Hi,

Welcome to the Community. You have done most of the troubleshooting steps except for formatting your hard drive and manually reinstalling Windows. If that does not help, then replacing the hard drive should help. Use the below link to Manually reinstall Windows. Backup all data before you try this step.

supportapj.dell.com/.../document

Thank you.

Thanks for your answer.

By manually installling Windows you mean using the DVD's (Windows, drivers, etc..)? (How) Does this differ from installing using the recovery-partition? I would think those are the same..

It is a tedious time-consuming process backing-up all data (on 2 external drives to be sure) and handling the encryption/decryption I use.

It is also slightly difficult since the V131 has no DVD-drive built-in. Luckily I bought one, and I had already tried to install Windows on another partitioin, creating a multi-boot environment, and thus trying out a clean install without my working install on the original partition. Somewhere I got stuck, at that time not knowing it is difficult/impossible to install from the Windows DVD through an USB3 connection. I believe the V131 has only 1 UBS2 connection, and the external drive needs 2 USB connection for its power, so I yet have to figure out whether that's gonna work. At that time I also had overlooked the Dell DVD's with device drivers and didn't get the install to work, so I gave up.

So, to be sure, is an new install using the DVD's really a usefull effort?

While I'm typing on my V131, my touchpad suddenly went bezerk/crazy and impossible to use. An external mouse that I connected immediately worked fine, while at the same time the touchpad kept it's strange behaviour. Sometime later now the touchpad recovered.

And finally, you mention replacing the hard-drive... How would that relate to the problem with my V131? I don't exactly see the connection. Can a faulty hard-drive hang-up the system, the mouse and keyboard? Is that a know problem? In that case I may test with a harddrive from another laptop that I will have to format for this purpose, although, I'm not sure yet if it's good/big enough..

Regards!

Hi,

Yes, by manually installing windows I meant using the Windows Disc. The reason I said try doing this is because the recovery partition which is the factory image could be corrupt. Hence by using the disc to install windows, will install a fresh copy of windows, without all the softwares that come with the factory image. After installing windows installing a fresh copy of the drivers could help with this issue.

Yes a faulty hard drive, can cause freezing issues, which can lock up the system, mouse and keyboard. But before confirming its the hard drive, you should try manually reinstalling windows. I recommend you click on the below link and follow the wiki given by natakuc4 to manually install windows. If you are using a different version on windows, click on the correct version on the left hand side.

en.community.dell.com/.../1434.1-1-a-clean-install-of-windows-7-on-dell-systems.aspx

Thank you.

From your description, I wonder if it could be a GPU hang. I have had a similar problem with the Vostro V131 and a Lenovo X220, and I believe the issue was related to the "Intel HD 3000" GPU. Does the system always hang on for a few seconds and then recovers? Does sometimes irremediably freeze requiring a reboot (see this report: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg487336.aspx)?

The freeze didn't require a reboot. I still don't know precisely the cause of the issue, whether gpu, hdd, software, faulty recovery-partition or other..

But it has been solved by reïnstalling Windows and the Dell-drivers using the original DVD's and not reïinstalling using the built-in recovery system. The system doesn't hang anymore, even at times I hear the fan blowing loudly which would normally be a prediction of faulty behaviour.

It took me a while before I'd done all this, since I actually couldn't use an external DVD-reader anymore, thus reïnstalling through .ISO copies of the DVD's, and some other complicating circumstances..

@Dell, I've never been able to install all device-drivers in an easy way, since the software on the DVD with drivers didn't function properly. It should provide an easy interface, allowing easy install of all required drivers, but it didn't give me that option. The software said that there where no device drivers found on the DVD (can't remember the exact text). Therefor I went through all applicable directories on the DVD and manually clicked on install.exe files hoping that along the way I would gather all required drivers. But off course I didn't know exactly what I was clicking, and got many errors. But in the end I got a working system. Although I'm afraid for the moment I will have to go through this process again in the future, just because for some reason I need to reïnstall everything.

@Dell, I installed the drivers through an .ISO copy of the orginal drivers DVD. Is that the reason it didn't gave me a proper user-interface?  Is there a possibillity to download a working .ISO copy of the driver DVD for the V131, or could I obtain a hardcopy in another way?

Interesting. Are you using a 32bit or a 64bit version of Windows? I wonder if I can solve my problems the same way but I don't have the DVD with the drivers. Would you be able to send me the .ISO file somehow?

I can share a Dropbox/Google Drive/Ubuntu One folder with you, but the question still stands. Are you using a 32bit or a 64bit version of Windows?