What's wrong with this laptop?

March 16, 2009 11:01 AM

Is my girlfriend's new Dell laptop possessed by some sort of demonic entity?

Ok, so let me preface this by saying I'm an IT guy. I do not profess to be a know-it-all, but I do computer support for a living, and I'd like to think that as far as this problem is concerned, I've done my due diligence.

So, last month my girlfriend ordered a new Dell XPS M1530 laptop. As soon as it came in, I do what I usually do with Dell laptops - I blew out the existing partition and installed a copy of Vista Enterprise x64 and reinstalled all the device drivers, etc, etc.

Periodically since that time my girlfriend has complained about weird power management issues - the machine not waking up, not going into standby, things like that. For the most part, and this is totally my bad, I blamed this on "user error" - mainly, that she was undoubtedly doing something wrong. This is a bad habit you fall into sometimes when you deal with computer support calls all day.

However, over the last several days things have escalated, and I am seriously perplexed by this machine - and getting ready to throw it out the window.

Here's the deal....

IT TURNS ON BY ITSELF.

I have now witnessed this on more than one occasion. I initiate a shut down. Vista says, "Shutting Down!" The screen goes black. A moment later, the machine shuts off. It really does. There is that distinct computer "humm" that ceases existence.

I shut the lid, and set the computer on the table. Anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes later, I hear the distinctive Vista start-up sound.

I walk over to the laptop and open the lid and, yessir, it's up and running and at the login screen. It's also incredibly hot, because the screen has apparently been on while it has been shut.

I have also seen it do this with the lid not closed. I have shut down the machine and, while staring at the screen seen it spontaneously return to life.

As an aside, this also sometimes happens when the machine goes into standby. I have checked the power management settings. They explicitly state that when the lid is closed, the machine should enter standby mode.

Sometimes it does.

And sometimes, moments after shutting the lid, again the Vista "start-up" sound is heard, and if you open the lid the machine has rebooted.

WHAT THE HELL.

I have done several things to attempt to resolve this issue. I have updated the BIOS to the latest release. I have gone into the BIOS to ensure that there is no "wake on LAN" or other hardware dependent wake-up mechanism that could be causing the machine to want to start. I have also disabled the "WiFi Catcher" functionality.

I have updated all the device drivers to their latest versions as posted by Dell.

I have removed the battery and set it aside for awhile, thinking maybe that would do something.

I read somewhere that sometimes the fingerprint scanner that comes with the M1530 can go a little "wonky" - so I disabled the fingerprinter scanner co-processor via Device Manager and have uninstalled all related software.

And yet, still, it happens. And I am about to lose my mind.

Any ideas?

posted by kbanas to computers & internet (31 comments total)

Reinstall the proprietary version of Windows with which the unit shipped.
posted by torquemaniac at 11:06 AM on March 16

I think it could be argued that the entire Dell corporation is a "demonic entity" - certainly the customer support division.

Waka waka.

Anyway, I'm wondering if this is has something to do with the fact that laptops tend to automatically sleep/wake up by default when the lid is opened or closed- maybe there's something wrong with the latch that makes it think it's opening? Granted. you said you were shutting down all the way, not just sleeping, so it makes less sense, but that's the best idea I can come up with.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:07 AM on March 16

They explicitly state that when the lid is closed, the machine should enter standby mode.

Sorry, missed that on first read. But it actually kind of works with me theory. "Standby when lid is closed" tends to be not 100% reliable on all laptops. With my Toshiba, I sit there and watch for all the lights to go off before putting in my bag, because I had one too many experiences where I thought it was asleep but it was actually in my bag, closed but still on and getting incredibly hot.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:09 AM on March 16

Reinstall the proprietary version of Windows with which the unit shipped.

C'mon now. I hate Dell as much as the next guy, but she couldn't drop $2K on a MacBook Pro. We re-install all of our Dell machines with a default load where we work and while, yes, they do have a ridiculously high rate of hardware failure, I don't thin it's a fair knock to call the Dell load "proprietary".
posted by kbanas at 11:10 AM on March 16

Sorry, missed that on first read. But it actually kind of works with me theory. "Standby when lid is closed" tends to be not 100% reliable on all laptops. With my Toshiba, I sit there and watch for all the lights to go off before putting in my bag, because I had one too many experiences where I thought it was asleep but it was actually in my bag, closed but still on and getting incredibly hot.

Yeah, I can definitely buy that. I mean, I kind of assumed she was just jumping the gun and not shutting it down all the way or being patient enough before she closed the lid or something like that.

But, I mean, last night, I shut it down. I watched it shut down. It shut down. I did not accidentally pick restart or anything. It was off. I put it on the table (all this while leaving the lid OPEN) and three minutes later it spontaneously booted up, so it seems like the lid and latch aren't necessarily even a part of the equation.
posted by kbanas at 11:12 AM on March 16

Make sure "Wake On LAN" is disabled; a funky packet flying around can wake up your machine in some configurations.

* Go to Network Connection (Control Panel, Network and Sharing Center, Manage Connections);
* Right-click your Local Area Network adapter;
* Go to the Power Management tab and disable 'Allow the device to wake the computer'

( via)
posted by jenkinsEar at 11:14 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]

Have you considered putting the 32 bit version of the OS on there? If I'm not mistaken, that's what it ships with. Is there a reason she needs x64?
posted by JaredSeth at 11:14 AM on March 16

Have you considered putting the 32 bit version of the OS on there? If I'm not mistaken, that's what it ships with. Is there a reason she needs x64?

She doesn't need the 64-bit build, but the machine has 4GB of RAM, and with a 32-bit OS you're going to miss a little bit of that. Granted, you're only going to miss a small bit, but still, I'm a nerd and that bugs me.
posted by kbanas at 11:16 AM on March 16

I know that the Dell BIOS has a few funky wake-up settings that would be worth looking at if you haven't already.
posted by niles at 11:17 AM on March 16

Rule out the OS. Burn a Ubuntu CD, and boot it in demo mode. Does it do the same thing? If so, it's the hardware.
posted by cmiller at 11:19 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]

Make sure "Wake On LAN" is disabled; a funky packet flying around can wake up your machine in some configurations.

* Go to Network Connection (Control Panel, Network and Sharing Center, Manage Connections);
* Right-click your Local Area Network adapter;
* Go to the Power Management tab and disable 'Allow the device to wake the computer'

I liked this explanation, but I just checked the WiFi adapter as you mention and it's already set not to allow the device to wake the machine.
posted by kbanas at 11:20 AM on March 16

Ah dell...I have a long standing feud with Dell about our laptops.

For now, you're still under warranty. Return the system to "box" state, like it was when you got it. If it does it then, call and make them replace the system asap.

We've had similar issues. Randomly it was memory, the wireless card, the "magnets that hold the screen closed", yadda yadda yadda.

If they send a tech out to replace anything, watch them like a hawk. On three separate occasions they've tried to downgrade my equipment, while telling me it was the equivalent equipment. (For instance, replacing my top of the line NVIDIA gaming card with a 5 year old crappy ATI card. Like I'm not going to notice?)

It's not the techs fault, they only have what Dell sends them, but Dell support sucks eggs, and you really need to get on top of it while your warranty and 30 day return window is still open.
posted by dejah420 at 11:33 AM on March 16

Have you considered putting the 32 bit version of the OS on there? If I'm not mistaken, that's what it ships with. Is there a reason she needs x64?

She doesn't need the 64-bit build, but the machine has 4GB of RAM, and with a 32-bit OS you're going to miss a little bit of that. Granted, you're only going to miss a small bit, but still, I'm a nerd and that bugs me.

Fair enough, but isn't it worth showing that both OSes behave the same way ... or not?
posted by TruncatedTiller at 11:38 AM on March 16

It's also incredibly hot, because the screen has apparently been on while it has been shut.

This part sounds odd to me. The screen backlight isn't going to get hot. Maybe marginally warm, but definitely not hot.
posted by odinsdream at 11:54 AM on March 16

I just purchased a Dell XPS M1330 last week. My first step was also to blow away the OS that was installed on it and the partition. I installed a copy of Vista Ultimate instead. I have been using it all weekend, surfing the Internet, playing Spore, doing my taxes, and I have not had any problems like you described. Perhaps contact Dell support, like others have suggested above. I just wanted to give you my experience with a similar machine.
posted by LightMayo at 11:54 AM on March 16

Just to pursue my earlier point...LightMayo, did you use the 32 bit or 64 bit Vista?
posted by JaredSeth at 12:04 PM on March 16

I fail to see that the OS is in any way relevant to this. When a computer boots, the hardware receives a signal, either through the LAN port or the power button (I think you can set an option for a timed startup, but nuke and pave would have erased that).

I can therefore think of three possibilities.
1. Wake on LAN is occurring. Should be easy enough to eliminate this, just test it without a cable plugged in, and I doubt it's the cause.
2. There is a saved firmware trigger. I think this is what the timed power on option does - it saves the boot command with a timer to the firmware and when the mainboard clock reaches that time, the boot signal is sent. Is there a way to clear the CMOS? I don't think such a command would be saved anywhere else
3. It's a hardware fault. I do tech support for Apple, and I've heard of stranger things happening - I think the weirdest one was a guy whose computer turned on every time he flushed his toilet. Three electricians and a plumber couldn't figure it out.
posted by fearnothing at 12:10 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]

Seconding the restore to factory state to see if the problem is really the machine's or your reinstallation technique.
posted by rhizome at 12:13 PM on March 16

Try reseting the BIOS to whatever default option you have or doing a reset.

All this sounds like an ACPI or hardware problem to me, but its worth checking both the ram and the disk. You can check the ram with the microsoft memory diagnostic tool and do a chkdsk or use HDTune on the disk. Perhaps you've got a bad sector or two in there and writing to the hibernate file is screwed up. Perhaps its trying to perform standby but there's a bad bit of ram in there.

Also, are you sure you installed both the chipset driver and the laptop button driver? Theyre two different drivers. Make sure you have the newest chipset driver (dont use the one that came with vista) and whatever dell calls the driver that controls the onboard buttons, wifi switch, etc.

so I disabled the fingerprinter scanner co-processor via Device Manager and have uninstalled all related software.

Can you disable it via the BIOS instead?
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:40 PM on March 16

Burn a Ubuntu CD, and boot it in demo mode. Does it do the same thing? If so, it's the hardware.

This test might not be very helpful for you. Standby/Suspend on linux is getting better, but it's probably 6 months to a year away from reliable. If it does work on Ubuntu, then yes, you've narrowed it down to an OS/driver issue. If it doesn't work on Ubuntu, it could mean it's a hardware problem, or it could be a completely unrelated linux bug.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:43 PM on March 16

Also, there's a dell diagnostic tool in your BIOS. You should see a prompt at bootup time to run it. Run all the tests and see if they report anything.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:48 PM on March 16

My XPS 1530 does that. I haven't done anything about it yet, but I've read that there's a problem with the wireless card that causes an error while shutting down, and some obscure setting forces a restart. I read this on the Dell support forums, so I don't know how valid it is.
posted by Ruki at 1:32 PM on March 16

I blew out the existing partition

This is the part that sucks the most out of everything you said.

Dell includes a PC Restore partition which I have found to be incredibly useful in the past when stuff like this happens. By hitting F8 before the Windows logo appears during startup, you can access a Symantec Ghost image which will wipe everything on the hard drive and restore it to factory settings. It only takes about 5 minutes.

By wiping everything, including that partition, you totally violated the warranty and service agreement, and Dell is under no obligations to help you, even if it is 100% their fault, such as a bad CPU or motherboard. If you had left the recovery partition, you could restore the image and then troubleshoot from there (or get warranty service). But now you can't get Dell to do anything for you. Hopefully someone else here has answers for you that will allow you to fix it yourself.

Even if you decide not to stick with Dell's preinstalled OS and drivers, you should NEVER delete the recovery partition.
posted by relucent at 2:09 PM on March 16

By wiping everything, including that partition, you totally violated the warranty and service agreement, and Dell is under no obligations to help you, even if it is 100% their fault, such as a bad CPU or motherboard.

I'm pretty sure this is absolutely false.
posted by kbanas at 2:32 PM on March 16

I'd also check the event logs (eventvwr.exe), they often have info about system shutdown, start up etc. But it definately sounds like a hardware problem to me.
posted by Admira at 2:51 PM on March 16

relucent is wrong. Wiping the partition does not void your hardware warranty. The first thing I did when I got my box was wipe the drive and reformat it, and called Dell to send me actual CDs with the OS and tools and whatnot. I've never had a problem getting service. (Note, I've had trouble getting *good* service, but they never tried to tell me that reformatting the drive voided my warranty.) Everyone who buys a Dell reformats the damn thing just to get rid off the insane bloatware.

If you've got the CDs, just restore the system to what it was when you got it. If you don't have the CDs, you should be able to download everything from their support site by using the numbers on the bottom of your laptop to pull the correct software.
posted by dejah420 at 2:57 PM on March 16

Wiping the partition does not void your hardware warranty.

I guess I misspoke here. What I meant to convey was that if you were to call Dell right now and tell them the problem (which sounds very hardware-related), they are going to blame the problems on your OS install rather than their hardware. So you'd probably have to get it back to factory specs (using the restore CDs, which can do the job of the restore partition) and show them that it was still happening before they would call it a hardware issue and offer to fix it for you. Unless of course you can prove in some other way that it's a hardware issue... but sometimes those are really difficult to diagnose.

This assumes it's a hardware fault, though. I guess that question is still up in the air.
posted by relucent at 3:09 PM on March 16

'Wake on LAN' is also usually a BIOS setting which can/should be disabled. Doing it in Windows may not be enough.
posted by genghis at 6:33 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]

How are you shutting the computer off? Hitting the button? Or Start, Shut Down, Turn off Computer? Make sure you really are shutting it down. Are ALL the lights off? And not flashing/throbbing?

I doubt it's Wake on Lan, that's a very specific packet that gets sent out and most likely isn't roaming around your network. But double check that all the "wake on" settings are set to NO.

It's probably a faulty power button- it's sticking, or there is a piece of shmutz in there. To verify that the OS isn't the issue, when you shut the PC down, remove the hard drive. Then let it sit there and see what it does.

(When you blew away the Dell installed OS, did you keep the maintenance partition? I hope you did. Did you install Dell's drivers?)

(Note to the unwise- do not put your computer to "sleep" and then put it into your carrying bag- even while asleep, it's still running, will get hot, will drain the battery, and will eventually go into Hibernate on its own. Put it into Hibernate- I set my power button to send it right to hibernate. Then, it's really off. But will resume Windows in seconds when I turn it back on. Works flawlessly on my two Dell laptops.)

It's not the techs fault, they only have what Dell sends them, but Dell support sucks eggs, and you really need to get on top of it while your warranty and 30 day return window is still open.

No, it probably is. Dell doesn't do that. There's no reason on God's green earth for Dell to have 5 year old video cards laying around. The technician tried to pull a fast one.
posted by gjc at 7:09 PM on March 16

Since you appear to have addressed a lot of the potential software issues, with no results, this sounds to me more like a hardware issue. I had a similar problem with a Dell laptop at work - it ended up being something fiddly with the power switch on the motherboard. If this was my laptop, I'd strip it down and check the connections part by part. Then again, my house is filled with eviscerated hardware. YMMV.

Otherwise, salt & burn it, dude. Definitely possessed.
posted by elizardbits at 7:39 PM on March 16

Is it possible that something is erroring out duing shutdown causing the system to reboot? The different delay in restart might be attributed to the actual delay in the system shutting down varying. I'd take a look at the following link about disabling auto restarts on error in vista
posted by syntheticfaith at 6:29 AM on March 17