Am I a doofus, or is the Studio 15 a piece of crap? (or both?)

I am at my wits' end.

Bought a Studio 1535 in July (delivered in August). Specs: T8100 2.1GHz, 4GB, ATI HD 3450, 320GB, backlit keyboard, WUXGA (1920x1200), fingerprint reader. Vista Ultimate x64, joined to a WS2008 domain.

The issues:
- The fingerprint reader works most of the time but just quits whenever it feels like it.
- The touchpad, when it works, works great. But most of the time it is unstable and scrolling is awful. At its worst, the mouse cursor just jumps wherever it wants to and is impossible to control.
- Most frustrating are the lockups. The system will just hang for no reason. I have noticed when this happens, the hard drive light is lit up solid. If I close the cover and leave it alone for a while it might eventually unhang itself but usually the only way to get its attention is the power button.
- Did I mention that startup is slow as molasses? It is literally three or four minutes from signing in, until the system will do anything useful. I cannot for the life of me figure out what the heck it is doing for all that time. During that interminable period, I cannot even launch task manager to try to see what is happening.

At least the system is pretty snappy when it's actually working.

Did I end up with a piece of crap? Are they all this bad or am I just "lucky" - or are my years of experience in IT, with dozens of Windows Vista client computers, most of which I built and installed myself, completely useless when it comes to understanding how to make a Dell laptop work correctly? What special thing is it that Dell does to a machine to make it run so slow anyway?

 

well, i think that you might just hae to remove a few programs from startup and generally it hangs cuz its transmitting a lot of info from the hdd. does it only happen when u do certain things. about the fingerprint checker, its a common problem and there is nothing that u can do about it. as for the touch pad cuz mine is never used cuz i have an external mouse. oh, and ps, i have a centrino 2 model so it might just be that mine is a lot faster.

 

its all of the bloatware that makes it slow. did u follow Les' guide to reformatting and bloatware removal to get rid off bloatware on the computer?

 

Download Revo Uninstaller for FREE at- http://www.revouninstaller.com/

It is a great program for removing any installed program and all files and registry entries associated with the removed program. It also has a utility under the Tools menu called "Autorun Manager" to remove any items from startup. Under Tools, there is also a utility called "Junk Files Cleaner" that will remove any unnecessary, leftover files existing on your hard drive.

After you clean house with Revo, go to Start/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup and run it.

Then run the Disk Defragmenter from the same menu (right under Disk Cleanup). Reboot after that and you really should see a major difference in boot up time and responsiveness...

 

revo, nice! Rep!

 

I should have mentioned I have tried a clean install plus the essential drivers and the software I'm using. There should not be much 'bloatware' in that scenario. I also installed Server 2008 in a different partition and it runs like a scalded dog. I suppose I can install all my applications in that partition and see how well it works.

I've started examining the event logs and found a couple of services that were taking too long to startup for some reason. Once the initial logon has taken forever, logging off then logging on again is 'reasonable' though not 'spiffy.' I'm still at a loss to explain the problems with the touchpad, fingerprint reader and entire system lockups as detailed in my first post above.

 

Maybe your unit is defective. I haven't experienced any of the issues you mention. I disabled the "circle" movement of the touchpad, other than that I'm very happy with it.

 

I had "crackling" sound/audio; I have "clicking" Western Digital Disk in IDLE, and my battery wear level is 12 % - my notebook 1535 is on about 2-3 weeks!
But I'm still very happy with my Studio

I think your problem is CLEARLY SOFTWARE RELATED!
SO I CAN"T UNDERSTAND WHY STUDIO 15 is "a piece of crap", because IT IS CLEARLY YOUR SOFTWARE OS,PROGRAMS... ARE PIECE OF CRAP!

PLEASE:
UPDATE YOUR BIOS FIRST!
THAN Buy legal OS from Dell, keep your computer clean and you will be fine!

by the way I'm with legal DELL VISTA X64 SP2 and I don't have any problems.
Only driver signing - but It is VISTA problem, not STUDIO problem.

 

Another great recommendation for a program allowing you to know what is starting up with your computer is the amazing tool from Microsoft (via the Sysinternals division) is Autoruns. Simply the best.

Easiest way to run it...

Put "\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\autoruns.exe" into the vista search or RUN (in XP or Vista) without the quotes and run it.

You can also download it from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

 

So you have downloaded the most recent drivers from DELL Support (especially for the touchpad and fingerprint reader)? If that didn't correct your specific issues with those two, I'd say it's time to contact DELL. I've had MUCH better results Chatting and/or Emailing Tech Support instead of calling them!

And you also say you've done a clean install of Vista, too? If you did that and have all the drivers you need, I'm thinking it probably is a hardware problem of some sort. If that's the case, you should be very clear that you expect a NEW system ASAP!

One other thing- have you taken a look at the Processes/Services in Task Manager when it finally finishes the long boot-up? I'm just wondering if you might see something with high CPU utilization or using a large amount of memory that could clue you in to the source of the problem...

If you don't already have a similar tool, take a look at Process QuickLink from Uniblue. It's a free utility that displays Task Manager with a little icon beside each Process running. Clicking the icon opens your web browser and gives you more info on that particular process. It's very handy...and it's FREE- http://www.processlibrary.com/quicklink/

What are the specs of your machine? My Studio 15 takes 45-50 seconds from the moment I press the power button until the login screen appears. Then I scan my fingerprint and I'm on the Vista desktop in a couple of seconds. My system has the 2.5GHz T9300 processor, 3GB RAM and the ATI graphics card. It also has the fingeprint reader, Bluetooth, wireless radio always enabled- all of which require additional processes to load during Startup.

I have a friend with a retail-version of the Studio 15 (T5750, 3GB, Intel X3100 integrated graphics). After I tweaked the startup settings a bit, it will boot in an average of 1:20 (80 seconds). It originally was taking a few ticks beyond the two-minute mark to fully boot!

 

The default install of Vista Dell provides is definitely not an optimal one. I also run Server 2008 on mine and it works excellently. I would suggest a fresh install of Vista and the latest drivers from the Dell website.

 

yes

I will do that.

ditto

Unfortunately, by the time I can get Task Manager running, everything is "normal."

See the first post.

 

not exactly sure what you're implying here but it's not helpful or appreciated.

 

sorry.my english is not very good!
I"M implying YOUR STUDIO IS OK!
YOUR PROGRAMS,OS,BIOS ARE CRAP!
Update your BIOS, install Clear Legal DELL VISTA, keep your Windows clean and all will be fine.
IMO YOU DON"T HAVE HARDWARE ISSUE, SO Why do you blame DELL STUDIO FOR YOUR MISTAKES!

 

Why not be respectful of one another????

 

Where is Les's guide, I can't find it.
Thanks

 

It's over in the Windows forum

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

 

Thanks, is there one for XP?

 

Here is a Studio 15 specific XP guide

http://wickmanstudios.com/content/view/17/29/

 

I would say there is something wrong with it, I'm sure you have seen slower machines run better than what you are describing. 4 minute boot up? Wow. My inspiron has less ram, cpu clock, etc. and takes 40 seconds or so to boot vista.

A clean install is a clean install, even if you add more software to it, it would take a seriously huge amount of crap to slow the boot to 4 minutes. The lockups and all that sound like a hardware issue to me.

 

I wonder if "joined to a WS2008 domain" is the problem. I have a work laptop (XP) that is part of my company domain. If I boot it up at home without connecting to the network, it takes at least couple mins or more to start doing anything. If it is connected to the domain at work, it takes no time.

 

THANK YOU!
very interesting and helpful!

 

I totally agree with you I had a red Studo 15 for like 3 weeks and had to sell it the touchpad and speakers were HORRIBLE. However, the guy I sold it to is in love with it.



The XPS seems to be better than the Studio so far.