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975
June 12th, 2017 09:00
Help with 17 R4 issues...
I recently bought a 17 R4 in November of last year and I have had issues with it since day one. I have lost all patience with Dell and Alienware Tech support because it hasn't fixed it. I have a U3417W monitor connected to it (through HDMI) as well as Razor mouse, keyboard and mousepad (through usb). I have to reboot every morning because sometime overnight I get a low memory error, I click ok and the screen goes black and all programs will not run until I do a restart. This happens every night. This morning I noticed that all my icons were all distorted and on top of each other, see attached photo. I disconnected everything from it and I am now using the laptop by itself to see if it will have the same issue. Has anyone had this issue as well, is it because the laptop cannot handle the monitor, mouse, mousepad and keyboard? This is supposed to be a gaming laptop is it not? Shouldn't it be able handle all this stuff?
I have gone through all the steps with tech support and it still isn't right, I even told them that I have the big monitor, external keyboard, mouse and mousepad for gaming and they said that is not the problem. After numerous driver updates and even resetting windows back to factory settings, I am still having these issues...thought's anyone...?
Thanks...
Alienware - Rodrigo
7 Technologist
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4.4K Posts
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June 12th, 2017 14:00
Hi,
Send me your Service Tag in a PM so we can look further into this issue.
BigPapa68
5 Posts
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June 12th, 2017 15:00
My service tag is
Right now I have everything unplugged from it, seems to be doing fine but I won’t know anything until tomorrow morning. The issues seem to come up when it sits overnight.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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June 12th, 2017 16:00
1. Check Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor for items appearing over-night. This is the problem I would worry most about. Is system clean of virus and spyware?
2. I usually set mine to View/Align Icons to Grid ... which should make "icon stacking" impossible. It's not all that un-common to see icons re-arrange themselves though (sometimes even after reboot or first power-up) if:
a. You have 2 or more monitors
b. There was some crash or problem.
3. Good idea ... good troubleshooting. See if laptop (with nothing connected) behaves properly.
BigPapa68
5 Posts
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June 13th, 2017 07:00
Update: Ok, so it sat overnight will several windows open and running, no error messages and I didn't have to reboot, still have monitor, keyboard and mousepad unplugged. I did hook up the mouse because slide pad drives me nuts. I am going to hook up the keyboard today and leave it sit for a few hours and see what that does.
I still think it may be the monitor, but I guess I will have to wait and see...
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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June 13th, 2017 11:00
Good work. Take it slow and keep good notes.
It's all part of isolating the problem so you can "work on" the right part of the system.
BigPapa68
5 Posts
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June 15th, 2017 08:00
Update: So last night I connected the Razer keyboard, mouse pad and mouse, not the monitor. I left it sit all night with my browser, outlook email, file explorer and Photoshop open and running. This morning I checked it out and it is working perfectly, no issues with low memory or crashing and no need to reboot. I am pretty sure that it may be the monitor causing the issue, so I am going to connect the U3417W monitor shortly and see how it does the rest of the day and overnight.
One thing I did though was I uninstalled Dell Display Manager for the monitor, could this have been causing an issue with the display drivers? Also, I use the HDMI cord that came with the monitor, is that better than using USB or does it really matter?
One more night of waiting to see...
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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June 15th, 2017 09:00
Remember to be looking in Windows Reliability Monitor for errors.
Good idea (keep system as "lean" as possible). I'm not sure what that software does but I highly doubt it's required for proper operation.
For now, I would only connect the "video cable" ... either HDMI or DisplayPort.
BigPapa68
5 Posts
1
June 16th, 2017 08:00
Update: I connected the monitor last night and so far, no serious issues. Had all the same programs up and running all night and didn't get one error. The only thing I can think of is that the Dell Display Manager was causing the issue. Hopefully I will know more in the next day or two as I will leave all the programs open just like the past few days and see what happens.
So far so good though, no crashing, no low memory error and I didn't have to reboot this morning to use it...!!!!