Gaming Issues with Dell Inspiron 5150

CeSSPoo| · June 26th, 2004, 09:31 AM

hey everyone

ive got a problem with my dell inspiron 5150 at the moment. I am experiencing a terrible "matrix" style lag whilst playing any computer game which I install on it. Now, I did not used to have this problem, initially everything ran perfectly including all the games i had installed on it, and I was quite happy. But after I received a virus which forced me to reformat my laptop, for any games I install, there is a periodic and very frustrating lag spike which makes all the games unplayable. I also get a message when i load up a game, that I never used to receive before i formatted the laptop. It says
you have selected a non optimal screen resolution setting for your LCD display panel. This selection may result in fuzz text and pictures.
It recommends that I set my screen to the optimal setting. I have this setting set for the desktop, but when loading games the resolution has to change to accomodate the ingame settings.
I would very much appreciate it if anybody could help me solve this problem, because its quite annoying not being able to play any games.
My specs are as follows
here are the specs u asked for
Mobile Pentium 4 w/HT 3.06Ghz (15" SXGA+)
512MB DDR PC2700 SDRAM
64mb DDR nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 AGP 4x 56.72 drivers installed currently
30 gig ATA HDD
4x internal DVD+RW/+R with CDRW combo
512kb ON-DIE L2 Cache

and my msn is phoenix_legend@hotmail.com, could you please contact me or reply to this thread if you have any idea why this is happening.

Thanks to you all for your concern

CeSSPoo|

John Prophet · June 26th, 2004, 10:17 AM

did you get all the drivers reinstalled? look on dells site and load in your "system tag" number and look for any "downloads"....see if there are motherboard drivers or vid drivers that you missed....

also, go to http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm and do his configuration for xp home...it frees up a lot of resources by turning off unneeded services that startup by default....just follow the "safe" column...(except I leave my system restore on whereas he turns it off)

I follow his "safe" column on all my builds.

Also of course you can run msconfig and turn off other stuff like "office startup", or "igfxtray" (or whatever that 1 is)..turn off the stuff you dont need....and if you have norton or other av, turn it off while playing games offline...some AV stuff can really hog up the resources...

JP

oh..and have you done the windows updates? one of the non-critical updates in direct x 9.b....maybe you need that....then do critical updates again after u get dx9 cuz dx9 has a couple critical updates for it....

vfrxsw · June 26th, 2004, 09:46 PM

The 56.72 driver may not be the best for a mobile video card see the note from the nvidia site. For sure it was not shipped from Dell with the desktop driver.

" NOTE: GeForce2 Go, GeForce4 Go and GeForce FX Go mobile processors are not supported in this driver. Please contact the notebook's manufacturer for graphics drivers for your notebook PC."

Driver from Dell site may work better. And as JP said above chip set drivers also from Dell and DirectX 9 update

CeSSPoo| · June 27th, 2004, 04:41 AM

hey JP and vfrxsw, thanks for the advice uve given, but im afraid they didnt solve the problem. I have downloaded every new available update for my laptop, also my windows is updated, including dx9. I tried the viper's SAFE and gaming configs, and neither modes helped to solve the issue.

Ive rolled back the drivers to the one available from the dell site also ive updated the chipset drivers however, no joy.
I have email Dell twice, but havent received an answer as yet.
All I'm sure of is that whatever factory settings were set for me when I received the laptop worked brilliantly. However, after formatting, these settings are gone, and I can no longer play any games.

I really appreciate your input though, sorry I cant give you any good news.

Regards
CeSSPoo|

osprey4 · June 27th, 2004, 07:47 AM

Is your hard drive running in UDMA mode?

John Prophet · June 27th, 2004, 07:48 AM

thats hard to believe because one thing I know..from experience with Dells and other OEM type machines..is that when they come from the factory they are farrrrrrr from optimized.

have you tried setting the color to 16 bits as opposed to 32? and turning off the "eye candy" such as the menus that fade in etc etc

-------

ahhhh, I just thought of something...I notice you have hyperhtreading.....seems that there are soem thing you have to do to get hyperhtreading to actually work..perhaps a registry patch? but I am not sure off the top of my head......how many cpu's show up in device manager? does it mention hyperhtreading in the dev manager??

maybe look on google concerning hyperhtreading and xp etc to see if there is anything that needs to be done to get h threading working.....

JP

John Prophet · June 27th, 2004, 07:53 AM

saw this--> "If you have XP, have hyperhtreading enabled in the BIOS, have the latest BIOS, and have APIC enabled in the BIOS, you should see two windows called CPU history in the Performance tab of Task Manager. If you dont then you may need to perform a repair operation on the OS and manually select your HAL as "ACPI MultiProcessor PC" A full OS reinstallation should not be needed."

CeSSPoo| · June 30th, 2004, 05:15 AM

hey everyone

good news, ive found the source of the problem, and now all my games are running perfectly. The problem was that the CPU was over heating as a result of the fan on the underside not being able to cool the CPU. However, that is fixed, and now everything is well.
Thanks for all your support and advice, haha...you must all think im an idiot, who wouldve thought that was all i had to do to get everything working again
But anyway, thanks heaps to you all, these are a great set of forums, im glad it has people willing to help anyone, anywhere...

THANKS A BUNCH!!

regards
CeSSPoo|

porter260 · July 7th, 2004, 04:12 AM

In all honesty this is the first board I'v ever posted on. And its due to this is the first site that I'v actually find to be some sort of use. I'v got almost the exact same Dell system, and I had the same problem almost. When I first bought my system, I would go around playin games on the go. After a while I started playing games with my laptop sitting on my desk 24/7 and my fan would be going insane on the UNDERSIDE of my computer. I was starting to get pretty pissed off. I hope that is all that is wrong with it, I know how to fix that cooling off problem. Hope to be gaming along side the rest of you all! Thanks for the advice.

LeftCoast · July 7th, 2004, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CeSSPoo|

hey everyone

good news, ive found the source of the problem, and now all my games are running perfectly. The problem was that the CPU was over heating as a result of the fan on the underside not being able to cool the CPU. However, that is fixed, and now everything is well.

What did you do to fix the fan? Get a new one sent out from the big "D"?