Windows Vista victim :-( Few problems, can anyone please help?

eskimo

As the story goes.... I recently a new Dell laptop with Windows Vista and it's causing me a string of headaches. It went through many random problems in the first few days but they seem to be okay now.

However all music I play has the sound of a scratched CD.... i.e. constant blips in the sound. It's driving me mad since I got a laptop mainly for storing and playing music. Is this because the soundcard is crap? Can i get Dell to change that for me so the sound is good? (It's the same for the sound coming out of the built-in speakers and headphones.)

Also, I have a dual processor but the computer is still ridiculously slow!! Whats that about?? What's the point of dual processors if the computer is still gonna be just as slow?

I downloaded a torrent also recently and it downloaded to nowhere basically. When I right-click it and click "browse download directory" the folder tells me that its empty - which just makes no sense.
(Torrent downloading was a MAJOR major problem at first in other ways but I eventually found a solution online for that problem.)

I can't use my MP3 player with this Vista because Creative haven't made any drivers for Vista or something. It's giving me a migraine!!! Anyone find a way to get around this?

I want XP back :-( Is there a way to have both XP and Vista on the laptop? How do I do this?

All help HUGELY appreciated!! Before I have a nervous breakdown after shelling out hundreds of euro for this thing that does nothing right....

Voipjunkie

eskimo wrote:

As the story goes.... I recently a new Dell laptop with Windows Vista and it's causing me a string of headaches. It went through many random problems in the first few days but they seem to be okay now.

However all music I play has the sound of a scratched CD.... i.e. constant blips in the sound. It's driving me mad since I got a laptop mainly for storing and playing music. Is this because the soundcard is crap? Can i get Dell to change that for me so the sound is good? (It's the same for the sound coming out of the built-in speakers and headphones.)

Also, I have a dual processor but the computer is still ridiculously slow!! Whats that about?? What's the point of dual processors if the computer is still gonna be just as slow?

I downloaded a torrent also recently and it downloaded to nowhere basically. When I right-click it and click "browse download directory" the folder tells me that its empty - which just makes no sense.
(Torrent downloading was a MAJOR major problem at first in other ways but I eventually found a solution online for that problem.)

I can't use my MP3 player with this Vista because Creative haven't made any drivers for Vista or something. It's giving me a migraine!!! Anyone find a way to get around this?

I want XP back :-( Is there a way to have both XP and Vista on the laptop? How do I do this?

All help HUGELY appreciated!! Before I have a nervous breakdown after shelling out hundreds of euro for this thing that does nothing right....

Yes you can have a dual boot there is a guide to it on APC do a google for Xp vista dual boot APC and you will find it


Basically you have to create a partition for XP you can do it in vista using gpart then you install xp in the new partition
then you can only boot into xp so you use the vista disk to repair the MBR for vista then you use easy BCD within vista to allow you to boot either OS


BTW how much ram have you in the laptop chances are that it is the ram that is causing the slow down not the processor I have 3 gigs in this desktop and vista is using 30% of it just idling

eskimo

Lol.... Firstly thanks a lot for all the advice, I really appreciate it but I just don't understand a lot of it!! I'm okay with software but not great hardware and all those computer words!

Here's my laptop spec:

Inspiron 1501
AMD Turion 64 x 2 Mobile Technology
Windows Vista Home Basic
1gb RAM
80gb Hard disk

Is there an easy-to-follow guide to creating the dual boot available anywhere?

Cheers again for the help!

Voipjunkie

eskimo wrote:

Lol.... Firstly thanks a lot for all the advice, I really appreciate it but I just don't understand a lot of it!! I'm okay with software but not great hardware and all those computer words!

Here's my laptop spec:

Inspiron 1501
AMD Turion 64 x 2 Mobile Technology
Windows Vista Home Basic
1gb RAM
80gb Hard disk

Is there an easy-to-follow guide to creating the dual boot available anywhere?

Cheers again for the help!

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

eskimo

That's brilliant Thanks a million!

koloughlin

We bought the same Dell Inspiron a couple of months back and had the same audio problems that you are seeing. I called Dell support and they talked me through how to fix it. Unfortunately I don't remember what they asked me to do at the time. I think it was that the sound card wasn't being managed directly by the OS, but by a higher layer software, but can't say for sure. You should give them a call. At this point they probably have had so many calls on the issue that they'll be able to help you straight away.

Go to http://www.dellcommunity.com and search for "inspiron 1501 vista audio". You'll see that there are many people out there with the same problem. There are some solutions posted too that you could try.

I'd recommend you download all the updates from the Dell site for the 1501 and apply them, and you should also make sure to run windows update as Vista has had so many issues it's important to keep it patched.

If your performance is slow it's probably because you have unnecessary services running. Dell by default seems to ship the box with loads of stuff you'll never need running by default. If you google a little there are sites out there that can help you with deciding which services you need and which you don't. Then you can shut down the unnecessary crap.

Capt'n Midnight

koloughlin wrote:

Dell by default seems to ship the box with loads of stuff you'll never need running by default. If you google a little there are sites out there that can help you with deciding which services you need and which you don't. Then you can shut down the unnecessary crap.

you need the Dell decrapifier - www.pcdecrapifier.com/

byte

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

you need the Dell decrapifier - www.pcdecrapifier.com/

Oooh. Must take a look at that.