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Vista Laptop
liam.mccaffrey - 20/3/07 at 10:26 AM

I bought a vista laptop form dell 2 weeks ago. All is not well. the thing hangs and crashes when running even the simplist of programs, calculator notepad etc

any ideas before i call and shout at dell.

Many Thanks


fishywick - 20/3/07 at 10:45 AM

Hmmm, by coincidence I've just been looking at Dell for a new Vista laptop.
Sorry I can't help but I will be interested in the replies!!


ecosse - 20/3/07 at 10:46 AM

Try running the "problem reports and soluions" pplet in control panel and see if it throws up any issues.
You could also try the "performance info and tools" applet in control panel and go to "advanced tools" and run a system health report.
If these wont run properly then you may have a hardware problem.


Cheers

Alex

Has it done this from new or has it just started?

[Edited on 20/3/07 by ecosse]


James - 20/3/07 at 10:59 AM

You could check the memory module is seated correctly. Remove it carefully, blow to clear any dust and re-seat.
Other than that I wonder if it could be a CPU fan problem so it's over-heating.

Good luck,
James


clockwork - 20/3/07 at 11:02 AM

^^^Don't do the above as you may invalidate the warranty (stupid I know) ^^^


liam.mccaffrey - 20/3/07 at 11:25 AM

it was working flawlessly and this problem popped up all of a sudden, nothing i did seemed to cause it

weird


Gav - 20/3/07 at 01:04 PM

sounds like malware to me, have you recently installed any third party apps or codecs?
i know Divx installs a nasty bit of malware if you dont untick the box when installing, just had to solve that for the sister inlaw.

If you want to post a screen shot of taskmanager with the process list i can tell you what shouldnt be running and how to deal with it.


liam.mccaffrey - 20/3/07 at 05:22 PM

i did install divx or xvid?

but i did run spybot and ad-aware afterwards and they didn't show anyhting up

will post screen shot later


Jasper - 20/3/07 at 06:33 PM

Call Dell - always found them very helpful on the phone....


Gav - 21/3/07 at 10:06 AM

This was the same with the inlaws laptop.
i thinkthe process that was killing it was called something like xxx_trickler.exe carnt remember what xxx was though.


quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
i did install divx or xvid?

but i did run spybot and ad-aware afterwards and they didn't show anyhting up

will post screen shot later