Inspiron 1501 video problems

Depot, i bite their bait and listen to their suggestion of getting it fixed instead of replaced. Same problems still happens in video intesive applications, I CANT EVEN ENCONDE A DVD wihout having to cross my fingers that it doesn't crash. (BOth Visa and XP)

Did you exchange it or did you send it to the depot to be fixed?

Well shoot. Pretty much out of luck then. I'll still let mine go back to the depot though to get it documented. Turn around with them (other notebooks) is generally quick.

Have you tried loading the older drivers listed this morning a few threads above? Did yours come with XP or Vista? I don't have the original XP video drivers disk. I've already loaded the firmware update.

To the prior poster who fixed with the original XP video drivers on CD: Did you load the 12/2007 a014 bios update?

Mine came with Vista, figure it was VISTA causing the problems after 3rd return i changed to XP. I've tried every driver possible DELL or pure ATI, and as of now i have the latest BIOS A16. Right now gonna try some AMD Chipset changes, but still. I think this is faulty design, i told them from the start it had to be faulty HW it is just redicoulous all of us have the same symptoms and DELL is not doing anythign bout it.

They have said that this problem is fixed by the new BIOS and new video drivers. Clearly you have tried as I have without any resolution. I read in another forum they read every thread here (so they will eventually read yours and mine). Clearly they are wrong in their belief that this is fixed.

An acknowledgment that the problem IS NOT FIXED and needs resolution for some set of motherboard hardware versions or something would at least tell us out here that something will come to fix the problem. But they believe apparently the case is closed and the few of us out here are isolated problems.

The Runescape.com procedure above will cause the error within one minute of running.

memaro: You say you have tried various drivers. Did you also tried old driver? I mean, really old ones, like from 2006?

Also, it would be important to clarify if there are two (or more) independent video-related issues that are reported in these forums, or just one. I haven't ever hed the "blue stripes" failure, only black screen + VPU recovery, and that under XP.

If the faliures are HW related or not is never clear... it's even possible that it's just a driver compatibility bug, but Dell will not ever find that "officially" out (big company, you know, things get often lost), and then their technical support will not know that either. Poor customers...

BTW, I forgot to mention previously that my laptop came without OS, so I have used a plain XP SP2 Home OEM CD, not some Dell customized XP.

To the prior poster who fixed with the original XP video drivers on CD: Did you load the 12/2007 a014 bios update?

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I don't know if it was a014 or what, but I have updated the BIOS to the latest one that was available on 12/13/2007 on the Dell support site as the first thing after installing Windows XP. (But it appears to me that the current latest BIOS was released on 12/24/2007). Also I have installed the latest drivers (13th December, again) from Dell site. And at least in this particular laptop it seems that was the big mistake... new drivers are sometimes more buggy then old ones.

If you still have your laptop there, I say, uninstall all the ATI video stuff, and give the previously linked 6.12 Catalyst a try (or try to google a 6.10 for integrated ATI videocards). At worst you still have to send the laptop to the service...

But I would like to emphasize again that in the second attempt I have installed all drivers from that CD (on a fresh XP SP2 installation), so much more than the video card driver was "downgraded". And that fixed it... maybe only the downgrading of the video driver did it, but I don't know. And for some reasons I wouldn't like to touch that laptop anymore... :)

Message Edited by ddekany on 01-03-2008 04:23 PM

I think is bad Drivers for BAD HARDWARE DESING, and no I didn't try 2006 drivers. Doubt those work. But i'm using the drivers older than the current ones (Forgot the version) and also i dropped HW acceleration by one NOTCH, for now doign testing. And i haven't crashed with heavy video load.

Well, I acquired a Dell driver CD and loaded the drivers. Prior to loading the drivers I had:
ATI External Event Utility for Windows Version 6.14.10.4163 *
ATI Smart Version 5.13.0027 *
ATI Technologies Inc. - Catalyst Control Centre Version 2.0.0.0 *

From the Dell CD:
ATI IGP Xpress 1150 Rev: A02
10/11/2006
Version On Dell CD 8.31-061011a-038132C-Dell
Version 8.31.0.0 reported after installation

Running my runescape.com test and I have not had an error yet. So it is definitely a case of bad drivers. Now I wonder... if I reinstalled the newest drivers on top of these old Dell drivers would it work? It seems that people who've done a clean XP install mostly have the problem.

I still may ship it back to Dell and see what circuit board it comes back with and if the serial number of the circuit board changes. For now it has Board: Dell Inc. 0UW744.

HEY DELL... WOULD YOU BE KIND ENOUGH TO ADMIT THIS PROBLEM?

OK, so this is very interesting. I have reloaded the driver from the ATI site version 8.432.0.0 dated 11/1/2007 (file is named 7-11_xp32_dd_54435.exe on the ATI website).

I loaded these drivers ON TOP of the Driver from the Dell CD. And I am running my tests that ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL crashed. And they are not crashing.

This may be preliminary but it seems to fix the crashing & VPU errors on Windows XP for me.

Again, I loaded the Dell CD drivers first Version 8.31.0.0 dated 10/11/06. I then loaded the 8.432.0.0 dated 11/1/2007 ON TOP of the Dell drivers (I did NOT uninstall the Dell drivers first).

Will someone else getting the VPU error try my runescape test and see if it crashes, and then try the above and see if the crash goes away? It always crashed within the first minute or two. It would be nice to have additional confirmation.

Anyway, my belief is this: There is a file or registry setting... something MISSING in the current drivers. The reason there aren't 20000 1501 owners posting this problem is because many people NEVER reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. They might update the video driver but just install it on top of the current driver (as I just did). Perhaps people having the problem are those who reformat and do virgin OS installations putting on only the latest drivers. I am wondering: Do those with the VPU error and black screen crash like me... did you reformat and reinstall windows and load everything from the Dell support site with only current drivers? Something in those CD version drivers was put on this computer... a registry setting... a file... I don't know what... but it seems to work fine now.

I will run my graphics test overnight to see if it crashes between then and now. It would be nice for someone else getting the VPU error to try the same thing I did (first see if runescape crashes it) and see if your results are the same.

Oh, one more thing, apparently the driver disk for the 1501 is the same for Vista and XP... all the drivers are on it.

Message Edited by dyker on 01-03-2008 10:02 PM

memaro: Exactly how did your notebook crashed under Vista (I mean, with blue stripes, or black screen followed by VPU recovery, or...), and exactly how does it crash under XP?

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@memaro wrote:
I think is bad Drivers for BAD HARDWARE DESING, and no I didn't try 2006 drivers. Doubt those work.

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(I understand that sentiment :), OTOH it's just 15 minutes to try. It seems to work here for two weeks now.)

Regarding that it's badly designed or manufactured hardware... yeah, that has a big chance. If a design or manufacturing mistake puts the laptops on the rim of instability, then software changes (BIOS version, video driver version, etc.) can make the problem to appear or disappear, depending on the individual laptop (due to manufacturing variances). Then Dell could start pushing the laptops to the safe side of that rim with BIOS updates and like, but for some laptops that will not be enough. And things like this are always company secrets, so if(!) this is the case, you can be quite sure that you will never hear the facts from the company. Rather they exhaust the customers with endless loop of tech support talks and replacements, etc.

Under Vista it Crashed th same as XP, random reboot and random vertical lines. Also when i close the lid and open it, it will sometimes flash a bunch of times before stabilizing. If the tweaks i made crash me, ill try the old drivers than. But as of now im stable (But not good stable), cuz i had to lower HW acceleration and that hurts my gaming. (Yes, dont give me the this isnt a gaming laptop, i know alot about computers and this is not gaming issues) PS: Also guys check your ATI SMBUS, and see if you have conflicts there. Maybe old drivers don't have conflicts but new ones do. I have a memory conflict in that section. In the end , is how you said, Dell allready has problems right now with faulty designs. I bet they gonna burry this as much as they can. Hopefuly they keep releasing timely fashion drivers and bios updates. Hopefully all of us will end up with a stable system. Not a system we gotta go crazy to make it stable. PS2: Can any of you guys upload this drivers to yousendit or something? My CD doesn't come with drivers that old.. I only have recent drivers on my CD's thanks.

memaro, you sure you don't have that CD? On the back of the white envelope it is Dell Part Number DP/N OGM487. The file is in \ZIPFILES\R141288.EXE

I found the same file name here... give it a shot:
http://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R141288.EXE I'd link it but I don't know how to create a link on Dell forums.

Test with those drivers until you know you are not getting crashes. If it works for you, try installing the newest ATI drivers on top of that driver. They can be found here:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/gamesite/7-12_xp32_dd_55811.exe.

Please report back success/failure.

Message Edited by dyker on 01-03-2008 10:36 PM

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@ddekany wrote:
BTW, I wonder, is VPU recovery enabled on your system currently (in the Catalyst Control Center)? It should be, otherwise it's cheating.

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It is enabled. Try putting the driver linked above on top of the existing driver and see if it upgrades OK. Of course, if you end up with issues my name is mud :) But I'd like to see some additional confirmation.

I'm on a virgin installation of the OS and drivers so I am confident you'll upgrade without issue as long as you reinstalled the R141288.EXE driver from the dell disk or ftp site first.

Message Edited by dyker on 01-03-2008 10:41 PM