After being a loyal dell customer for 20 years, I've about had it. This past February I bought a Studio 1747 w/ Intel i7 CPU Q720, 8GB RAM, Windows 7, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650. From the time I opened the box I've had problems.
At first the computer didn't want to turn on or I would get 4 green vertical bars (about 1" thick) over the monitor when the Dell logo would appear. I called tech support and they had me run diagnostics. Since their diagnostics didn't show anything, they said it was a software issue. At this point, NO software was added to the computer. It was as it had come from the factory.
Since evidently Dell doesn't warranty the software they sell (unless you pay extra), I did some searching around on the internet. After a couple of days of searching I came across another guy that was having the exact same problem. There was a conflict with the soundblaster software that was installed. After uninstalling this software, 95% of the problem went away. Since my old desktop had died and I needed the new laptop for my business, I kept it.
About a week ago, I starting having problems starting my computer. Sometimes the laptop will beep when starting it. It beeps 8 times. Sometimes I get the 4 green vertical bars back. The green bars only last until you get the prompt to enter your password. They do not show up after Windows is fully started.
I did some internet seaching in regards to the beeping. Most talked about the video adapter or the memory modules (from what I understand my video is built into the motherboard). One person talked about checking the battery. I opened up the back of the laptop. I checked the battery connection and reseated the memory modules. These actions didn't see any improvements. In fact one time the laptop was turned on I got a new beep code of 5 beeps.
Then I read somewhere that there are some "issues" with the dell bios on the 1747. I have updated the bios. I have updated the ATI HD 4650 drivers. I have updated the chipset driver.
I have run all the Dell Diagnostics again. No problems are showing up.
This still doesn't seem to have fixed the problem. Sometimes the computer starts fine. Sometimes I have the beep issue. Sometimes it is the green lines. Most of the time these problems will occur after the laptop has been shutdown for overnight or the laptop had sat in sleep mode for a few hours. I have not installed any new software in the past week. The last software that I installed was the Adobe Flash 10 viewer. This was installed about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I do not know if Windows sent out any automatic updates that I missed.
Any suggestions that anyone could give me what be greatly appreciated.
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