure the official NV drivers work? because i tried them...and it didnt detect my card!! im using laptopvideo2go drivers now...they are fast and a bit more stable than the dell ones.

are  you the official NV drivers work? because i tried them...and it didnt detect my card!! im using laptopvideo2go drivers now...they are fast and a bit more stable than the dell ones.

The official nVidia drivers do not work as they load the HD audio driver only. I loaded Windows 7 build 7600 this past weekend and oh man what a difference. The laptop doesn't even get extremely hot in the upper-left corner anymore, it's very cool. I can sit it on my lap with Aero running all day long. It also hasn't crashed yet. What I noticed was this time, when I installed the Vista x64 driver from Dell's website, instead of saying Vista nVidia river or whatever, it actually said Windows 7 nVidia driver. It definitely didn't do that when I tried to install it last time. Weird, but everything is working perfectly.

I can't wait for my retail copy of Windows 7 to arrive. I think I may finally be happy with my XPS 13 purchase (as long as the lockups and corruption don't come back).