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dotcodotuk

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dotcodotuk

2 Posts

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4151

October 19th, 2006 08:00

M70 problem please help

Hi

I have a M70 laptop its a 2.4Ghz CPU with a Gig of RAM but its having trouble

I can boot up into win xp pro and its all fine.. however when I open IE and scroll down a fairly basic webpage it has trouble, it sometimes skips down the page and sometimes freezes the system, suggesting a RAM error?!or possibly video..
I have done this whilst viewing the task manager and it shows an increase in CPU usage up to 100% no matter what I scroll. With the spec of the machine this seems stupid!!

Any suggestions..??
Thanks
  • G

    geoffnt

    3 Posts

    98

    0

    Posted October 21st, 2006 14:00

    There are a few things you can try:

    Video drivers might not be installed. This could cause IE to not have a smooth scroll effect, however it shouldn't lock up the entire computer (and thus require a reboot) although it will run quite slow and use 100% processor. Dell video drivers should work well enough, or you can try nvidia drivers from laptopvideo2go.com that are more recent.

    IE might be corrupted. Try running the File Signiture Verification Utility located in the System Information Program on the Start Menu. Or possibly try doing a repair install of XP, although it might require you to re-install certain programs because it will wipe the registry clean.

    Your processor might be overclocked. Intel didn't make a 2.4ghz version of the 533mhz fsb Dothans, but it is a fairly common practice of enthusiasts to overclock the older 1.8ghz model up to 2.4ghz, with limited success. It is possible to undo the modification, but be sure and check if it is actually 2.4ghz before trying.

    Good luck!
  • K

    krullmi

    18 Posts

    98

    0

    Posted November 15th, 2006 16:00

    Are you using a docking station or port replicator? 
     
    I have had freezing problems since I got this m70 over a year ago.  It started within the
    first week of use....on the docking station only.  I cannot find any pattern that causes it
    to happen.  It would freeze with light or heavy use. I would power up at the beginning of
    the day and walk away to get coffee and come back to a frozen laptop at the login screen.
    It always freezes within the first ten minutes after first morning power up (on docking
    station or port replicator). Some days I could work the rest of the day with no freezes,
    sometimes not.
     
    My system is an M70 with a 2ghz processor, 2gig of ram, nvidia quadro 1400 go graphics
    card, phillips CD-R DVD player, wireless network card
     
    Here are the actions I've taken:
    -Changed video drivers tried all versions on Dell website versions A0 thru A7
    -Upgraded motherboard bios to A4
     
    - Auto-update in XP was enabled...somewhere in there one or a few of the xp updates caused the freezes to increase to like every 10 minutes, on or off the docking station.
     
    -Re-loaded  windows XP pro sp2 - disabled autoupdate - went back down to 1 to 3 freezes a
    day.
    -Switched from a docking station to a port replicator
    -removed and re-installed the ram simms - one is under a panel on the back, the other is
    under the keyboard
    -the IT department made me turn auto-update back on after some virus scare and the  freezes
    came back to every 10 to 15 minutes, on or off the docking station ...once again rendering
    this $2500 laptop useless.
     
    - IT then down graded me to windows 2000 at my request.  No freezes off docking stations, 1
    to 3 freezes a day on docking station. 
     
    - Chucked the docking station and just pluged and unplugged 2nd monitor, 2 USB cables
    (mouse and keyboard), AC adapter, and network cable every morning and evening.
     
    - all went well since last may or June.  Then, the 21 inch CRT I was using as a 2nd monitor started getting blury because of it's age.  I had been using the laptop screen and 21 inch monitor together. I got 2 brand new 19 inch lcd flat panels. The M70 only has one video output.  The docking stations and port replicators have 1 vga and 1 DVI output.  I dug up the docking station that came with my M70 and got the 2 panels working.  It took a while with windows 2000.  After several re-boots and re-installing the A07 graphics drivers I finally got them working with the laptop closed on the docking station using 'horizontal span mode'.  I tried with much frustration to get 'Dualview' loaded, but never got it to see both flat panels.
     
    Now the freezes came back. Always freezes within the first 10 minutes of first boot-up of the day, and I've had 2 more this morning again.  I popped the cd-r dvd player out of the laptop and installed it in the docking station and ran a docking station update from Dell....that didn't fix it...still freezing.
     
    The only thing I haven't done is use Dell's support.  The IT department here insisted on trying the OS re-loads and several of the other Dell updates and Microsoft Updates (which made things worse on XP) before they would go through DELL.  Now that I'm getting them again, I'm ready to go through Dell support...not looking forward to it, but I'll keep you posted.
     
    krullmi

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