D600 Shutdown/Time issues

Question

Hello:

I recently purchased a Latitude D600, and am having a couple of problems that I can't explain with it. Any help that the community can provide would be greatly appreciated. BTW, this is a Latitude D600 (A09 BIOS) with 1 Gb RAM and Windows XP Pro with all updates applied, both via Dell and Windows Update.

1. On shutdown about 80-90% of the time, the PC logs out and then displays the "Windows is shutting down" dialog. After this dialog disappears, the mouse pointer is left on the light blue screen. After a second or two, the mouse pointer disappears, and the PC sits with a blank light blue screen until the cows come home :-( I end up having to turn it off with the power switch. I have tried many of the 'Windows XP Shutdown Fixes' sites to no avail. BTW, the other 10-20% of the time, it works as advertised and shuts down correctly.

2. Occasionally (although most often when I redock the computer,) the PC will boot up and display a "Invalid system time" dialog after login. It then will take and EXCRUCIATINGLY long time to finish the initialization process (retrieve roaming profile from LAN, load up tray icon stuff, etc.) and then generally not work well at all. When I view the system time, it is listed as 1/1/1601. If I shut down the PC and restart it, the exact same process will occur UNTIL I go into the BIOS screen on boot and look at the system time (which, BTW, is always correct). After I look at the BIOS screen, the problem goes away and Windows boots up in its normal only half-excruciatingly long time self. :-) No clue where to even begin on this one. I would think that if the BIOS battery were dead or not working properly, the BIOS clock would not even function properly.

Any assistance that you all can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for all of your help!

-Jonathon Schrader

jlschrad · Answer

Bump:

I can't believe that I'm the only one. Although I suppose that I could be crazy...

That said, the PC still operates the same way, although the 1/1/1601 error appears to be happening less frequently.

FYI: When the 1/1/1601 error happens, going into the BIOS does show the correct time.

I'm sorry, but I'm really confused by these issues. If ANYBODY has any thoughts/help that they can provide....it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
-Jon

jwark · Answer

hm, maybe it's some problem on your exchange server? I found this article. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;224597

jlschrad · Answer

I don't think that this would affect me as I am running IMAP, not exchange...

But thanks for the input! I'm really starting to grasp at straws, so anything other than "I have no idea" is a great help!

Thanks again!
-Jon

jwark · Answer

Hm, well IMAP is a protocol. Exchange is a mail server. You don't connect to an exchange server?

jlschrad · Answer

Not in this case. I run the a linux-based S/IMAP server. The only other server I connect to is a POP-based email server at my ISP. However, I don't think, even if they were running exchange (which would seem to be very expensive on their part for simple email,) that I connect to an Exchange server in any way.

I'm *pretty* sure..... :-)

Thanks again for your thoughts!
-Jon

jwark · Answer

Well, it's definitely a software problem if it shows correct in the bios. As far as the shutdown problems, I would use msconfig to troubleshoot that.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310560

Also here's a knowledge base article on troubleshooting shutdown issues.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308029

jlschrad · Answer

jwark:

Thanks for your help! I've been playing around with MSCONFIG with varying results. However, the shutdown problem still does not seem repeatable.

Do you know if there are any hardware issues with the ACPI BIOS? Maybe the software is dropping the signal, but the firmware isn't responding properly....

Thanks again for your help.

Thanks!
-Jon

jwark · Answer

sorry, I don't know. I do know that 1/16/1601 is the what the ntfs file system will use as a default date on files for timestamping purposes. I really can't figure out how that would be transferred to your system clock which you can not even manually set back that far. That's about all I can tell you. Maybe it's a bad bios but I'm not sure what could make the clock transfer to that time. Anyone else have any thoughts?

jlschrad · Answer

jwark:

Thank you so much for your help. I got it! However, it's nowhere NEAR where I thought it would be.

Turns out it was the RAM. I bought 1Gb (2x512 - Infineon) of RAM and replaced the RAM that was in it (2x128 - Hynix). About the time I replaced it was when I replaced a lot of things (when I first set up the system) so I didn't think much of it, especially when I ran a memory test first thing and it came back fine two or three times.

However, when I finally got exasperated tonight, and started grasping at straws, I decided to put the old RAM back in. Guess what...all of the problems went away. No more time problems, no more shutdown problems, the system goes into standby perfectly and ejects from the dock just fine...etc, etc, etc. Everything works great!

So, I just need to go buy better RAM. I should have known that Infineon was a pile of junk....I design with their microprocessor at work and don't think very highly of it, either :-)

Anyway, thank you SO MUCH for your help. If you ever run into a problem, don't hesitate to send it along.

Thanks!
-Jonathon Schrader

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D600 Shutdown/Time issues

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