Chronictank
FH is my second home
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2004
- Messages
- 10,133
Bought my laptop a couple of months ago for near a grand, when playing daoc its fine for a while but eventually the cooling fans come on and the laptop grinds to a halt usually meaning the account ld's
Contacted customer support (who seem to be based in India yay for offshoring :/)
Filled in customer support form with the following:
Reponce:
I was ok... automated and irrelvant no matter i wait for the real responce hopefully it will be better.. but...
Omg..... so i reply
\o/ he gets the problem and advises the following:
I may not be a techinical genius but turning the settings up is suppose to slove the problem? Tried it anyway no change so e-mailed back
Yes i assumed, prolly isnt the problem but thats what i thought it might be at the time;
Im begining to get irritated how many times am i supposed to tell him i have the latest drivers... anyhow
And then i get the repsonce:
Despite is specifically saying on the website this system is "designed for high-rescoure applications such as video editing"
It cant even run a game which is 3 years old.
The saga continues ..
Edit: sorry just realised where i posted it, can it be prodded to off topic plz
Contacted customer support (who seem to be based in India yay for offshoring :/)
Filled in customer support form with the following:
Code:
Problem: Video Adapter
Operating System: Windows XP
Problem Description:
n/a
The graphics seem to slow down on all games when the heat sink kicks in, before
it does the games run smoothly but as soon as the heat sink comes on there is
severe fps (frames per second) slow down.
I purposfuly upgraded my Ram to 1 gb, and chose the more expensive Radeon 9700
mobility so i could run games smoothly.
Thank you in advance
Adil
Tried turning off all power saving feature, switched graphics to lowest,
upgraded drivers for video card, upgraded BIOS to no avail.
Code:
Dear Dell Customer,
Dell's e-mail software interprets your message as a request for help with a Dell
notebook computer touchpad.
If your message is not about a touchpad problem, or you need further assistance,
please just click [Reply] to this document, and a Dell e-mail agent will read
and answer your message.
________________
Table of Contents
================
1. Cursor drifting
2. Erratic movement and touch pad sensitivity settings
3. How to disable the touch pad
4. Download drivers
==================
1. Cursor drifting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Occasionally, the cursor will begin to drift for a while and stop. The cursor
drift is a normal feature of the pointing stick. If you apply pressure in one
direction for a length of time, the stick will calibrate its position as the
centre position. Thus, once you release it and it returns to its true centre, it
will think you're pushing it and it will drift for a bit until it recalibrates.
Disable the pointing stick if you don't need it and the problem should stop. The
Dell Knowledgebase article found at the link below explains how to disable the
track stick:
http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=1043246
================================
2. Erratic movement and touch pad sensitivity settings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If mouse sensitivity is set too high then the cursor can move erratically or
even by itself. Even if you don't touch the pad while typing, if your thumb or
fingers get close it can still respond. To remedy this try decreasing the touch
pad sensitivity in the Mouse properties in Control Panel. The following article
will show you how if you need help:
http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=1013669
===============================
3. How to disable the touch pad
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To disable the touch pad:
* Restart the system.
* As soon as text or a picture appears on the computer screen, press and release
[F2] every 3 seconds to enter system setup.
* If your computer boots to Windows, repeat this procedure again.
* Once in the BIOS, toggle to either the "Pointing Devices" or "Internal Touch
Pad" section and change the setting to "PS/2 Mouse" or "Auto Disabled"
respectively. Follow the instructions at the bottom of your BIOS Setup screen
for changing pages and device settings.
* Save changes and exit the BIOS.
This will disable the touch-pad when an external mouse is connected and allow
the touch pad to work only when you do not have an external mouse attached the
computer.
===============================
4. How to disable the track stick
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes, over time, the keyboard places pressure on the track stick, causing
erratic cursor movement. It is possible to correct this problem by disabling
the track stick and using either the touch pad or an external mouse for cursor
movement. First, determine whether or not your notebook has a track stick. If
it does, the track stick will appear as a small button looking much like a
pencil eraser near the centre of your keyboard.
* If your computer is running Windows 2000:
1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
The Control Panel window appears.
2. Double-click the Mouse icon. The Mouse Properties window appears.
3. Depending on which version of the Synaptics Touch Pad drivers you have, you
will have a tab labelled Touch or a tab labelled Device Settings. Click on
whichever of the two you have.
4. If you are on the Touch tab, click on the drop down menu and choose
Pointing Stick on PS/2 Port. If you are on the device settings tab, highlight
Pointing Stick.
5. Check the selection to Disable the device or pointing stick.
6. Click OK
* If your computer is using Windows XP:
1. Click the Start button, and then click Control Panel on the right side.
The Control Panel window appears.
2. Double-click the Mouse icon. The Mouse Properties window appears.
3. Depending on which version of the Synaptics Touch Pad drivers you have, you
will have a tab labelled Touch or a tab labelled Device Settings. Click on
whichever of the two you have.
4. If you are on the Touch tab, click on the drop down menu and choose
Pointing Stick on PS/2 Port. If you are on the device settings tab, highlight
Pointing Stick.
5. Check the selection to Disable the device or pointing stick.
6. Click OK
===================
5. Download drivers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To download a new driver from our Web site follow the instructions at this link:
http://support.euro.dell.com/ie/en/kb/document.asp?DN=TT1090180&tag=
* Check for downloads for Input Devices and click [GO].
* Follow the instructions on the Download page.
Code:
Dear Mr. Dean,
Thank you for contacting Dell e-Support & Services.
We appreciate this opportunity to assist you.
My name is Ganesh and I will be assisting you with your Dell
INSPIRON (Svc Tag 91H3H1J)
I apologize for the delay in answering your mail. We answer email
in the order they come in and we have seen more growth in the
amount of people using e-Support than we anticipated. We are
working very hard to insure more timely responses.
I understand from your message that you are having issues where
the games are not running smoothly.
After reviewing your information, I have come up with the following
steps to find a resolution to this problem. Please do note that
every step has significance in arriving at a satisfactory resolution,
therefore please provide the result of every step.
Update the bios to the latest version:
------------------------------------------*
Please down load latest bios version from the below link, which
also has the instructions for updating it.
http:
//support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&release
id=R93239&SystemID=INS_PNT_P4_9200&category=1&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=8164&devlib
=1&fileid=121357
Release date: 07/02/2005.
Use the HTTP option to download.
Update the graphics card drivers:
---------------------------------------*
Below is the link from where you can download the latest video
card drivers which also has the instructions to update it:
http:
//support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&release
id=R91865&SystemID=INS_PNT_P4_9200&category=6&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=6434&devlib
=6&fileid=119690
Release date:09/02/2005
Use the HTTP option to download.
After updating the bios and the video card drivers, if you still
experience the same problem then please get in touch with our
advance software support for further help
You can contact our advance software support on 0870 3664026(UK)
or 1850 200421
(Ireland)
Thanks for your co operation and have a nice day.
Kind Regards,
Ganesh R.
Dell E-Support and Services
If responding to us, please use the ***REPLY*** function of your
email program in order to keep the SAME SUBJECT or our response
to you may be delayed or lost.
Click here <http://support.euro.dell.com> to access
Status updates on service calls
All Drivers & Files for your system
Answers to Technical Queries
Code:
As i stated earlier i have already upgraded the bios and driver's to no
avail, i am not very satisfied as the responce i find very
patronising.
I will re-iterate the problem, after prolongued gameplay
the heatsink on the graphics card starts and the fps(frames per second) are
reduced to a unplayable rate.
Awaiting your responce,
Thanks,
Adil
Code:
Dear Mr. Dean,
Thank you for writing in. I hope you are doing fine.
I apologize for the delay in answering your mail. We answer email
in the order they come In and we have seen more growth in the
amount of people using e-Support than we anticipated. We are
working very hard to insure more timely responses.
I have read your message and understood your concern.
There are couple of games such as Helo 2 and Sims 2 that might
have these kind of problems because these games are extremely
high graphics intensive games and needs high configuration systems
to play them like video card with 256 MB video memory, at least
1GB memory Etc. These games are certainly not meant to be played
on a laptop but should be played on a high end Desktop.
However, assuming that you are not playing any of the above games,
there are certain things that we can try.
1) Maximize the video memory for the system in the bios. The
graphics card on your system will support up to 128 MB video
memory, Load the system to the bios and increase the video memory
to maximum.
2) Increase the video card hardware acceleration to high. To
do that right click on the desktop and select properties, on
the display properties screen select the setting and click the
advance button, and then click on the troubleshooting tab and
make sure that the hardware acceleration is set to Full. Also
make sure that monitor setting is set to 60 Hertz.
3) Make sure that the screen resolution is set to 1440X900 and
the color quality is set to highest (32 bit).
Also please conform, after using the system for how long hours
the FPS will stats reducing and does it happen with all the games
or with any particular game.
Please check all the above steps and hopefully the issue will
be resolved.
Kind Regards,
Ganesh.R.
Dell E-Support and Services
Code:
It happens with all games after prolongued usage , when the fan comes on to
cool the gfx card.
I can only assume its a problem with the PSU resulting
in the gfx card not getting enough power
Adil
Code:
Dear Mr. Dean,
Thank you for writing in. I hope you are doing fine.
1) Can you please let me know how many hours when you say prolonged
use?
2) What happens when you play 2 DVD?s back to back and does the
performance of deteriorate while playing the 2nd DVD.
3) What is the screen resolution set when playing games?
Please revert back with the answers to these questions.
Also you may want to download the Catalyst 5.4 for the graphics
card.
http://www.ati.com/products/catalyst/index.html
Kind Regards,
Ganesh.R.
Dell E-Support and Services
Code:
> >1) Can you please let me know how many hours when you say prolonged
> >use?
> 1-5 on AC Power, but this is irrelevant as the problem only occurs when
> using graphic intensive games
> >2) What happens when you play 2 DVD?s back to back and does the
> >performance of deteriorate while playing the 2nd DVD.
> No, performance was fine (2x 1hr 30 DVD's)
> >3) What is the screen resolution set when playing games?
usually the lowest setting possible (normally 800x600)
And then i get the repsonce:
Code:
Dear Mr. Dean,
Thank you for writing in. I hope you are doing fine.
Laptops are not meant to be used for prolonged periods of time
(5 hours) while running graphics intensive games. As you have
already confirmed in your reply that the display works as designed
with out any problems when playing 2 DVD?s back to back, the
system hardware, in this case the video card is working as per
design and is not faulty. Also as confirmed in your earlier mails,
this issue is game-specific, so it clearly confirms that the
system Hardware is not at fault.
Most of the games used specific display resolutions which are
meant to provide optimal viewing performance which might not
be suitable for the video card or the display on your system
because of which noticeable degradation of video performance
might be noticed over prolonged periods of intensive use.
The resolution suggested for your system?s display as per the
User Guide or Owner?s Manual is meant for Optimal Viewing Performance.
When the resolution is changed by the settings in-built in the
game, the changes might not be suitable for the display.
As advised earlier the system Hardware is working as designed
and is not at fault, thus this matter lies beyond our purview.
Kind Regards,
Ganesh.R.
Dell E-Support and Services
Despite is specifically saying on the website this system is "designed for high-rescoure applications such as video editing"
It cant even run a game which is 3 years old.
The saga continues ..
Edit: sorry just realised where i posted it, can it be prodded to off topic plz