Lattitude C400 - Suttering Problems

I used a C400 two weeks ago for one night when I had to troubleshoot some issues from my friends house calling into my company. I didn't notice anything or any problems with this latitude.

What is suttering anyway? Do you mean stuttering?

Rapor

I had exactly the same problems with an Inspiron 4150- it seemed to be as regular as a heartbeat. The sound and mouse both were involved. Sound and mouse stopped momentarily every 2 seconds, approx, and the task manager displayed the same 0 to 32% ( depending on refresh rate ) and perfectly regular. If viewed in the performance tab of the task manager, it looked like an ekg pattern. I could not find any process that was using resources or cpu in any related manner. The problem would only go away in Safe mode, but after disabling everything (one process at a time) using MSINFO and rebooting to eliminate possible sources, I finally gave up.

It made me a nervous wreck! I sold the laptop. Now I'm working on a C400- setting it up. I'm not having that problem, yet- but the touchpad has a mind of it's own, which is why I'm prowling the boards here.

I didn't see that you ever got an answer, but I'd like to know if one exists. I know I will see that problem again and I'd like to be prepared.

Brad

(more machines than I care to list)

Brad

Like you I changed my machine, managed to get the company to buy me a D400. However, we did manage to get the problem fixed, turns out by installing the network card drivers that came with the machine caused the problems!! Using the default Win XP drivers everything was fine, so we stopped all our engineers installing the drivers of the CD's!

As for the mouse, the C400 does suffer quite a bit from that, especiall when you lean on the bottom righthand side of the casing.

Llawnroc

Llawnroc and Brad,

                                    BradSmall wrote :   The sound and mouse both were involved...

This in many cases indicates an interrupt conflict.   It would make sense to check the hardware properties of both, mouse and soundsystem    in the device manager    and try out different interrupt ressources for them.        If no success, the harddrive could also occupy an IRQ which is used by the mouse or the soundsystem.    The soundsystem should NOT have a "Soundblaster emulation" installed or enabled.  This is still part of many sound-systems and is often installed by plug 'n play.  It is used only if DOS based applications (mainly games) require it.   When found in the device manager under Sound-System it should be disabled.    If removed,  PnP might possibly re-install it at next startup.   The SB - emulation messes around with IRQ 5 and IRQ 7, depends what PnP was found and arranged until then.  That puts also the printer (LPT) into the game (but least likely).

Have success and stop stuttering.             flortep

Th.Th...Th...Thanks!!

I no longer have that machine, but it DID have "shared" interrupts- the sound, network and modem devices, I believe. The problem I had with that fact was, that the machine in question was running XP-Home. I could find no way to override,  nor change *any* resources. If you can tell me how to get around THAT problem, I would really appreciate it as I expect I will see that situation again.

For those who read this and have no problem currently.   ....Never touch a running system !!
This ia NOT a Cookery - Book with ready to cook recipes.  I'd like to give some hints and and ideas.

What's noted here was learned the hard way mostly when troubleshooting my AMD Desktop system.  Not everything may fit to your notebook. Make sure you "translate" individual tips to your hardware situation.

Brad and all,    of course there's not one guaranteed solution to solve such conflicts.   You can do certain (sometimes trivial) things however to prevent these conflicts.   When your machines PnP manager has to many things to care for and produces shared IRQs,  may be you can possibly minimize the results of resulting conflicts.

First :  The most named cure in all of these posts here :  make sure, you run the latest (stable !!) BIOS for your machine (sorry to bore you).
Free as many resources as you possibly can already within the BIOS setup.  
This means : Disable everything in the BIOS setup which you don't need. 
Example :  I run my C840 at 99 % of the time in a C/Dock II.    I need a NIC to run a DSL connection into the Web.    I've chosen the docks NIC, to accomplish this.    The built in NIC (to the C 840) is disabled.    So is the Modem.    If you decide for an external mouse on the PS2 port, disable the touchpad.   Try to connect a USB mouse instead of PS2 mouse and see wether it's running better or worse...   That could free IRQ 12.
Disable all unused devices as : Modems, NICs, Com Ports, Printer Ports, ACPI wakeup timers.
 
Start Windows in safe mode (XP and W2K as admin).     Go to the Device Manager.     Remove everything which is in this list or in question.    Many positions may have multiple entries.  This reflects the history of  your installation.    Remove all of them.     Check and remove all external devices.   That's :  Graphic Card, Mouse, Sound, NICs,  Modem,  Touch Pad, Com and LPT ports, Card Bus.   The Wi 9X family including WinMe has a one time shot to achieve this.     If I recall correctly,  a key like LocalUser/Hardware/Enum or similar exists and underneath of it all the keys with the installed hardware.  If you delete the Top Enum Key,  Windows "forgets" all what it remembers from the past about your installed an tested hardware.  Sure there is a similar key (per user or profile) for W2K or XP.
May be someone with more knowledge on these keys  gives some proven information here.   I have since to years now removed my fingers from Win9X, so I forgot details.
Windows will find an reinstall all visible hardware again at the next startup.

At that point try to take influence.   Don't allow the graphic card to share IRQs with a NIC,   Don't allow busses with high speed / high transfer volume to share an IRQ  (Card-Bus, USB/1394, with HDD or SCSI in C/Dock).  Don't have that dirty Soundblaster Emulation installed (occupies IRQ 5 or 7 when allowed with no payback).   Let the sound not share the IRQ with the mouse. Stuttering may result as you move the cursor.
Allow IRQ sharing with devices which are not used simultaneously.  Example : Sound and printer is ok.
If you can live without hibernation,  do so. 

The more I write, the more goes through my mind...    not going to write a book here.    Just to give you some ideas what to tamper around with.  

flortep 

Don't forget...

 YOU ARE AT YOUR OWN PLEASURE AND RISK

Message Edited by flortep on 11-26-2003 07:01 PM