Dell Inspiron 17r 7720se, current A16 bios, W8.1 64-bit. (upgraded thru Windows Store from W8)

Dell Touchpad (Alps) now missing one finger scroll functions after W8 to 8.1 upgrade.

The entire section in the touchpad GUI with the controls for one finger gestures which was present in Windows 8 is now missing after upgrade to W8.1. The animated task bar icon shows activity in the right, left, top and bottom one finger scroll zones but has no effect.

Tried all drivers available thru Dell:

v8.1200.101.209 - 10/22/2012 - W8 32 and 64-bit (this driver is in factory image)

v8.1200.101.214 - 2/8/2013 - W7/W8 64-bit 

v8.1200.101.218 - 10/17/2013 - Windows 8.1

Is there any solution?

I have Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop .On Dell page after i enter my Service TAG # and Operating System Windows Vista 32-bit i can't instal driver for my Wireless MiniCard Dw1395.I have Windows Vista original installed.I don't see on the list of network drivers this card.How can I download this driver.Any idea please help.

Andrew

Just got a brand new laptop, Dell Inspiron 11 3137, and updated to windows 8.1. The touchpad does not work properly now; gestures/scrolling/pointer not working. I've spent over 16 hours getting windows 8.1 installed and then troubleshooting this issue. I've contacted Dell; updated the driver from Dell, even tried installing the latest driver from Synaptic. I even tried setting the Synaptic app to run under the windows 8 version. 

Touchpads have been around a long time. It's the last thing I expect not to work properly.

At this point I am ready to send the laptop back and call it quits on windows.

Can anybody help with this?

Sorry in advance for this lengthy post but I am trying to include as much information as possible so that it might help others.

Some background:

I purchased this Dell 7537 laptop recently with the intention of installing Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit in a dual boot mode with Windows 8. I know there's a few hoops to jump through in order to succeed, but I've used Ubuntu for several years now and know what to expect.

This is not what this post is about though. It's to compare notes with anyone who may have encountered a particular problem with this laptop in trying to do the same.

I've already taken steps to return my laptop as it's less than 2 weeks old but would happily change it to a replacement if it can be shown that it's only my laptop that has the problem/fault.

If nothing else, it may be useful to others that follow as I've been unable to find anything about this just by Googling.

The Problem:

I intended to just use the Ubuntu startup USB disk for a week or two to satisfy myself that it all worked as expected before committing to an install. It's when I shut the Ubuntu system down that the laptop would randomly restart again within 5 seconds.

This was not a rare occasion but at it's worst, it would do it every second shutdown. I've done a lot of testing to try to solve the problem and will outline that shortly, but I will add that random restarts also occurred with the installed Windows 8, albeit infrequently. I tried all the fixes I found for preventing Windows from doing that, like turning off WOL and restarts due to system problems at shutdown, but still it did it.

What I have done is a LOT of booting and shutdowns of Ubuntu trying to find the problem and have come to the conclusion that it is some kind of electrical interference, particularly on the USB ports at the left. I do have an electronics background so am fairly confident in saying this. It could be that my motherboard has missed out on some vital filtering components during assembly, or it could be a common problem and therefore a shortcoming in design. Either way, it may not be something that would be noticed under normal circumstances but I have no way to tell.

I will also add that this problem only occurs with the AC adapter plugged in and turned on (we use 240V in this country). It does not occur when on battery power alone, or with the adapter in but turned off.

These are the results I obtained:

The worst affected USB port is the one closest to the AC adapter input on the left hand side.

When booting from there with my power adapter on it would restart once every two shutdowns, on average. The port on the right hand side that I tried had zero restarts out of twenty shutdowns and didn't seem to be affected at all!

When I realised this I immediately suspected the power adapter as being “electrically noisy”, but this is only half the story.

I tried another Dell adapter which was exactly the same as mine but a year older. It still caused random restarts but less than half the number of mine.

I tried an even older HP adapter with similar “less than half” results .

So, while the substitute adapters seem electrically quieter than my adapter, I still got random restarts on the left hand side USB ports.

Incidentally, if anyone gets infrequent random restarts with Windows 8 after trying all the “usual” fixes, it could be a “noisy” adapter causing it. I suspect my Win8 wouldn't restart at all if I changed the adapter for a less noisy one. But that's not solving the whole issue for me.

I also tried using a different USB flash drive as a Ubuntu startup disk but got much the same results as before.

Conclusion:

If someone else is able to try this experiment of booting and shutting down a Ubuntu USB startup disk a number of times from the USB port closest to the power adapter, with it plugged in and turned on, it may help others in the future.

I know that I could boot or install Ubuntu from the non-noisy port on the right hand side, but that's not the issue. It's the long term reliability of using the left hand side ports for anything at all. Could data integrity be compromised on occasions, for example? You might not know till it's too late.

Dell Dissatisfaction letter:

To whom it may concern,

I would like to express my complete dissatisfaction with my
recent purchase of your Dell XPS 15 L502x model 
laptop. I am Comptia certified for A+ and Network+ operations so I am
very fluent with computer functions, hardware, software, and networking capabilities.
I work for Konica Minola technical support doing software and hardware support
on Laser printers. I will start here by listing the specifications of the
laptop that I purchased. Components are listed as follows:

Toshiba  500GB 7200RPM Hard Disk Drive/ Since purchase have recently replaced with Crucial M4 128GB Solid State Drive
Drive

Matshita BD-RE Blu Ray Drive

6GB DDR3 SDRAM

Nvidia GT540M 2GB GPU and Intel HD 3000

Full 1080P display

JBL speakers

Regular keyboard/Since has been replaced with the backlit at my own
cost

Intel Core I7- 2720QM CPU @ 2.2GHZ /2^nd Gen Sandy Bridge

USB 3.0 ports

Intel Centrino 6230 Wireless NIC w/bluetooth

Webcam

Now Since I got the computer which I have had for
approximately 8 months I have run into numerous problems. When I first got the
computer I was very excited I was finally able to save up enough money to get a
high performance laptop. The laptop worked flawlessly for a while until one day
I was playing a higher graphics video game (League Of Legends) and all of a
sudden the computer crashes. More specifically the screen freezes as well as any audio that was playing through the
speakers instantly became static sounding and continued to play and feedback
through the speakers. This would not reset until the computer had manually been
shut down and rebooted by holding in the power button. After this first
occurred I tried a number of things to attempt to resolve the issue myself. I
first went ahead and uninstalled and reinstalled my graphics drivers as well as
upated the BIOS to the most recent version at the time. This did not resolve
the issue. I then continued to go through a complete format and reinstallation
of the operating system (Windows 7 64-bit). Continued to test on multiple video
games inluding:  Modern Warefare, League
of Legends, Crysis 2, Skyrim. Issue continued to persist after the complete
windows and driver reinstallation. I also went in an adjusted the Nvidia
Control panel options to ensure that High Performance Nvidia processor was
selected for both my  individual program
settings as well as in my Global preferred graphics processor. The issue
remained.  At that point I proceeded to
call Dell Technical Support. Which I had called for in the past to resolve a
noise problem with the fan, a bad blu ray drive and a bad power supply cord and
let me tell you talking with your tech support reps is a terrible experience.
They do not understand half of what you are saying and are honestly not very
knowledgeable when it comes to computers. One time I even had one of the dell phone support
technicians tell me that the blu ray drive does not connect into the
motherboard. They decided to go ahead and send me out a replacement motherboard
to attempt to resolve the issue. A few days later the technician came out and
replaced the motherboard. This fixed the problem for about another couple of
months. More crashes while playing higher graphics games. I tried going through
and lowering my video settings for each game which caused the issue to occur
less however it would still continue to crash occasionally. I called back in
again to dell technical support at that point and got a replacement motherboard
put in again. This time the computer crashed out while playing high graphics
games right from the start. I called in again and they told me that they would
like for me to send my system in to their support center which I declined
because they stated it would take 2 weeks and that they would moniter the
system and ensure it gets fixed.  I am a
computer technician and perfectly capable of monitering my own system and
testing to see if the issue continues to occur. Not to mention the fact that the
Dell technician that came on site even admitted that they generally get sent
back out often after customer’s have submitted their machines to the dell
service center.  Also I use this computer
on a daily basis and it is necessary that I have this up and running and in
good shape. So I requested they send yet another motherboard to attempt to
resolve it because it had temporarily in the past. This time when the
technician came out I brought some Arcitic Silver 5 heatsync for him to put on
the GPU’s and the CPU because I have now done some online research and
determined that this is in fact a common issue for this model laptop. One
person recommended re-applying heatsync so I tried this. Also another
recommendation was to install a Solid State drive which I have also done and
included another fresh installation of windows 7 64-bit and all the driver
software. The issue still persisted.. So I called back into dell and
they informed me that they would go through and exchange my laptop however they
stated this process takes from 7-14 days. They called me today and offered me
the exact same model laptop however I am apalled again because this issue
seems to be specific to a motherboard/GPU manufacturing defect.   I have
had so much difficulty here between arguing with 10 different dell support
techs trying to get this issue resolved to continuing to have to test this
issue repeatedly and repeatedly and reinstalling operating systems and
purchasing the upgraded hard drive. I’ve honestly had enough at this point.  Basically what this issue boils down to in the
computer is either the motherboard/GPU.  What I want to know from you is first off is this issue going to continue after system replacement with the same model? Is this a specific issue to the Nvidia GT540M graphics? Why can't I get my laptop replaced with a different model due to the insufficiency of these motherboards/GPU's. The whole reason I purchased the laptop was due to the high specs and its capabilities to be able to run these games with ease....At least this was the advertisement.....I have also referenced some links I have located where soo many people are complaining about the same issue. I have also taken a video of the frozen screen with the audio feedback as well as referenced some youtube videos showing the same problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at215ci-6kQ

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3519/t/19409241.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZgM9mz4Hss

http://boardreader.com/thread/XPS_15_l502x_freezes_during_gameplay_5me5rXbj9l3.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/634912-similar-crash-across-games-l502x.html

http://freedellxpsus.info/freedellxpsusdell-xps-15-l502x-crashing-3d-games-nvidia-gt540m/

http://l502xcrash.blogspot.com/

I have an Inspiron 1545 64 bit system with Windows 7. Purchased it new 3 and half years ago directly from Dell. 3 year warranty expired last November. I need to change the system board, which I can do myself. I have located a series of second hand inexpensive boards on eBay, but I want to be sure the board I get works with my system. Is there any thing I should be looking for to identify the correct board? The boards I found have part numbers of 0G849F. From I see on my system, mine is 0G848F.

I've been having problems where my laptop would not wake up from hibernation. It seemed to be working but the screen would be black and I had to manually shut it down. This started right after I got my laptop. Now it's been almost a year and I got this blue screen of death. Recently I started playing video games on this laptop and in the middle of them I would get the same screen. Now it started happening in the middle of me just using the computer and not playing games. I think it might have something to do with the video driver. I updated my BIOS and then tries to reinstall my video driver but it said "error" and I cannot reinstall it. How do I fix this?                                                       

I restored the computer to factory settings and it didn't fix the problem

Well, I bought a 15R 5521 a couple of months ago for my girlfriend though she hasn't been using it a lot due to work.

This week, she turned it on the laptop and the windows wireless adapter settings indicated that WiFi was turned off.  She tried FN-F2 but no change.  She still wasn't able to connect to the wireless router.  

The Wifi light is on and doesn't turn off with Fn-F2 by the way.

She tried the Wireless Diagnostic tool and it indicated that the Hardware Radio was turned off.  

Windows Wireless settings shows the WiFi as off and it is grey'ed out.  i.e. can't be changed.

How can it be turned on?  She has no internet now - so connecting to a driver site and downloading drivers is not going to be possible.

It was working fine a few weeks ago - it just suddenly turned itself off.  She has rebooted but no change.

Help would be great.

Thanks,

Hello,

I have a Dell XPS L502x laptop connected to an external monitor. Whenever i start playing a video game the screen turns into a strange color pattern or a solid color. Sometimes a hard buzzing noise comes out of the speaker. It generally turns into a solid color such as red, blue, green, pink, purple etc.

We tried so far:

- Cleaning the airvents
- Re install windows
- Updating drivers
- Uninstall and re install drivers

i manged to get some pictures of the problems. Which i will post at the bottom together with the specs. I tried a lot of things but it keeps on crashing.

Reserved for pics and specs.

Thanks a lot

Last night, my laptop got switched off on its own due to low battery but after that when i started it by pressing power button, it shows the dell logo, goes to a black screen with a white cursor then comes back to the dell logo again and it is repeating itself.

I went to the boot option(F12)>Diagnostics. It shows-

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

Error Code 2000-0142

Validation 22633

Msg:  Hard Drive 0-S/N S2WAQ16L, self test unsseccusful. Status=7

The given error code and message can be used by Dell Technical Support to help diagnose the problem.

Do you want to continue testing.

-----------------------------------------------along with 7 periodic beeps and Caps Lock blinking along the beeps. 

Here are a few things i tried that didn't work-

1. took off the battery, put it back and switched on.

2. pressed the F2 key, went to the advanced option>SATA Operation. It is AHCI beforehand and among options there are ATA and AHCI only.

3. went to the boot option. Selected hard drive as 1st priority.

4. The fixed HDD option shows the name and size correctly.

5 Tried the restore defaults option in EXIT tab.

The F8 key doesn't show any option. There is no beep sound either. 

Please help. I don't want formatting to be an option.

HI all,

I have decided to add a Crucial M500 240gb Solid State drive as my boot drive and have my current 500gb mechanical hard drive in the second drive bay.

When I purchased my Studio 1737 in 2009 it had Vista on it. The purchase included a free Windows 7 upgrade disk. I installed it and had no problem with the OS upgrade.

Now for the question......

Can I use the upgrade disk to do a clean install of Windows 7 on the blank SSD? I would rather not clone from my current drive since a clean install is always the best choice in my book. :-)

I'm hoping since it's an upgrade disk, I can use the Vista key to install it.

Any comments or suggestions?

Thanks

Rod

Hi,

I have the Dell Inspiron 14R N4010 because of some problem I format the HDD &  install the windows7 operating system. Somehow I lost my driver CD so now I am downloading driver from DELL site and installing one bye one till now everything is fine but suddenly I found that, In Device manager it showing that, Ethernet controller driver, Network driver is not installed, so I download all the network driver from DELL Site. 

But when I am trying to install it giving me the message that network adaptor is not installed so my question any one know which specific driver I need to install first for this network related issue?

Thanks

Gladiator....

Looking for some troubleshooting tips on the above issue  It has been happening since I got the unit two months ago, although in the past two weeks it is now happening every other boot. I've been going back an forth with tech support on the issue.  What I've already done:

• Ran Memtest on memory module (this is the 3rd memory module I've had due to upgrades from 2 to 4 to 8GB; the freezing occurred with them all)
• Ran the MyDell stress test
• Ran PCMark 7 benchmark  (hoping to get it to freeze or otherwise freak out)
• Made sure RAM was properly seated
• Checked all motherboard connections
• Checked for viruses using multiple scanners

I was planning on re-installing Win8 anyhow, now that my touchpad issue is resolved (see other thread!) however I have a feeling this is hardware-related.  Anyhow, any input appreciated...

I bought a new laptop and it came with the Windows 8. Needless to say I hate it.  Do anyone know of any other operating systems that will work on my laptop?

When I push the power button, the power light lights up as well as the three 9, A, & down arrow lights. Also the wifi light blinks once very quickly.

The lights stay on for 3 seconds then go out until you push the power button again. Same thing happens everytime. There is no screen, no fan, no HD activity, no beeps & no flashing.

The power supply is tested and working. and on this machine the LED stays on permanently.

The battery has all 3 lights on when button is pressed, holds charge and is not defective.

However when the battery and PSU are connected at the same time the battery will charge!!

I've removed and replaced ram, hdd etc in different variations but nothing changes.

I've been reading everything i can find on this matter, but im certain its not power related on even the mainboard!

could this be a CPU failure??

Please advise! many thanks!!

I recently bought Dell Inspiron 15 3521 with Windows 8. But after getting problem of Wifi and Bluetooth, I downgraded it to Windows 7. Still I am not able to get all the drivers.

I still get problems with Bluetooth and Wifi. They are not being activated still after the driver is installed.

The Drivers I could not get are:

1. BCM43142A0

2. Network Controller

3. PCI Simple Communication Controller

4. USB 2.0-CRW

Please help me with these Issues!!!

I am very sad at the level of commitment Dell has shown to the faulty design of one of their Laptops.  This Laptop has a known problem that is caused by a heat issue caused from normal use.  But dell says since it is past warranty to bad so sad, send us money and we will fix it! Anyone else had this Problem?