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Random Shutdown possibly solved (m5550) - Page 2

post #21 of 55
9/25/06 at 11:14pm
AlienApple did u have the nvidia 7600? So from your findings all we have to do is update our bios and reseat the ram if the random issues arise? Wierd because so many people are having this issue and some claimed to reseat and upgrade their ram and this issue still occurred. Anyways, good luck with your lappy and keep us posted.
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post #22 of 55
9/26/06 at 12:10am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan'sM505x
AlienApple did u have the nvidia 7600? So from your findings all we have to do is update our bios and reseat the ram if the random issues arise? Wierd because so many people are having this issue and some claimed to reseat and upgrade their ram and this issue still occurred. Anyways, good luck with your lappy and keep us posted.

No Geforce, I do not like nVidia at all. I opted for the ATI Radeon x1400 as my videocard, both for image quality, stability, and battery life. And it looks as though reseating the memory and upgrading the BIOS has cured me of the shutdowns, that is I am 24 hours now without a shutdown!

Anyway, I still recommend updating the Intel Chipset Driver and all other drivers to the latest, then making sure you have the latest BIOS (unless you have no problems, then don't bother with the BIOS).

Cheers.
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post #23 of 55
9/26/06 at 6:34am
Thread Starter 
Well I am about to head off to bed and not one shutdown to speak of today. Of course I will not claim FIXED yet, as I would like to go alot longer before reporting that, but it is loking good. I really think that reseating the memory is what did the trick, but also I would like to report that my m5550 is running WAY cooler after I tightened the heatsink down.

I even played a good 2 hours of Battlefield 2 tonight without it so much as getting HOT. Very nice I must say! Not to mention that game is addictive as hell! LOL.

Anyway, I will report back tomorrow.

Night
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post #24 of 55
9/26/06 at 1:32pm
Did you play Bf2 on low or med settings/64 player map? let me know how it runs because I originally ordered the zti x1400 and just changed it to the nvidia go 6600 for 100.00 bucks more. I want better battery life so i didnt opt for the 7600 and I really dont game much other than Bf2 or UT 04 and doom.

Maybe I should have stuck with my ati x1400 lol Also is your dxdiag showing 128mb or 256? (hypermemory?) I read some people reporting the video card showing 512 but thats with 1gb of ram.
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post #25 of 55
9/26/06 at 1:53pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan'sM505x
Did you play Bf2 on low or med settings/64 player map? let me know how it runs because I originally ordered the zti x1400 and just changed it to the nvidia go 6600 for 100.00 bucks more. I want better battery life so i didnt opt for the 7600 and I really dont game much other than Bf2 or UT 04 and doom.

Maybe I should have stuck with my ati x1400 lol Also is your dxdiag showing 128mb or 256? (hypermemory?) I read some people reporting the video card showing 512 but thats with 1gb of ram.

Every app I have shows 256MB memory on the x1400. Some people say it is hypermemory, others say it is physical memory. Either way I play BF2 on high quality 1024x768 stretched mode, cause thats all the options are giving me. It looks great though even running out of native res. I was surprised!

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post #26 of 55
9/26/06 at 2:07pm
I don't want to say that reseating the memory is not the solution because it very well may have fixed your problem. But I find it difficult to believe that all of our systems had memory modules that were either installed incorrectly or that all of our RAM had shifted out of position during shipping.

I will of course try this method first as it is a simple thing to do. If it does fix the issue, then we should give AW a call and let them know that their builders are not seating the RAM modules properly.

One last thing to add, I have been getting the shutdown thing less frequently. Could it be that the thermal paste is finally setting up? I don't know if it's just me but sometimes it happens after I put it on my cooler. Could it be that the movement causes the RAM to move just enough to shut the system down? Just taking some wild guesses here.
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post #27 of 55
9/26/06 at 2:13pm
Thread Starter 
Well I am on day 2 of no shutdowns. The last things I did were as follows...

1. Installed the latest Intel Chipset Driver
2. Tightened down the CPU / GPU heatsink
3. Reseated the system memory
4. Updated to BIOS 2.03w

One of those seems to have fixed my shutdown problems. I honestly could not tell you which one is the divinitive fix, but I think it was the memory not making a proper connection to the motherboard and shorting, causing the system to shut off right away.

I would say if you are experiencing the random shutdown, try one or all of the above and see if it fixes it for you.

Cheers!

Also keep in mind, if Alienware were to sell 200,000 m5550's, and 100 people have the shutdown problem because of, lets say, improperly seated memory.. then that is less then 1% of all the systems sold. These guys are in a hurry to get these out the door to us, and when your puttig 100+ sticks of memory in a day the chances of getting a little lazy and just clicking em in real fast becomes easy to do. WE take great care when we do anything with OUR systems, those guys do the same things over and over to systems on an assembly line. Way different story
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post #28 of 55
9/26/06 at 2:31pm
I guess you are right.

I will definatly go home tonight and reseat the memory.

Also could you please post up where to get the chpset drivers?

Thanks for all the info btw, I appreciate it very much.
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post #29 of 55
9/26/06 at 2:44pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by HuKaShI
I guess you are right.

I will definatly go home tonight and reseat the memory.

Also could you please post up where to get the chpset drivers?

Thanks for all the info btw, I appreciate it very much.

Linkage - http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...ition&lang=eng
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post #30 of 55
9/26/06 at 2:56pm
For those having the random shutdown issues. Why don't all of you look at who did the inspections on your system, and see if it is the same person. If it is, maybe there is an issue with that person's work. And if there is a consistency, maybe email or call alienware to let them know this. Just a thought.....
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post #31 of 55
9/27/06 at 2:08am
Good Idea Shadz78, AW said my order is delayed because the ati x1400 is out of stock and they told me to upgrade my video card (nvidia 6600 i opt for) so that would speed up production. I opt for this option and AW called me today to confirm payment... i told them I will just wait it out for the ati x1400 and maybe they will give me a free upgrade if it takes too long lol
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post #32 of 55
9/27/06 at 4:05am
Thread Starter 
I am now running for 51 hours straight with no random shutdown problem. Also it feels as though it is not even half as hot as it used to be when I first got it. I hear the fan come on when it's supposed to and all is rock stable over here.

All in all I give this laptop a 9/10, missed a point for the shutdown scare but overall an awesome laptop and plenty fast for everything I do
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post #33 of 55
9/27/06 at 4:20am
Great News! How long battery life are u getting? And also is there really a Subwoofer in the m5550?
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post #34 of 55
9/27/06 at 6:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bryan'sM505x
Great News! How long battery life are u getting? And also is there really a Subwoofer in the m5550?

There is a subwoofer but it is not hooked up to anything, so no on the sub. Battery life is 3.5 hours doing non gaming non dvd stuff, and pure joy when plugged in and gaming
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post #35 of 55
9/27/06 at 1:14pm
3.5 hrs? how come most of us can only acheive less than 2 hrs? Do u have the duo core 2? what mobile settings did u set your laptop too? 3.5 hrs sounds awesome : )
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post #36 of 55
9/27/06 at 1:27pm
OK, so I reseated my RAM last night before going to be. I left the machine on overnight to let it do some downloading and it was still on this morning when I left the house. I'll see if it's still on when I get home.

It could very well be that the RAM was not installed properly. Who knows, only time will tell...

BTW, I would also like to know how you are getting 3.5 hours off the battery. I can only manage 1 hour and 40 mins.
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post #37 of 55
9/27/06 at 1:34pm
Yes, endulge us on how you are getting 3.5 hrs lol... Is it because the duo core 2 cpu is more effcient? Or its possible AW included an 8 cell battery (yeah right, AW should have included an 8 cell not 6 cell anyways) or the Ati x1400 is more power efficent...
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post #38 of 55
9/27/06 at 2:59pm
Yea I've only seen a max of about 2 hours with the screen pretty dim, wireless off most of the time, and the fan button pressed (leaves the clock at .966gHz and dosen't allow it to clock up to 1.83 or whatever speed processor you have).
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post #39 of 55
9/27/06 at 4:13pm
Thread Starter 
When I am on battery I dim the screen down as low as it will go, run the power savings in portable/laptop mode, and use the fan button mode. Also in the BIOS there is a setting for Max battery life mode which is defaulted to DISABLED, I enabled it

Just word processing and such I get 3 - 3.5 hours. The ATI card can also clock itself down automatically if it detects the battery powering the system and lowers its clock and ram timings to half. ATI has always been better at this then nVidia which is why I chose the x1400 in the first place.

All in all I am impressed with the m5550, and yes I have a Core 2 Duo in there @ 1.66Ghz, I chose the lowest clocked C2D because I did want a good amount of battery life over the few frames a 1.83Ghz or 2.0+ Ghz would have given me.

Hope this helps

P.S. If I really need portable word processing for my work and such I use my 6-7 year old iBook Clamshell G3 366Mhz, it can achieve 6 hours on a battery
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post #40 of 55
9/27/06 at 5:14pm
Ok I will give this info a try when my m5550 arrives : )
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