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richsmith88
9 Posts
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13654
May 8th, 2006 22:00
Games/MS Office got minimize while playing, please help!!! Thanks!!
I just bought a Dell Dimension E510 3.4G/ 1G RAM/256M nVidia 7300LE. The system is pretty much top of line. However, when I play games on this system, about every 20 mins the game will get minimize for unclear reason. It does NOT happen when we play
the same games on other system. FYI – the games that we are playing are Battlefield 2, Empire Earth 2, and The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II. Even know both games and OS (Win XP) did not crash, but it’s very annoying problem. This tells me that the system is very unstable. Btw, we only play these games locally; we don’t play online (which requires more system resources).
I even did another experiment: Ie 5 IE Explorer, 5 MS Words, 5
Excel, and 2 PowerPoint maximize in my system. I let
the system running for about 2 hours. I when I checked
after 2 hours, guess what happened: THREE of the MS
Words AND Excel, ONE of the PowerPoint got minimize!!!
Does anyone out there have this kind of problem?? I contacted Dell, but they basically blamed on the software (How convenient, huh?), which I don’t buy it! I’ve to
emphasize that when we played aforementioned games in
other system, it worked fine. The other machine does
NOT minimize the game every 20 mins. I can even tell
you that other machine is not as high end as the one
that I bought. I’ve been using computer for a long long long time, but I didn’t see anything like this happened before. I believe there is something wrong with the hardware (maybe the motherboard).
Anyone who countered this problem, please leave me a message. I greatly appreciated your help!!!
330
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Posted May 9th, 2006 00:00
Thank you for your message, Ron. It seems to me that you are very knowledgeable about Win XP. I’ll do both of your suggestions and let you know what happen in couple of days. Hopefully this works! Thanks a million!
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Posted May 9th, 2006 20:00
Glad to help. Post back and let us know if the problem is fixed.
Ron
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Posted May 9th, 2006 23:00
Rich
Sorry that didn't fix it. Unless somebody else has a better idea and assuming you're still within the first 21 days of date of Dell's invoice (not the date you received the PC), call Tech Support and make them replace it with a new system under their Total Satisfaction Guarantee. If you don't do it within those first 21 days, you'll have to troubleshoot this one.
Typically when a system overheats, it freezes or crashes. I never heard of overheating causing open windows to minimize like this, but I suppose anything is possible.
Do you have either Yahoo or Google toolbars running on this system? Scanned for malware with Adaware and Spyboot etc?
Let's try this. Boot the PC and press F8 before XP starts to load. Choose Safe Mode from the list. Video drivers for your card won't load and it'll use XP's generic VGA driver so the screen may look 'funky'. Do your tests with lots of open Word and Excel windows. Your game may not run correctly without the card's video drivers, but you can try it too. If the problem is gone, something loading at normal start-up is causing the problem.
In that case, go to Startup tab in msconfig and uncheck everything on that screen. Power off the system and disconnect the PC from router or broadband modem or phone line (if using dial-up). Now reboot the system. Do NOT go on line while your antiviral and firewall are disabled in msconfig! Run your open windows tests again.
If you still have the problem, you can run msconfig and check the essential items you want to load every time you start (antiviral, firewall, etc) and reboot.
Now run a system file check:
click start>run
type in: sfc /scannow
(space between sfc and /)
click ok
sfc will replace any missing/damaged XP system files. Insert XP CD if sfc requests it and reboot when it's done. Boot normally and try the open windows tests again.
As you can see, this may get tedious to troubleshoot, so a replacement system might be the quickest route to sanity, if you're within the magic 21-day period.
RonMessage Edited by RoHe on 05-09-200606:03 PM
330
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Posted May 9th, 2006 23:00
Once again thanks for your message, Ron. I’m sorry to say that I’d tried both of your suggestions, but the result is still the same. My games and MS office applications are still minimizing!!! :mansad: I really do think it’s an over-heat HW issue. Any more suggestions? Please advise and thank you for your time and efforts on this matter! :mansad:
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Posted May 10th, 2006 00:00
Ron, thanks for you message. Where did you hear Dell offer Total Satisfaction Guarantee? When I contacted Dell to get a replacement of my system, they basically told me that the problem is SW, not HW. Thus they can NOT replace my system. I can still RETURN my system but for a credit or a refund of the purchase price paid, less shipping and handling and applicable restocking fees. Obviously, I don’t want to do that. It’s really something wrong about the system. The customer services is really terrible. To be honest with you, the issue that I’m having already scared away potential 3 customers (they are all my friends) for Dell. If they kept ignore their customers, they will kept missing their earnings. I’m really disappointed about it, I thought very highly on them before, but not any more.
Anyway, I agreed with you wholeheartedly about “Typically when a system overheats, it freezes or crashes.” But that’s really the only thing that I can think of. Otherwise who can explain to me my applications kept minimize? I’ll try to use your method and see what happened. Btw, have you seen anything like this before? I’ve been using computer for a long time, and I never seen anything like this before. Once again thank you for your suggestion.
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Posted May 10th, 2006 21:00
Rich,
Only time I've ever seen this problem is when some other app was stealing focus. That's why I suggested you try that approach first.
Maybe Dell has changed their policy, but it used to be that they'd replace any system within the first 21 days. My first 8400 went back on day 9. They replaced it for free, and paid all shipping costs back and forth. Maybe you need to contact Customer Support rather than Tech Support.
If you don't have a lot of personal files on this system and haven't added a lot of software, you might just try doing a PC Restore. That will reset the system exactly the way Dell shipped it. Back up personal files first because they will be lost. Any software and XP updates you added will have to be reinstalled. To run PC Restore, press ctrl-F11 before XP starts to load and follow the prompts.
Ron
330
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Posted May 17th, 2006 00:00
Ron,
I did the PC restore, but as I expected, my pc is still minizing!! this issue has occurred since day one! i contacted dell, but they still insisted there is nothing wrong with the system, but the software that I'm using. when i mentioned to them that how come it doesn't happen in other system with SAME sw, they basically told me that they are not sw expert and they couldn't ans my question. anyway, I'm ready to post my story any website that i can find and tell everyone about the horrible experiences that I've with dell. btw, do you know if i can stop payment on my 'dell preferred acct'? i want to put my system's charge in dis put. can i do that? thank you for your help.Rich330
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Posted May 18th, 2006 23:00
Rich
Sorry you have so many problems. If this is being paid by credit card, you can certainly dispute the charges with the card company. I don't think it's legal in US to stop a check for this kind of reason.
Sure you don't have google or yahoo toolbar running? Dell installs lots of bloatware on PCs and a lot of them run in the background and cause problems. If PC Restore didn't fix it then there may be a hardware issue. Boot the PC and press F12 before XP starts to load. Run all the diagnostics. Write down any hardware error messages and report them to Dell.
Go to www.sysinternals.com. Download free Process Explorer. Run PE and click Options>always on top on its toolbar. You may have to watch PE for a while until things minimize, but keep an eye on PE window for something to suddenly start using a lots of CPU time, aside from System Idle Process. That may tell you what app may be doing something in the background that's causing this problem.
If none of that solves it, you may have to do a Repair/Reinstall of XP (wont damage personal files, but all XP updates have to be reloaded). Or a full reformat/reinstall.
Ron
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Posted May 21st, 2006 01:00
Rich,
Just a quick thought:
Is your PC connected to a network via router and/or broadband modem? If yes, try totally unplugging PC from network. If problem goes away, there's something going on with the network connection. Either router or broadband modem isn't configured correctly or the network software/connection is doing something in the background.
Ron
RoHe
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330
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Posted May 8th, 2006 23:00
If that doesn't do it, go to this page and look for the link to download Tweak UI, free from Microsoft. Run TUI and expand the list under General on the left side. Click Focus and put a check in the box "Prevent apps from stealing focus" in the right pane. Exit and reboot
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Ron