Weird Dimension 9200 problem

Mine was a 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GS

 

Mine's a 7300, but the problem is fixed.

 

Hopefully the system won't need any future BIOS flashes.......

 

True, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it

 

FWIW, the UK site has BIOS 2.1.2 with a release date of today (20th)

 

It's on the Dell US site today, but is only 2K. Nice to see they ensure the
file is correct.

 

The filesize looks right on the UK site but "page
unavailable"............

 

Yeah, I just started getting that too. Seems like they've already pulled
it.

Wow, what a mess

 

Tom, since you said (in another thread) that the latest BIOS updat
(posted on 20 Jan '07) did not fix the problem I am going to forwar
the problem on to the group that creates the updates. Obviousl
something changed after the version that works that should not have.
Unfortunately I do not know how long it will take to get that updated.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocat

 

[Apologize for the double post, but I couldn't find an edit button]

I did some research and it doesn't look like this particular proble
has been logged yet. If you are willing, Tom, I would like to set up
system exchange to send you a new 9200 and to have the one you have no
shipped directly to me so I can get it to the engineers. They wil
want a system that has the problem so it can be tested to find ou
exactly where the problem is.

To set that up I just need the service tag of the system and th
address the replacement would be shipped to and I'm sure you won't wan
that posted on a public forum. If you can email me directly a
with 'ATTN: Larry' in the subject we can g
over exactly how the exchange would work.


Larry
Dell Customer Advocat

 

Sounds good. I posted on the community forum and didn't get a single
response

 

I Googled "Dell Dimension 9200 problems" and stumbled upon this group.
Just thought I'd put in a couple of cents worth. I replaced my
5-year-old Dimension 8200 with a well loaded 9200 at the end of the
year. I bought this machine with all the high end hardware, including
the Intel E6400 CPU and 4GB of RAM to handle heavy video processing.
This is my fifth Dell computer and up until now I've been very happy
with them. The next day out of the box, the computer crashed during an
overnight download of some hefty video files. While checking out the
tower I discovered that System Info was reporting only 3G of RAM, as
opposed to 4GM installed. I emailed Dell to inquire about it, got no
response after 4-5 days, so called the Dell Technical Dept. The Tech
Rep told me a) the reason why the computer crashed is because I was
downloading too much data and b) Windows XP Professional will only
support 3GB of RAM and that is why it reports only 3GB. Now, Just so
happens I got a reply to my original email the next day, emailed back
what the Tech Rep had told me and asked why they sold me 4GB of RAM if
the operating system wouldn't handle it and *they* emailed back that
the Tech Rep was on Mars, or some such thing, and there is obviously a
problem with the motherboard. Sound familiar? So, they said they'd send
me a new tower. That was 4 weeks ago. I guess I'm dense because I
waited for 3 1/2 weeks to find out what was up and only then discovered
that the reorder was "lost" and the order for the new tower had to be
re-entered. Meanwhile, for what will be six weeks I have had system
crashes, deadly slow response times, audio/visual problems, programs
that refuse to load, etc. etc. Really disappointing for a high end
machine, as has been Dell's response. The terms of the sale include
"next business day onsite/in home service". I am really hoping the new
tower performs to expectations. The old 8200 was never like this.

 

Wow. So, Larry......

Are you a permanent fixture in this newsgroup, and can we consider your
presence here a move by Dell to "reach out" as it were to Dell users?

Or are you just dropping in for a spell?

I ask this because there have been periodic "visits" by people alleging to
be Dell personnel over the many years, but not many of them stuck around for
long.

Great of you to offer Tom a system(s) exchange......

?

Stew

 

OK, I admit I skimmed because you really need paragraphs.

But bottom line, XP does not properly support 4gb and will never report 4gb.
It usually reports 3gb.

 

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...2217&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

 

Thanks. Seems the techie was right on one thing at least (XP not
recognising more than 3GB of memory).

Any advice on the other stuff? (crashing, slowdowns, periodic poor
audio/video, apps refusing to load).

 

go to www.hdtune.com

Install and run it and tell us what the graph looks like. It should look
like a gently sloping downhill from about 65MBps to 50MBps.

OR

It would look like a really bad mountain range, dipping down to 1MBps every
1-3 seconds.

Tom

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291988/en-us is an MS KBA that talk
about ways to have the system read more than 3Gb of memory on you
system. I'm not sure if this will help you or not, but I figure at th
worst it will help explain what is happening

As for my presence here on the forums, I am here semi-permanently. ;

My team was created to, basically, search the internet looking fo
blogs and forum posts where people are having problems or question
about Dell systems. When we find them we do what we can to hel
resolve the problem. While I personally may not always be here
someone from my team will be here for the foreseeable future

Larr
Dell Customer Advocat

 

That's great to hear. Good news that Dell is being more proactive.

Us amateurs might have to retire

 

No Tom, I think he means just you <grin>.

In reality tho, Dell won't be here all the time nor will they
consider all the questions asked qualified for Dell support so where
does that leave the rest of us..... just like before, visiting this
newsgroup hoping others here can help like yourself, myself and the
others who usually help. I think as a team we are pretty good
especially for what we charge others <grin> !! Of course I'm also
happy to see that Dell recognizes this newsgroup as worthy of their
attention. Perhaps Dell will be listening NOW to US !!