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DELL E520 Major Problems
Crabman
Posts: 9,939 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
I've noticed a few other threads regarding DELL E520s - I don't know whether this is a co-incidence or a fault. I've been fobbed off by DELL's excuse for a technical support department as I didn't pay for a 'software support' product. However, to me, this product is faulty...
Earlier, I was emailed a route map for an occasion I'm attending this weekend about 60 miles away. It was printed from Microsoft Virtual Earth (maps.live.com) as a PDF - first page is a map and second page contains personalised instructions from my postcode to destination postcode.
Upon double-clicking, RAM usage shoots from 57% to ~98%. The computer slows and eventually stops responding. I had to restart via Ctrl Alt Del to try again at which point it crashed again. A third time was no different.
Next step was to visit maps.live.com and print the journey myself, into a PDF, using Primo PDF (to eliminate possibility of the file sent to me being corrupted). That took some time and upon opening the PDF file once again, things slowed, RAM usage went through the roof (though Core1 and Core2 were <10%). Several more restarts and attempts to open resulted in the same problem. I was only able to restart via Ctrl Alt Del.
The CPU is a "Viiv Core2Duo Processor E4300 (1.80Ghz, 800Mhz, 2MB)" with 1GB DDR2 (dual channel) 533Mhz RAM. Vista Home Premium.
The computer is generally slow and takes around 4-5 mins to fully start up. That's as long as my old P3 800Mhz with 128MB RAM! What's going on here? I tried to contact DELL but I need 'software assistance' to get help from them.
Another issue is that while I was listening to music on Media Player whilst cropping photos, each time I did anything with a photo, the music stopped and 'screeched' if that makes sense. I can photo edit on my P3 800Mhz and listen to music without issues, so why can't I on this supposedly state of the art machine? The specs of this machine are not borderline and I think it should cope with music and cropping a photo without going AWOL on me.
Any troubleshooting steps I'm happy to try and hope this can be sorted out. I've already completed a full diagnostic check which flagged no problems. I'm reluctant to go via the replace/refund route just yet but I'll have to if things don't improve.
Cheers :beer:
Crabman
Earlier, I was emailed a route map for an occasion I'm attending this weekend about 60 miles away. It was printed from Microsoft Virtual Earth (maps.live.com) as a PDF - first page is a map and second page contains personalised instructions from my postcode to destination postcode.
Upon double-clicking, RAM usage shoots from 57% to ~98%. The computer slows and eventually stops responding. I had to restart via Ctrl Alt Del to try again at which point it crashed again. A third time was no different.
Next step was to visit maps.live.com and print the journey myself, into a PDF, using Primo PDF (to eliminate possibility of the file sent to me being corrupted). That took some time and upon opening the PDF file once again, things slowed, RAM usage went through the roof (though Core1 and Core2 were <10%). Several more restarts and attempts to open resulted in the same problem. I was only able to restart via Ctrl Alt Del.
The CPU is a "Viiv Core2Duo Processor E4300 (1.80Ghz, 800Mhz, 2MB)" with 1GB DDR2 (dual channel) 533Mhz RAM. Vista Home Premium.
The computer is generally slow and takes around 4-5 mins to fully start up. That's as long as my old P3 800Mhz with 128MB RAM! What's going on here? I tried to contact DELL but I need 'software assistance' to get help from them.
Another issue is that while I was listening to music on Media Player whilst cropping photos, each time I did anything with a photo, the music stopped and 'screeched' if that makes sense. I can photo edit on my P3 800Mhz and listen to music without issues, so why can't I on this supposedly state of the art machine? The specs of this machine are not borderline and I think it should cope with music and cropping a photo without going AWOL on me.
Any troubleshooting steps I'm happy to try and hope this can be sorted out. I've already completed a full diagnostic check which flagged no problems. I'm reluctant to go via the replace/refund route just yet but I'll have to if things don't improve.
Cheers :beer:
Crabman
0
Comments
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Thanks for that - forgot to mention I use Ccleaner upon shut down daily. Also completed Avast virus check, Windows Defender spyware check. It's running ZoneAlarm firewall (free version) though I'm behind a firewalled router so should be safe enough.Have you checked the threads on here for spyware removal?
Take a look at Ccleaner which some on here swear by.0
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