New Computer, Problems, And Eventually A Fix

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Recently I bought a New Dell XPS desktop from a third party company on Amazon. A treat, it was over 2k in money (monitor extra) Top of the line. 8, cores, I9 10th generation, 1 terabyte SSD, 2 terabyte normal HD, 64 gigs of ram and a 4 gig graphics card, Windows 10 PRO.

Of course it runs like hot snot.

Within a day though, perhaps once or twice a day, the sound would distort or buzz for a few seconds, sometimes a video would freeze as well, then all was OK?. This generally showed itself when watching You-Tube vids. Other times, the monitor would lose the signal so I had to unplug the HDMI cable from the graphics card and re-plug to get it back, till the next time.

I tore my hair out quizzing google over this. Generally it was well, uninstall or update your sound drivers or use alternative ones. I did that, and a lot of other things, to no avail.

I was all set to send it back as faulty. Then, I thought, one more deep delve into Google and will give up and return it. And then I found the answer in an obscure forum post. It had nothing to do with the sound at all. The machine was set to switch off the hard drive after 20 minutes, so it goes to do that and realizes it is in use and switches back on, thus causing the glitches, indeed, all glitches, now it's fixed. For those who are interested or having this problem: here's the fix:

Start - Settings - System - Power & Sleep - Additional Power Settings - Change Plan Settings, (on the one you have checked as using) - Change Advanced Power Settings - A small window box will open called Power Options. Open (hit the plus sign) "Turn off Hard Drive After" and change the value in the box, whatever it is to : type in:9999
Click on Apply and exit.

That's it, no more problems.

I emailed the company. They said, "Thanks for pointing this out, we will apply this change to all new machines we send out" Sheeeeeez
#off topic forum
  • recently i bought a macbook pro from eaby, once it arrived I noticed that there is a small crack near the display, I was shocked at the moment and became numb. However when I contacted the customer care they solved my problem swiftly and replaced with a brand new one with out any errors. Good guys
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    • All my headaches involving computers were Dell related. Since then, I've had a custom built gaming PC and a Macbook. Both work flawlessly.
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  • That must have been super frustrating after spending over 2k!!!
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    • I totally overlooked that first paragraph. $2K on Dell! For that money, you should be rolling out the red carpet for him!
  • Damn it man. Are you the new SETI?
    What size us it? Does it run hot? Is it loud?
    Are your girlfriends making eyes at it?
    8 Cores!
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    • Cor it's fast. No Flashy RGB lights though. Totally unassuming. It is the most silent PC I ever owned. Dell are renowned for this. You can't even hear the fans
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  • I am not due for a new PC for a few years yet, and I have an all in one which gives me so much room on my desk.


    So, Ian, I will certainly remember you when it comes time to buy a new one and think of Dell too. Well done!
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    • There's nothing like a desktop for easy upgrading. Amazon do a range of stands for them to elevate them off the floor, always a good thing so you can have them underneath the desk. I was though, tempted to get a top line all in one, they look cool and all looks neat on the desk.

      Despite my few problems with the new one it's not really Dell's fault, just the Windows settings as supplied by this company. I am a Dell fan.

      My previous machine was a 2014 standard Dell desktop, an I5, 4th generation. It had no problems and I updated the Hard drive to an SSD. That really made it fast compared to an HD.
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  • Dell does make some quality computers. They have awesome customer service and can run for a lifetime. They also own Alienware. Honorable mentions for HP, Asus, Acer.
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    • There will be no honorable mentions for HP from me. I had one of their PC's back in the late 2000's. At the time it was a high end one. It cost about a grand without the monitor. I had a surge protector in the wall socket. A storm, despite that, took it out. I had to more or less break it apart to retrieve the hard drive that was buried at the bottom of the machine. It was totally inaccessible. Several cuts on hand later.

      So many of the techs and repair guys who have you-tube channels express their dislike for HP. In my experience, I must agree with them.
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  • Interesting purchsed a cheapy HP floor model from Best Buys several years ago (Around 2012). It was to have something portable. The thing must of been a fluke only issue was a worn out keyboard. However something major went about a year&1/2 ago. The age of the computer was not worth fixing.

    Purchased a Dell Chromebook as a back up. It was a Black Friday deal about 3 or 4 years ago for a $100.00 thing is pretty decent. Posted a lot of stuff on this forum up to very recently with it. Just not a fan of missing Microsoft Office programs on it.

    Currently posting on a Dell Desktop, converted a spare bedroom into my home office. Have been a big Dell fanboy for years. Used them at work when we had the family from business.They were in rough environments and held up great. Also know a Medical office that has 3 of them in use.

    Tha'ts funny the customer service part. They were big on outsourcing over seas several years ago. Their C.S. went way down hill for awhile IMHO.

    Seems they have improved that a lot recently. Last time there tech support was great. See you mention Alienware are you into gaming ? Personally not into it but just curious how those machines are.

    I have to look up the model you have lanfear63 sounds like a great machine.
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    • I think it might be a customized one from this company but Dell may do it as is. Here is a link to the Amazon page. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (Non affiliate) I also upgraded my laptop to a 17.3" reversable touch screen Dell recently. Superb, super fast and built like a tank. The price on the Desktop has come down a little but the Laptop has gone up $150.00 bucks. Got this from Best Buy, here is the link, also non affiliate. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-in...?skuId=6372667

      Not into gaming. I just like it fast and fluid and stable. My older Dell, I gave it away to a friend, got her to buy a new SSD and cloned the Windows setup from her old one to it. Runs really good, still.
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  • Any aliens lookin' in' prolly sayin' ... "hey, let's fly ovah an' bamboozle 'em before we pickle 'em raw."


    Those guys are so tech.
  • Few years ago I replaced all of my desktop harddrives with laptop harddrives.
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    • Whatever inspired you to do that? It's SSD's all the way these days, one of the best upgrades you can do to breath new life into old computers.
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  • My computer seems to have fixed itself with another little niggling annoyance I have with Outlook. (again, not a fault with the computer itself) I have set Outlook to look for new emails every 60 seconds from my Hostgator email, using Imap,. This is opposed to using Pop 3, It refreshes all folders each time it does it.

    After a few hours, mainly having the program minimized, it would freeze in mid download. The program itself would freeze. So a control, alt, delete and close the program was the only recourse of action and then re-open it. Not the end of the world but annoying.

    Apparently it was a known issue with this program, part of of the Office suite.

    I applied a fix that was described in another online forum and many people said it fixed the problem. I was optimistic, but to avail.

    Last night I received a partial Windows update so I let it do it's thing. Today I have run Outlook all day with no problems.

    So, either my fix took a day or so to kick in or Microsoft fixed it with their update.

    I will probably never know. So, at the time of going to press, I am error free.
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    • Apparently I was wrong about this one. I went back to work online and the problem re-occurred. After a day or so I realized it was probably the fact that I was connected to the VPN and that not only slows you down a bit but you do get a few brief mouse freezes or quick lockups when using it. Mouse becomes stuck, wait a few seconds and back to normal. Having my mail program running in the background apparently also got affected if it's downloading email. It does not freeze when I'm not connected..so far. :-)

      Beware VPN's, a necessary thing when working from home but problematical.
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  • I am happily on my 4th Dell desktop in 20 years. Long story but I blew out my hard drive (my mistake) with only a few days left on the warranty. I didn't pay extra but somehow had the in-home service. Dell sent a guy out that replaced my hard drive with the one day left. No charge. Needless to say I extended the warranty. I have been so satisfied with Dell I have not researched any other companies in the last 10 years or so. When it is time to replace I just start comparing the Dell offerings.

    @lanfear - I am drooling over your new setup.
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    • Good service there.

      Well, when you are stuck at home in lock-down and working from home you don't go out much and spend, so amassed enough funds over several months to have a little splurge on several upgrades which helps alleviate the boredom

      The new machine is faster, yes, but my previous 2014 Dell I5, 4th generation with an SSD upgrade was fast. Although the new one is noticeably faster it's not a huge difference in general usage. I will have to test it somehow with some benchmarks, but not a gamer. One thing though, no bottlenecks to speak of and the internet card has N ac wireless which runs as fast as Wired LAN, so the internet is much faster than previous. (I am not near enough to my router for a plugin)

      But, when I connect it to the works server, (VPN) I get a considerable drop in usage speed. The minute I disconnect though, it comes right back.
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  • i just looked, i got an acer, it works
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    • Back in the nineties, I used to work at the PC World store in the UK. We sold Acer and got many brought back faulty.

      In fairness though, I think they have improved their quality control by a huge amount since then.

      And, they were nowhere near as bad as Packard Bell which was then our staple computer and the most dreadful piece of crap hardware ever to grace the planet.
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    Recently I bought a New Dell XPS desktop from a third party company on Amazon. A treat, it was over 2k in money (monitor extra) Top of the line. 8, cores, I9 10th generation, 1 terabyte SSD, 2 terabyte normal HD, 64 gigs of ram and a 4 gig graphics card, Windows 10 PRO. Of course it runs like hot snot.