Dell Hell

[Greg Peng]

Or if you really want, you can just move over the memory.

+1, if that was the cause of the original problem.

[Earl Merz]

Tom, I recently upgraded the HDD in my old(2003) Dell laptop. From 30GB to 160GB. I used Acronis True Image Home to transfer everything. It clones the the HDD and when I installed the new HDD everything worked. Took about 2 hours total to clone the disk.

[Tom Tanquary]

I'm not sure what they are doing by replacing the entire system. Is it just the memory? Or more than that? I have no idea what's 32bit and what's 64 bit on the system but that's the basis of the problems. The only reason I'd want a new machine is about a month ago in the middle of all this, the audio stopped working. Nothing. The windows sounds still come through the speakers but nothing else. In device manager there are no yellows or reds, everything say "working properly" etc. It just one day stopped. Also one morning I noticed that the computer removed Windows Media Player and IE from the desktop and from the Start/All Programs menu. Why? I swear this thing has a mind of its own. And it's mentally ill.

[Q V]

I'm not sure what they are doing by replacing the entire system. Is it just the memory? Or more than that? I have no idea what's 32bit and what's 64 bit on the system but that's the basis of the problems. The only reason I'd want a new machine is about a month ago in the middle of all this, the audio stopped working. Nothing. The windows sounds still come through the speakers but nothing else. In device manager there are no yellows or reds, everything say "working properly" etc. It just one day stopped. Also one morning I noticed that the computer removed Windows Media Player and IE from the desktop and from the Start/All Programs menu. Why? I swear this thing has a mind of its own. And it's mentally ill.

Tom, do this:

1) Open up the OLD PC and remove the HDD --> most Dell's you don't even need tools
2) Open up the NEW PC and remove the HDD
3) Put the OLD HDD into the NEW PC, close it
4) Put the NEW HDD into the OLD PC, close it

Turn on the NEW PC. Enjoy your new system. I'm assuming they sent you a replacement PC (exact same specs, model wise). If so, the above steps will work just fine.

* and PS, you are very fortunate that Dell still has decent costumer service/satisfaction if they are replacing an entire PC. I wish Sony was even 1/10 as helpful (called recently & they labeled the "defect" as a "feature")
- they prob sent you an entire PC because they don't even know what is wrong & it is often easier/cheaper just to give the customer a new one.

[Tom Tanquary]

Thanks. I'll try that. Seems too simple. I have to be at work at midnight tonight so it'll be a day or so before I try that, though.

t

[Michael Wolf]

In answer to the original post.


I did a lot of really careful research, taking into consideration all aspects of your problem. I repeated the conditions myself and was able to reproduce the problem. In addition to the extensive laboratory work, I also consulted a team of experts in the field.

The problem is, "Dell."

The solution of course, is to get a real laptop. Sorry kiddo, but when you go to Linux forums, and see post after post after post about how crappy Dells are, and how incompatible they are with ANYTHING, you tend to come to the understanding that they're piles of sh#$ made as cheaply as possible to get as many gullible idiots to buy their products as possible (no offense of course). After all, computers are technology, not toys, so they should be a little bit expensive.


But I was being honest about my experience with Dells.


"Go to Dell."

"I'm on the highway to Dell"

"...A snowball's chance in Dell."

"Demons live in Dell."

"...Dell in a handbasket."

"Get the Dell out of here."

"Dell no!"

"I hope you burn in Dell."

[Tom Tanquary]

Sorry to bring this bad penny back around again, but I thought I'd give you guys another try.

I swapped out hard drives with the new computer, all seems well as far as I can tell. It's fairly fast and no crashes yet.

But I still have no sound, not even the Windows bingbong stuff. Nothing. Zip. Zero. from any audio port. I've done all the usual, (drivers etc)and spent 1.5 hours with Dell on the phone. Nothing. They want me to - of course - do a complete HDD wipe and new install. So I'm still back to where I started with what I really don't want to do. Reinstalling everything is just too painful right now.

Any last thoughts on this audio thing before I torch it?

Thanks

t

[Q V]

yea, plug in the other HDD (the new one) into the new PC to verify that audio works or not.

If not:
- new PC is also bad

If yes:
- then you know it's something software related; could be as easy as you disabled/selected wrong playback device or as complicated as the entire OS is f'ed up

If audio works w/ the new hdd & new PC, i'd say it's probably something simple disabled/selected in your OS on the old HDD.

hope that helps.

[Tom Tanquary]

It definitely something selected or disabled in the old OS. But what, is the question. Both Dell and I poured over everything. I have a copy of Windows 7. Can you install that over XP without reinstalling all the software?

thanks for your help.

t

[Q V]

What method did you use to verify that it is something w/ the old OS? Have you verified this with the method I mentioned above?

---------------------------------------------

You "can" upgrade Windows 7 over XP, but you don't usually want to, especially if there are things wrong w/ the current OS already; it can potentially cause more problems than it solves.

For now, do this:

- Right click on the little speaker icon & choose "Playback Devices"
- What is selected (a screen shot would be great)?
- Is there Speaker, and other options?
- Is anything set to "Mute"?

Aside:
- Have you verified in the Device Manager that the OS recognizes all parts of your sound card?
- Are there any items with a yellow circle & black question mark on them in the Device Manager?

--------------------------------------------

Also just noticed you are in Costa Mesa; if you don't have it squared away soon, I can swing by next week after work & check it out. It's so much easier to do these things in person since there's literally tons of things you can do/check.

[KJ Christopher]

You un-clicked 'mute', right?

[Tom Tanquary]

I started with the simplest points <mute> and went from there. Nothing in device manager, yellow or red. All the drivers have been deleted and then reinstalled. The sound card has been deleted and then reinstalled. Every page of every option has been gone over with a fine tooth comb. For an hour and half I turned the computer over to remote control by the Dell guy and watched him pour over it. Creating new user accounts, changing settings, deleting, reinstalling, and on and on. At one point we did get the windows sounds to come back, but then lost them just as quickly. The new computer played sounds just fine until I switched the HDDs. My best guess at this point is there is something trying to use the same resources as the audio card. But I don't know how to find that out. This is one of those things that has to come from left field, sort of like an episode of House. Maybe if some of you could get addicted to psychotropic drugs, we could figure this out.

t

[Tom Tanquary]

So I put an end to this madness and did the REAL obvious thing: I just bought a new sound card, bypassed the stupid built-in sound from the motherboard, and now I have audio again. Should have done this weeks ago. Stupid Dell wasted my time and their too. I'm glad time isn't money.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.

t

[Bob Beamesderfer]

So, the new computer had audio. The new computer with the old drive does not have audio. Some piece of software on the old hard drive is at fault.

Can you completely uninstall every piece of software—other than the OS—that has any interaction with sound one by one? If it's not an issue with the OS, then it's probably another piece of software in conflict with the OS or that has a discreet setting. Absurd, of course.

Is there a setting in a piece of sound editing or video editing software that could be at fault? Could there be a conflict between two pieces of software? If so, one-by-one cleansing and testing is the only method that can isolate the problem. If it happened because of an interaction between two programs, then reinstalling/testing one-by-one in the SAME [not reverse] order as uninstalling should turn up the two culprits at conflict.

What about backing up all your work, none of the software or OS, then reinstall the OS and test. Repeat for each piece of sound-related software one at a time. By sound-related, I mean any program outside of the normal Windows install that interacts with the sound card or CODEC. That's all I can think of.

"From a contradiction, you can deduce everything."

[Tom Tanquary]

That was my conclsion - some hardware conflict. But since putting in the new card got me audio, I'm walking away for now. I really have too many other things to. I really appriciate all the help on this. I hope all you guys had a fun weekend. Too bad I had work. I could use some time to blow off stream . Right now Bill and I are at the Fox Oscar after party waiting for jeff bridges. If he wins that is. If he doesn't we just tear down and go home. Free food and drinks, though while we wait. Could be worse.

t

[Craig Naylor]

OT warning but in response to your last post...

So was he Stoned, Plastered or both????

Even though he spent at least 60% of his speech talking to his deceased parents, how ashamed they would have been had they lived to actually see him finally receive his first OSCAR in such condition. :barf:

[Bob Beamesderfer]

OT warning but in response to your last post...

So was he Stoned, Plastered or both????

Even though he spent at least 60% of his speech talking to his deceased parents, how ashamed they would have been had they lived to actually see him finally receive his first OSCAR in such condition. :barf:

Where his lungs aching for air?

[Tom Tanquary]

OK last, last words on this. Tonight the Dell blew up. Won't boot, won't boot from a rescue disc or a OS disc. I guess the HDD bit the dust. Too bad because it was working great since I added the sound card.

Sooooooo, I would like to get some things off of it before sending it to recycling. Anyone know of a good cheap place close to Costa Mesa that could do such a thing? After which I'll be buying a new computer.

Moral of the story.... never ever buy a :barf: Dell :barf: unless you really like long walks on the beach while listening on your cell phone to some guy in India telling you to do the things you've already done for the 100th time, since there's no reason to be at home while he talks nonsense to you.

[Michael Palero]

I would verify that the HDD is indeed shot before sending it out for data recovery.

If it is a SATA HDD, mount it to your desktop and check
If it is a PATA (IDE) laptop drive, you can get a USB Laptop PATA HDD enclosure from $5.00-$29.00 to quickly check

Also, where was this laptop primarily used and how old is that building?

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

Moral of the story.... never ever buy a :barf: Dell :barf: unless you really like long walks on the beach while listening on your cell phone to some guy in India telling you to do the things you've already done for the 100th time, since there's no reason to be at home while he talks nonsense to you.

Sorry to hear about the bad PC you had Tom but I'll politely disagree in never buying a DELL. But if you do switch are you going to drink the kool-aid of Steve Jobs and become a convert?

EDIT: Tom was this a desktop or laptop?? If laptop, then that changes everything. I'd even suggest.....a MAC!

[John Stimson]

I don't see a problem with how Dell ultimately handled the situation. They sent you a brand new computer. The fact that it didn't fix your sound problem but installing a new sound card did, means that you had a funky driver problem. I don't think that any other system manufacturer would have done any better at troubleshooting a driver problem. 95% of them are going to tell you to just reinstall the operating system.

A hard drive failure doesn't seem to be related to the original problem. It sucks, but it happens. Ask me about Hitachi Deskstar hard drives sometime. I like to run two identical hard drives with RAID so that a single drive failure doesn't put me out of business. That has been extremely important in the past two years.

[Michael Palero]

. . . Ask me about Hitachi Deathstar sometime. . .

Hello,I've corrected it for you.

[Philip Strong]

Sorry that you have had a bad experience with Dell. I have had 4 Dell systems, laptop and desktop, with several issues between them - all handled promptly and satisfactorily under service contracts. The company I work with is all Dell - no major problems. YMMV...

[Tom Tanquary]

It's a desktop. Perhaps I'm being too hard on Dell but you guys figured out the problem within a few posts where it took them literally months to figure it out. And the problem was ultimately their fault so they had better have sent a new box to me. Regardless of what this new problem is or whether it is somehow related to any of the old problems isn't the point anymore. Its just become the straw that broke my back. I've never had this many problems with a single computer. I'm really sick of it. And on top of that I've been fighting with my Mac system for the last 4 days. One problem there is I'm trying to take my workflow tapeless but I found out Apple doesn't support the most common file types for video. Well, not without buying more ad-on programs that is (if it's not .mov, pay up). All the things that come included with the Avid PC systems at work all cost extra with Mac. I'm getting hammered from both sides this week. poor me