Weird Dimension 9200 problem

Tom, I know I'm jumping the gun here but can you keep us abreast of
your 9200 so we know if it is a potential flaw? Sorry I can't help
but hope you have success by next week. Just curious what you will do
if it is a design flaw? Replace with ???

Sounds like you should work for dell as you are a good beta tester
(even if by accident).

... sitting on the sidelines reading this thread (while I deal with my
crashed hard drive).








On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:17:28 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Ignore the TV recording. The issue is just HD throughput.

Would you do me a huge favor and go to www.hdtune.com and download their
utility? Run it on your primary drive and see what the graph looks like?

Should be pretty close to a straight line, right around 65. If you have the
same issue I do, it will have huge dips, almost to zero, every few seconds.

For normal use, email, etc., you would NEVER notice this. It is only
because I need a nice clean data stream that it causes me problems. I need
up to 40GB per hour.

Works fine on the second drive.

Thanks,

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
I'm a bit confused about your problem. I don't have a TV tuner or play HD
movies.

I got a refurb XPS 410 through Dell SB Outlet a month ago. Dell support
thinks it is a 9200 by its service tag number, probably since it came
through Dell SB. It's an E6400 with 250 GB drive, Win XP MCE, XP1300 Pro,
2 GB 667 mem, floppy, drive etc.

I managed to hose Win XP after I had it two days. I couldn't even do a
Cntl F11. Tech support (at 10PM EST my time) had me reload Windows from
the CDs. He first thought it might be a hard drive problem so we did
diagnostics and checked the BIOS.

When I got to the SATA operation he had me change it from "SATA On" to
the "Autodetect" setting even though the default setting is SATA on.
According to his script the RAID should be off unless you running RAID.
Later I had one more question and when I called Tech Support I spoke to a
guy in Ottawa, Canada. He said leave it off also.

Also, has the business with the ATI X1300Pro memory been resolved? From
everything that I have looked at the X1300Pro has 256MB of on-board
memory.

Rich

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
That's not the problem. It's PVR software. If I record to a second
drive I install, I think it will be just fine, but that's not a
solution.

It seems to be a bug in the motherboard, amazingly.



I think you're absolutely correct. Especially given that (2) identical
systems are showing the same symptom.....



I noticed that the ROM and software for the storage manager is many
releases behind what is available from Intel. Unfortunately, the ROM can
only come from Dell.

Are you sure the problem with your hdtune is having other processes running
in the background while it is running? Mine was freaking out with OE6
active.

By the way:

My computer has an XPS 410 logo thingy on the top front of the case.
However, since it was a refurbed system it could have very well been a 9200
in its previous incarnation when it was first delivered at the end of
October 2006. The "Service Tag" tag on top of the case has obviously been
replaced. The system identifier on the Dell Outlet was not a Service Tag
number, it had too many digits.

When I ordered the system the packing list and the order confirmation both
said WD hard drive but it came with a Samsung. So the HD was probably
replaced with one of the pre-imaged ones with the hidden partitions and Cnt
F11 feature before the system was shipped.

Also have you ever noticed on the Dell Outlet that there are no Dimension
9200 systems listed? Sounds like the returned 9200s are converted to XPS
410s so they can be sold both through SB and Home/Home Office lines. From
what I have seen while shopping for the system is that a 9200 configured
like mine often cost more on SB than the equiv XPS410 from SB or Home. I
also notice that free Vista upgrades are now offered. These weren't there at
the beginning of December.

The only reason I bought it through SB was that it is much easier to
navigate to the Outlet from the SB side than the Home/Home Office. Price,
warranty, etc are the same.

Rich





RnR wrote in message ...
Tom, I know I'm jumping the gun here but can you keep us abreast of
your 9200 so we know if it is a potential flaw? Sorry I can't help
but hope you have success by next week. Just curious what you will do
if it is a design flaw? Replace with ???

Sounds like you should work for dell as you are a good beta tester
(even if by accident).

.. sitting on the sidelines reading this thread (while I deal with my
crashed hard drive).








On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:17:28 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Ignore the TV recording. The issue is just HD throughput.

Would you do me a huge favor and go to www.hdtune.com and download their
utility? Run it on your primary drive and see what the graph looks like?

Should be pretty close to a straight line, right around 65. If you have
the
same issue I do, it will have huge dips, almost to zero, every few
seconds.

For normal use, email, etc., you would NEVER notice this. It is only
because I need a nice clean data stream that it causes me problems. I
need
up to 40GB per hour.

Works fine on the second drive.

Thanks,

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
I'm a bit confused about your problem. I don't have a TV tuner or play
HD
movies.

I got a refurb XPS 410 through Dell SB Outlet a month ago. Dell support
thinks it is a 9200 by its service tag number, probably since it came
through Dell SB. It's an E6400 with 250 GB drive, Win XP MCE, XP1300
Pro,
2 GB 667 mem, floppy, drive etc.

I managed to hose Win XP after I had it two days. I couldn't even do a
Cntl F11. Tech support (at 10PM EST my time) had me reload Windows from
the CDs. He first thought it might be a hard drive problem so we did
diagnostics and checked the BIOS.

When I got to the SATA operation he had me change it from "SATA On" to
the "Autodetect" setting even though the default setting is SATA on.
According to his script the RAID should be off unless you running RAID.
Later I had one more question and when I called Tech Support I spoke to
a
guy in Ottawa, Canada. He said leave it off also.

Also, has the business with the ATI X1300Pro memory been resolved? From
everything that I have looked at the X1300Pro has 256MB of on-board
memory.

Rich

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
That's not the problem. It's PVR software. If I record to a second
drive I install, I think it will be just fine, but that's not a
solution.

It seems to be a bug in the motherboard, amazingly.



I think you're absolutely correct. Especially given that (2) identical
systems are showing the same symptom.....



I noticed that the ROM and software for the storage manager is many
releases behind what is available from Intel. Unfortunately, the ROM
can
only come from Dell.

I thought it was background tasks too, but I installed a clean XP without
any Dell, uh, stuff. Didn't even install an AV program.

It still did it every few seconds.

Just to test the theory, I ran HDTune on my Dimension 8400.

No stutter. Relatively smooth line.

My Optiplex GX620 SFF, on the other hand, had some dips. Not as many and
not as far down, but some blips. It's running a lot of applications,
though, including OE (typing on it). It did tell me, though, that the drive
in the SFF is running really hot. Burn your hand hot (62c). I'll have to
blow out dust and see if I can cool it down.

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
Are you sure the problem with your hdtune is having other processes
running in the background while it is running? Mine was freaking out with
OE6 active.

By the way:

My computer has an XPS 410 logo thingy on the top front of the case.
However, since it was a refurbed system it could have very well been a
9200 in its previous incarnation when it was first delivered at the end of
October 2006. The "Service Tag" tag on top of the case has obviously been
replaced. The system identifier on the Dell Outlet was not a Service Tag
number, it had too many digits.

When I ordered the system the packing list and the order confirmation both
said WD hard drive but it came with a Samsung. So the HD was probably
replaced with one of the pre-imaged ones with the hidden partitions and
Cnt F11 feature before the system was shipped.

Also have you ever noticed on the Dell Outlet that there are no Dimension
9200 systems listed? Sounds like the returned 9200s are converted to XPS
410s so they can be sold both through SB and Home/Home Office lines. From
what I have seen while shopping for the system is that a 9200 configured
like mine often cost more on SB than the equiv XPS410 from SB or Home. I
also notice that free Vista upgrades are now offered. These weren't there
at the beginning of December.

The only reason I bought it through SB was that it is much easier to
navigate to the Outlet from the SB side than the Home/Home Office. Price,
warranty, etc are the same.

Rich





RnR wrote in message ...
Tom, I know I'm jumping the gun here but can you keep us abreast of
your 9200 so we know if it is a potential flaw? Sorry I can't help
but hope you have success by next week. Just curious what you will do
if it is a design flaw? Replace with ???

Sounds like you should work for dell as you are a good beta tester
(even if by accident).

.. sitting on the sidelines reading this thread (while I deal with my
crashed hard drive).








On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:17:28 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Ignore the TV recording. The issue is just HD throughput.

Would you do me a huge favor and go to www.hdtune.com and download their
utility? Run it on your primary drive and see what the graph looks like?

Should be pretty close to a straight line, right around 65. If you have
the
same issue I do, it will have huge dips, almost to zero, every few
seconds.

For normal use, email, etc., you would NEVER notice this. It is only
because I need a nice clean data stream that it causes me problems. I
need
up to 40GB per hour.

Works fine on the second drive.

Thanks,

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
I'm a bit confused about your problem. I don't have a TV tuner or play
HD
movies.

I got a refurb XPS 410 through Dell SB Outlet a month ago. Dell support
thinks it is a 9200 by its service tag number, probably since it came
through Dell SB. It's an E6400 with 250 GB drive, Win XP MCE, XP1300
Pro,
2 GB 667 mem, floppy, drive etc.

I managed to hose Win XP after I had it two days. I couldn't even do
a
Cntl F11. Tech support (at 10PM EST my time) had me reload Windows from
the CDs. He first thought it might be a hard drive problem so we did
diagnostics and checked the BIOS.

When I got to the SATA operation he had me change it from "SATA On" to
the "Autodetect" setting even though the default setting is SATA on.
According to his script the RAID should be off unless you running RAID.
Later I had one more question and when I called Tech Support I spoke to
a
guy in Ottawa, Canada. He said leave it off also.

Also, has the business with the ATI X1300Pro memory been resolved? From
everything that I have looked at the X1300Pro has 256MB of on-board
memory.

Rich

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
That's not the problem. It's PVR software. If I record to a second
drive I install, I think it will be just fine, but that's not a
solution.

It seems to be a bug in the motherboard, amazingly.



I think you're absolutely correct. Especially given that (2)
identical
systems are showing the same symptom.....



I noticed that the ROM and software for the storage manager is many
releases behind what is available from Intel. Unfortunately, the ROM
can
only come from Dell.

According to hdtune my hard drive is 29 deg C.

Rich


"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
I thought it was background tasks too, but I installed a clean XP without
any Dell, uh, stuff. Didn't even install an AV program.

It still did it every few seconds.

Just to test the theory, I ran HDTune on my Dimension 8400.

No stutter. Relatively smooth line.

My Optiplex GX620 SFF, on the other hand, had some dips. Not as many and
not as far down, but some blips. It's running a lot of applications,
though, including OE (typing on it). It did tell me, though, that the
drive in the SFF is running really hot. Burn your hand hot (62c). I'll
have to blow out dust and see if I can cool it down.

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
Are you sure the problem with your hdtune is having other processes
running in the background while it is running? Mine was freaking out with
OE6 active.

By the way:

My computer has an XPS 410 logo thingy on the top front of the case.
However, since it was a refurbed system it could have very well been a
9200 in its previous incarnation when it was first delivered at the end
of October 2006. The "Service Tag" tag on top of the case has obviously
been replaced. The system identifier on the Dell Outlet was not a Service
Tag number, it had too many digits.

When I ordered the system the packing list and the order confirmation
both said WD hard drive but it came with a Samsung. So the HD was
probably replaced with one of the pre-imaged ones with the hidden
partitions and Cnt F11 feature before the system was shipped.

Also have you ever noticed on the Dell Outlet that there are no Dimension
9200 systems listed? Sounds like the returned 9200s are converted to XPS
410s so they can be sold both through SB and Home/Home Office lines. From
what I have seen while shopping for the system is that a 9200 configured
like mine often cost more on SB than the equiv XPS410 from SB or Home. I
also notice that free Vista upgrades are now offered. These weren't there
at the beginning of December.

The only reason I bought it through SB was that it is much easier to
navigate to the Outlet from the SB side than the Home/Home Office. Price,
warranty, etc are the same.

Rich





RnR wrote in message ...
Tom, I know I'm jumping the gun here but can you keep us abreast of
your 9200 so we know if it is a potential flaw? Sorry I can't help
but hope you have success by next week. Just curious what you will do
if it is a design flaw? Replace with ???

Sounds like you should work for dell as you are a good beta tester
(even if by accident).

.. sitting on the sidelines reading this thread (while I deal with my
crashed hard drive).








On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:17:28 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Ignore the TV recording. The issue is just HD throughput.

Would you do me a huge favor and go to www.hdtune.com and download their
utility? Run it on your primary drive and see what the graph looks
like?

Should be pretty close to a straight line, right around 65. If you have
the
same issue I do, it will have huge dips, almost to zero, every few
seconds.

For normal use, email, etc., you would NEVER notice this. It is only
because I need a nice clean data stream that it causes me problems. I
need
up to 40GB per hour.

Works fine on the second drive.

Thanks,

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
I'm a bit confused about your problem. I don't have a TV tuner or play
HD
movies.

I got a refurb XPS 410 through Dell SB Outlet a month ago. Dell
support
thinks it is a 9200 by its service tag number, probably since it came
through Dell SB. It's an E6400 with 250 GB drive, Win XP MCE, XP1300
Pro,
2 GB 667 mem, floppy, drive etc.

I managed to hose Win XP after I had it two days. I couldn't even do
a
Cntl F11. Tech support (at 10PM EST my time) had me reload Windows
from
the CDs. He first thought it might be a hard drive problem so we did
diagnostics and checked the BIOS.

When I got to the SATA operation he had me change it from "SATA On"
to
the "Autodetect" setting even though the default setting is SATA on.
According to his script the RAID should be off unless you running
RAID.
Later I had one more question and when I called Tech Support I spoke
to a
guy in Ottawa, Canada. He said leave it off also.

Also, has the business with the ATI X1300Pro memory been resolved?
From
everything that I have looked at the X1300Pro has 256MB of on-board
memory.

Rich

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
That's not the problem. It's PVR software. If I record to a
second
drive I install, I think it will be just fine, but that's not a
solution.

It seems to be a bug in the motherboard, amazingly.



I think you're absolutely correct. Especially given that (2)
identical
systems are showing the same symptom.....



I noticed that the ROM and software for the storage manager is many
releases behind what is available from Intel. Unfortunately, the ROM
can
only come from Dell.

I have a lot of applications on my mine. This was a fresh install of XP MCE
from the Dell-supplied CDs so I ran de-crapifier after bring it up. I didn't
realize how many things were running before I ran Process Explorer and
Autoruns.

Rich


"

That's about what the drives are running in my full size machines. The
little SFF case isn't good, I guess.
"Rich" wrote in message
...
According to hdtune my hard drive is 29 deg C.

Rich


"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
I thought it was background tasks too, but I installed a clean XP without
any Dell, uh, stuff. Didn't even install an AV program.

It still did it every few seconds.

Just to test the theory, I ran HDTune on my Dimension 8400.

No stutter. Relatively smooth line.

My Optiplex GX620 SFF, on the other hand, had some dips. Not as many and
not as far down, but some blips. It's running a lot of applications,
though, including OE (typing on it). It did tell me, though, that the
drive in the SFF is running really hot. Burn your hand hot (62c).
I'll have to blow out dust and see if I can cool it down.

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
Are you sure the problem with your hdtune is having other processes
running in the background while it is running? Mine was freaking out
with OE6 active.

By the way:

My computer has an XPS 410 logo thingy on the top front of the case.
However, since it was a refurbed system it could have very well been a
9200 in its previous incarnation when it was first delivered at the end
of October 2006. The "Service Tag" tag on top of the case has obviously
been replaced. The system identifier on the Dell Outlet was not a
Service Tag number, it had too many digits.

When I ordered the system the packing list and the order confirmation
both said WD hard drive but it came with a Samsung. So the HD was
probably replaced with one of the pre-imaged ones with the hidden
partitions and Cnt F11 feature before the system was shipped.

Also have you ever noticed on the Dell Outlet that there are no
Dimension 9200 systems listed? Sounds like the returned 9200s are
converted to XPS 410s so they can be sold both through SB and Home/Home
Office lines. From what I have seen while shopping for the system is
that a 9200 configured like mine often cost more on SB than the equiv
XPS410 from SB or Home. I also notice that free Vista upgrades are now
offered. These weren't there at the beginning of December.

The only reason I bought it through SB was that it is much easier to
navigate to the Outlet from the SB side than the Home/Home Office.
Price, warranty, etc are the same.

Rich





RnR wrote in message
...
Tom, I know I'm jumping the gun here but can you keep us abreast of
your 9200 so we know if it is a potential flaw? Sorry I can't help
but hope you have success by next week. Just curious what you will do
if it is a design flaw? Replace with ???

Sounds like you should work for dell as you are a good beta tester
(even if by accident).

.. sitting on the sidelines reading this thread (while I deal with my
crashed hard drive).








On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:17:28 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Ignore the TV recording. The issue is just HD throughput.

Would you do me a huge favor and go to www.hdtune.com and download
their
utility? Run it on your primary drive and see what the graph looks
like?

Should be pretty close to a straight line, right around 65. If you
have the
same issue I do, it will have huge dips, almost to zero, every few
seconds.

For normal use, email, etc., you would NEVER notice this. It is only
because I need a nice clean data stream that it causes me problems. I
need
up to 40GB per hour.

Works fine on the second drive.

Thanks,

Tom
"Rich" wrote in message
...
I'm a bit confused about your problem. I don't have a TV tuner or
play HD
movies.

I got a refurb XPS 410 through Dell SB Outlet a month ago. Dell
support
thinks it is a 9200 by its service tag number, probably since it came
through Dell SB. It's an E6400 with 250 GB drive, Win XP MCE, XP1300
Pro,
2 GB 667 mem, floppy, drive etc.

I managed to hose Win XP after I had it two days. I couldn't even
do a
Cntl F11. Tech support (at 10PM EST my time) had me reload Windows
from
the CDs. He first thought it might be a hard drive problem so we did
diagnostics and checked the BIOS.

When I got to the SATA operation he had me change it from "SATA On"
to
the "Autodetect" setting even though the default setting is SATA on.
According to his script the RAID should be off unless you running
RAID.
Later I had one more question and when I called Tech Support I spoke
to a
guy in Ottawa, Canada. He said leave it off also.

Also, has the business with the ATI X1300Pro memory been resolved?
From
everything that I have looked at the X1300Pro has 256MB of on-board
memory.

Rich

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...
That's not the problem. It's PVR software. If I record to a
second
drive I install, I think it will be just fine, but that's not a
solution.

It seems to be a bug in the motherboard, amazingly.



I think you're absolutely correct. Especially given that (2)
identical
systems are showing the same symptom.....



I noticed that the ROM and software for the storage manager is many
releases behind what is available from Intel. Unfortunately, the
ROM can
only come from Dell.

"Rich" wrote in message
...
Tom:

When I first noticed your problem earlier today I down loaded hdtune and
ran it. I just ran it again.

I have a WD2500KS (16MB cache) that I bought and loaded from scratch.

The transfer rate starts at 62.1 MB/sec and drops to 34.2 at 100% (what
ever 100% is). Average is 52.9

The Access time is 18.8 ms, the burst is 133.6 and CPU usage is 2.5%

There is only one dip, right after the beginning.

However!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I first just ran now it I had OE 6 up with your message and the dips
were happening all the time. When I closed OE 6, and restarted hdtune,
only the one dip at the beginning which I saw the first time I ran it
earlier today shows up.

Rich


Yep. That's the general way it's supposed to appear. Here's a screenshot
from my homebuilt (using roughly 3-year old technology, RAID1, twin 200gb
Seagate SATA drives):

http://i1.tinypic.com/2zdp3c5.jpg

Stew

* Whups. That was my 80gb IDE Seagate that was tested, obviously far slower.

Stew


"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...
Tom:

When I first noticed your problem earlier today I down loaded hdtune and
ran it. I just ran it again.

I have a WD2500KS (16MB cache) that I bought and loaded from scratch.

The transfer rate starts at 62.1 MB/sec and drops to 34.2 at 100% (what
ever 100% is). Average is 52.9

The Access time is 18.8 ms, the burst is 133.6 and CPU usage is 2.5%

There is only one dip, right after the beginning.

However!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I first just ran now it I had OE 6 up with your message and the dips
were happening all the time. When I closed OE 6, and restarted hdtune,
only the one dip at the beginning which I saw the first time I ran it
earlier today shows up.

Rich


Yep. That's the general way it's supposed to appear. Here's a screenshot
from my homebuilt (using roughly 3-year old technology, RAID1, twin 200gb
Seagate SATA drives):

http://i1.tinypic.com/2zdp3c5.jpg

Stew

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

Thomas -

You're giving me the heebie jeebies here. You've flashed to the latest
BIOS, correct?


Stew


Came with the latest


I smell a chipset conflict somewhere. Here's the HD Tune screenshot from my
homebuilt:

http://i1.tinypic.com/345n3at.jpg

(Roughly 3 year-old technology)

Stew

Ran it on my XPS410. Ran fine. Emailed results to you Tom.

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"Tom Scales" wrote in message
...

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

Thomas -

You're giving me the heebie jeebies here. You've flashed to the latest
BIOS, correct?


Stew


Came with the latest


I smell a chipset conflict somewhere. Here's the HD Tune screenshot from
my homebuilt:

http://i1.tinypic.com/345n3at.jpg

(Roughly 3 year-old technology)

Stew