Big cleanup : need help to remove unnecessary preinstalled alienware specific tasks

[troublegum]

I never activate windows firewall, I prefer 3rd party.

and I always deactivate commodo and the antivirus (I use avira) during gigs.

this is sooooo wrong.

since I updated the nvidia card has disappeared, i can"t even install new drivers because no nvidia GFX card can be found.

I've been using PCs for 15 years. I've never had so much crap at once.

the more I update drivers the more it doesn't work.


EDIT : and after rebooting twice (one wasn't enough apparently) the nvidia card is back.

why do I have more and more the impression that alienware laptops are like a pile of expensive high end components plugged together without any further work done on the stability of the product ?

sorry i'm a bit angry, never put as much money in a laptop and never had as much problems at once (never had any problem actually, except normal stuff such as HDD failure, overheating, beer spilled in the keyboard...). worse is that the initial stability problem is probably not resolved.

[Descalzo]

This is a mess. And it's nothing like my experience, which makes me think you may have some sort of hardware problem that needs some tech to look at it.

But since you need this for work, you need stability right away. Have you considered swapping out your wifi card to see if that may be causing conflicts or something like that?

[GNandGS]

a) you post some possible link to 3rd party software as a problem but refuse to remove it citing you like it better than the built in one (which is ok actually).

b) you keep messing with it and digging a deeper hole

We would like nothing better than to help you sort the problem but it really appears you have either some hardware issue or perhaps some sort of conflict with software. Did you have any issues before installing/downloading/updating? If not, and you still want to chase this without Dell support, get system back to that earlier state ASAP and start the testing process over.

If however you had issues right out of the box then do not spend another minute wasting your time. Get support on the case right away. Depending on location you can get next day support which might have solved your problem already. I suspect your solution will be a MB replacement. Even if it could be fixed another way I doubt Dell will do anything too complex for fixing.

The other option is return if still in your window and location allows it. Time is ticking!

[troublegum]

I still have removed nothing except turning off windows firewall (no need for a double firewall) and dell stage remote (the only dell thing I really dared to remove).

I will try another firewall than commodo (btw if someone knows a good other one, I'd be glad to replace commodo, I just don't want to rely on windows firewall).

I thought I got rid of BSODs by updating everything but got one today (while watching a movie) (whocrashed pointed towards bigfoot drivers this time). it was just after going back from sleep mode. many issues I had came from sleep and hiber mode. not exclusively though, still some unexplicable ones.

[GNandGS]

Windows firewall is damn good enough. A firewall is simple with pretty much two schools of thought: loose/manual where you config -vs- automated where all is blocked by default. Otherwise they all work the same.

YOU DO NOT NEED A FWall for testing.

If you are home or work it is quite likely your system is already behind a firewall. Ditto for cafe with your main risk being other users nearby.

In the end, if you have not taken advantage of your warranty then this is a problem of your own making. I'm very very sure Dell would have replaced the MB or system by now and solved your problem. Good luck!

[KurtH]

Originally Posted by troublegum

hi

I recently got an alienware m11x R3 w/ killer network card.

Have you tired removing you Bigfoot wireless yet? There have been many threads on how it was causing BSOD's on many systems.

[troublegum]

not yet, but i tryed the latest drivers (released some days ago).
still get BSODs.

but now it's pretty stable. the only BSODs I get are related to sleep mode.

e.g. if I put the computer in sleep mode, on battery, and wake it up plugged to AC and to HDMI, I'm pretty sure it will do a BSOD.

if I put it to sleep, wake it up, put it to sleep again it generally crashes too.

hibernation mode almost always crash the computer.

for now I'll avoid these situations. (although I don't call it a solved problem at all).

I have not the time now to run some tests (these situations happened several times during normal casual use).

I wouldn't mind removing bigfoot drivers if I wasn't using wifi. but I really need it (especially during my gigs, I control ableton via wifi).

when I have more time I'll run it with windows firewall, without commodo, without the bigfoot drivers, do plenty of sleep/hiber mode switches and see what happens.

and i'll post the results.

[troublegum]

totally stable since the last bigfoot killer drivers.

still removed alien respawn. got bored of the popup asking me to buy the full version. anyway the free version only permits a "factory reset", which is totally doable without it.

[GNandGS]

as an FYI, it is possible to install drivers without the manager (at least for 1102).