SFDD,

Please describe in greater detail what your system is doing so we can see if it is doing what others are describing.

Thank you for choosing Dell.

My machine intermitantly locks up: dead mouse, no access to task manager. It seems to happen in clusters, meaning that it will happen a few times one day and not again for 3 or 4 days.

Since I started paying closer attention to it, it's happened three times: once while adjusting the taskbar properties and twice while looking at a website. (CNN was one site and a local, text-only "for sale" board was the other.)

I use the machine for Photoshop, Illustrator, FrameMaker and Electric Image (3D) and it hasn't ever locked up while I've been inside one of those programs.

I also don't recall it ever locking up while under battery power. And I think it's been okay when the removable bay has had the CD drive inserted and not the second battery.

I have tried reformatting the drive and installing XP Home and XP Pro (not at the same time). Neither made a difference.

Dell 8500 2.4Ghz WXUGA
512k RAM
40 GB 5400 RPM drive
Dell TrueMobile™ 1300 WLAN (802.11b/g, 54Mbps) miniPCI Card
64MB DDR NVIDIA® GeForce™ 4 4200 Go

As an update, John, today I was working off of one battery and all was fine for about 2 hours and 45 minutes or so. Then the battery was low so I pulled out the CD-ROM and put the second battery in. Within about 20 minutes the machine got very hot, and while I was selecting between wireless networks, it made a loud pop, flashed a blue screen (that had an error on it that I couldn't see because it wasn't up for long enough), and rebooted itself. In this case, Internet explorer wasn't even open. Despite the fact that the machine was quite hot, the fan wasn't on. (I've already run the fan diagnostics and it reported no problems.)

So I had a look at the Latitude board and I see that D800 owners are experiencing the very same problems. Could these freezing and restarting problems be related to the bigger power supply that's used to drive the wide aspect display?

This just started happening to me. I have frozen 3 times today already! It usually doesn't happen much - I am on the laptop 8 hours a day and never more that one freeze in a day... sometimes days without a freeze. I will trying to re-seat the ram and see what happens.

Running XP pro.

I forgot the specs.

Inspiron 8500 2.4 GHZ WUXGA

BIOS A01

Win XP Pro

768 MB Ram

40 GB HDD

Dell Truemobile 1300 WLAN

64 MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce 4 4200 Go

 

 

I also have an 8500 since early May and I also experienced the same freezing problem within 2 hrs. out of the box and I'm still experiencing problems on a regular basis ( 2-3 times when surfing in a 4-5 hr. session). I have also found that when on battery I have not had the freezing problem, only on ac after the battery has a full charge hmmmm.... Still running stock ( no updates or new software) I've been keeping tabs on the posts for any solid fixes, I wish I would have taken this problem more serious and sent the thing back in the first thirty days. I did contact Dell and they gave me the standard list to try which I'll try then start the process to get my system replaced hopefully without a major battle. I'll post any updates.

 

Thanks,

KP

Well you're a couple of BIOS releases behind anyway - I'd start by updating to A03.

I had a stuttering and occasional shutdown problem with mine that was related to temperature - the CPU fan was faulty. Since the fan was replaced, it's been fine.

You may want to monitor your CPU temperatures with fanGUI, to see if that has anything to do with the problem.

Good luck!

I was browsing this forum since I have been experiencing the same exact problem. I e-mail tech support a few hours ago and I am awaiting a reply. Anyway, is this a common occurence with 8500's?

 

Here's what I sent to tech support:

At random times, the system will freeze up and will not respond. The
computer stays on and whatever was on the screen stays on the screen but
the entire system becomes unresponsive. The problem appears to occur
randomly, but usually will not occur for at least 2 hours after the
computer has been turned on. This has occured a number of times.

Additionaly and possibly related, the screen flickers for a second and then
switches to what appears to be 640x480 resolution and 8-bit color. The
following message then pops up and instructs to restart the computer,
"Windows has recovered from a device faliure." This has occured twice.

Message Edited by r85 on 08-01-2003 11:49 PM

Well my freezing problem went away for a while after updating to BIOS A03 and installing

FANGUI last Sunday then last night the freezing began again. The most notable change

I saw was the CPU load jump to 100% with nothing running!! the temp also spiked to above

55 (before freezing the temp was running around 40) I was able to keep the temp around

50 with FANGUI when the CPU would rail. What's causing the CPU to rail? I'll get more

detailed data and post the results. Any suggestions welcomed. Thanks, KP

 

Inspiron 8500
BIOS A03
Win XP Pro
Mobile P4-M 2.4GHz
768MB RAM
TrueMobile 1300
GeForce4 4200 Go