hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 Hi all, My Dell PC has been giving me some grief. I have written a post on the Dell forums about it, but I wanted to post here so that you wonderful people can advise. My post is here. Does anyone have any ideas? Have a nice easter everyone. Thanks Harry
elsiegee40 Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 (edited) I had no end of trouble, not that long ago, with a brand new Dell laptop running Win 7 that was dreadfully slow to boot and impossibly slow to use. In the end, I managed to spot something called ISCT (Intel Smart Connect Technology) kicking up messages in the the log. Mr Dell uninstalled ISCT and all was well. See here Apparently ISCT is something that periodically wakes the system from sleep or standby (not from hibernation) and updates applications that get their data from the Internet... you don't need it! It's worth looking for! Edited April 20, 2014 by elsiegee40
mac_shinobi Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 Run diagnostics on ram, hard drive's etc. any bios updates ? Maybe backup data, format the drive and re image / re install windows and get rid of there av etc
computer_expert Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 Intel Rapid Storage drivers can cause system slowdowns too (although I've never seen this myself).
Arthur Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 What about Intel's PROSet Monitoring Service? Have you tried MemTest86+ and/or your hard drive manufacturers diagnostic program? Sometimes these find problems, where Dell's diagnostic software doesn't. Both can be found on the UBCD. 1
mrwobbly Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 I’d try running it with a clean boot first and see if that fixes the problem. Either way it will give you a clue as to where to look further.
hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Author Posted April 20, 2014 Well, I have been using a reinstalled version of Windows and it is still giving issues, it suddenly turned itself off several times. Then, the USB ports stopped working on the front.
elsiegee40 Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 Well, I have been using a reinstalled version of Windows and it is still giving issues, it suddenly turned itself off several times. Then, the USB ports stopped working on the front. Hardware problem?
hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Author Posted April 20, 2014 Any ideas? Is it economically worth repairing?
hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Author Posted April 20, 2014 It is 2 years old and out of warranty The WiFi has just died.....damn you to the deepest depths of hell Dell...
elsiegee40 Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 I really would expect hardware to last more than 2 years. It might be worth putting in a call to Dell anyway and chalenging them on a machine that you really would expect to last more than 2 years.
hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Author Posted April 20, 2014 Don't trust Dell with what they did during the delivery. It was late and left in Poland. I am thinking of taking it to a repair shop and seeing what they have to say.
elsiegee40 Posted April 20, 2014 Posted April 20, 2014 Don't trust Dell with what they did during the delivery. It was late and left in Poland. I am thinking of taking it to a repair shop and seeing what they have to say. If you get them to concede that it's their fault then you won't pay
hawc Posted April 20, 2014 Author Posted April 20, 2014 I am considering calling the Expired Warranty team at Dell tomorrow. I have found the phone number here.here.
LeMarchand Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 I've had similar problems at home. Once it was the power supply on the way out and the other time it turned out that it was well past time that I gave the case/fans/heat vanes a good blow out .
hawc Posted April 21, 2014 Author Posted April 21, 2014 Well, just off of the phone to the expired warranty team and I had a mini heart attack when I was quoted the price. I was quoted £70 just to fix the wifi issue. This would not fix any of the other issues, just the WiFi issues. I am wondering what my next options should be. Does anyone have any ideas for what I should do? I want to avoid having to replace the PC however (as I think you have noticed), I am in the process of specifying a new rig.
JonThompson Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 Well, just off of the phone to the expired warranty team and I had a mini heart attack when I was quoted the price. I was quoted £70 just to fix the wifi issue. This would not fix any of the other issues, just the WiFi issues. I am wondering what my next options should be. Does anyone have any ideas for what I should do? I want to avoid having to replace the PC however (as I think you have noticed), I am in the process of specifying a new rig. Read this - http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/brighton-hove/con1item.cgi?file=*ADV0054-1011.txt Especially the part about half way down about the EU directive 1999/44/EC that gives you 2 years under consumer laws to make a claim for faulty goods.
hawc Posted April 21, 2014 Author Posted April 21, 2014 I put it on my Barclaycard and then paid it off.
mrbios Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 have you run memtest and hdtune to check both memory and hdd? Assuming both of those come up fine, take out all additional cards be they pci, pci-e etc, if the pc has onboard video then use that instead of graphics card, and test it all again with the absolute minimal devices connected(also unplug usb devices). If it's still showing the same problem then i'd bet you any money the motherboard is faulty. Does the same freezing occur in safe mode too? Certainly wouldn't pay to have that fixed, diagnose each component individually until you've narrowed down which part is causing the issue, and try different OS's too incase you have a random driver that's conflicting with something.
Arthur Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 it suddenly turned itself off several times. That sounds like it could be PSU or CPU related. Have you tried any of the following? Test the power supply with a cheap PSU tester. Once you have finished with it you could send it back for a refund. Check the temp of the processor using HWMonitor. If too hot, then... Ensure the CPU heatsink is mounted securely. Re-apply the thermal paste between the heatsink and CPU. [*]Clean out any dust from inside your PC and/or PSU. the USB ports stopped working on the front. The front ports are USB 3.0, so there's a chance it could be driver related, although Windows 8.1 has native USB 3.0 support so it should have installed the correct driver when the operating system was installed. Perhaps it might be worth testing them under a different OS like Ubuntu 14.04 or Windows 7?
hawc Posted April 21, 2014 Author Posted April 21, 2014 I tested the processor and it was hitting 90oC and I had to turn it off.
mac_shinobi Posted April 21, 2014 Posted April 21, 2014 [*]Check the temp of the processor using HWMonitor. If too hot, then... Ensure the CPU heatsink is mounted securely. Re-apply the thermal paste between the heatsink and CPU. [*]Clean out any dust from inside your PC and/or PSU. I tested the processor and it was hitting 90oC and I had to turn it off. as per above an alcohol of some description ( ethanol or similar ) or a tim cpu / heatsink cleaner to clean off old thermal paste from / off the cpu and or heatsink and apply some new thermal paste and re apply the heatsink Which @Arthur has already suggested
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