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joshprewitt
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July 7th, 2006 12:00
Is anyone else having problems with their E1505
I purchased a Inspiron E1505 about 37 days ago and it hasn't worked correctly yet. The first day I tried to use it I received a BSOD saying that the ati***.sys (video driver) had entered an infinite loop.
I have talked to 5 different people from dell and done everything from reinstalling the drivers to reinstalling the OS and it still has problems. I ran the advanced diagnostics and it did report a few failures on what seems to be the hard drive.
Dell is now going to send me a new hard drive to see if that will fix the problem. Has anyone else had similar experiences with the quality of parts that dell uses.
After fighting with this issue for almost a month, I tried to see if dell would give me my money back, but I was informed that they had a 21 day return policy and that I would just have to keep working with them until the problem is resolved.
Personally, I think this stinks. If I wanted to work on computers I would have kept using my old broken one.
-Josh
I have talked to 5 different people from dell and done everything from reinstalling the drivers to reinstalling the OS and it still has problems. I ran the advanced diagnostics and it did report a few failures on what seems to be the hard drive.
Dell is now going to send me a new hard drive to see if that will fix the problem. Has anyone else had similar experiences with the quality of parts that dell uses.
After fighting with this issue for almost a month, I tried to see if dell would give me my money back, but I was informed that they had a 21 day return policy and that I would just have to keep working with them until the problem is resolved.
Personally, I think this stinks. If I wanted to work on computers I would have kept using my old broken one.
-Josh
Message Edited by joshprewitt on 07-07-200608:40 AM
joshprewitt
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Posted July 7th, 2006 14:00
I have been to dell and ATI's web site and downloaded the latest driver from both. None of them have been able to fix the problem. I agree that it might be a driver problem, but if it is no one has a fix yet.
-Joshtigerwolf7
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Posted July 7th, 2006 14:00
Did you use a moding tool to be able to install ATi's regular drivers? Without that they won't install (they're compatible-but for some unknown reason notebook makers don't let you install regular drivers).
If that dosen't work, I'm thinking a defective GPU...but RAM could be another likely culprit. I'd run through Dell's diagnostics program, but also use:
http://www.memtest86.com/
http://www.memtest.org/
Memtest from one of those sites. You can create a bootable CD, and let it run the tests for a few hours. It should come up with zero errors (or probably a couple is okay), but if it generates a bunch, then the RAM is probably bad-or needs to be reseated, or there's something wrong with the memory controller, but usually it's the RAM.
But given the specific error, my first guess is either drivers, or the video card is bad.joshprewitt
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Posted July 7th, 2006 15:00
I'll give the moding tool a try. Since I have 1G of ram I did try pulling one 512 out at a time to see if that was the problem, but it still crashed. So the memory is probably fine for now.tigerwolf7
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Posted July 7th, 2006 15:00
Yeah, sounds like it. Might as well try running memtest though (it's a good idea when you get a new system anyway).
But it does sound like the GPU.tigerwolf7
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Posted July 7th, 2006 16:00
He's already past the 21 days, unfortunatly.- agreed with the run memtest, RAM errors are like the sneaky ninjas of the unreproducable error world, one bad transistor in a stick of memory prolly wont report under POST, and will not generally cause an immediate error in windows until something critical is loaded into that bit. Programs like memtest literally check each bit, and it's recommended to just start it and run it overnight if possible(as it might not catch it on first pass, second pass... twelfth pass, etc)Like I said, sneaky ninja errors....
- josh, have you used the omega drivers yet? When I formated my laptop and tried using dells ati driver install, it flat out didnt work at all. I proceeded to use the drivers clean uninstall program to wipe it out and installed the latest omegas from http://www.omegadrivers.net/ . The reason being is that even ati's normal drivers dont support the mobiles x1300, but the omegas have all the needed config data to install onto the mobile X's. I havnt had a single problem with them, they play unreal 2k4, guild wars, and need for speed underground 2 just fine.
katiescarlett71
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Posted July 9th, 2006 03:00
Hello, I just received my brand new Inspiron E1505 from Dell three days ago. It blue screened on me. I got an error code 4. I tried and tried and finally got to system restore to no avail because it froze during progress. What gives? Talk about frustrating! I ran a diagnostic in safe mode (after trying and trying to get into safe mode) and got a "failed memory integrity" as well. Here is the other message: "file setupdd.sys could not be loaded. error code is 4" Any advice?
tigerwolf7
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Posted July 7th, 2006 13:00
http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/
Just going by your description, it's doubtful it has anything to do with your hard drive.
It's easiest to get exchanges, etc. in the first 21 days, but since it's still under warrenty you should be able to get to the bottom of it. It might not even be faulty hardware, could just be a driver issue.