Elite e9150t Feezes/Locks up

[anthone]

I am on my second e9180F from Fry's electronics.  New shipments arrived 2 days ago and wanted to see if these newer ones have been fixed.

So far it just gave me a lock up durng the first start up.  I waited for 30 minute to do a "cold boot" and so far this second cold boot hasnt had any slowdowns or problems and its been 15 minutes.   I'm just praying that this isnt a lemon. 

On a side note, the first one that i got, when I turned it on the first day, the DVD drive started opening and closing for a minute.  This second one didnt.  I have 13 days to run some tests and abuse this before my official 30 days ends.  Fry's apparently do not give extra 30 days for a second unit.  I'm holding my breath on this one.

It would help if you guys report these problems to major tech blogs like Gizmodo and Engadget.  Theyre the most widely read blogs online and HP and other companies I believe, give them goodies to advertise their products.

[GaryJ51]

anthone,

Please post for us the links to the blogs where you have posted your complaints.

Thanks

[anthone]

gizmodo.com and engadget.com are both popular tech sites.

Also, I have noticed the HP Advisor does not work anymore after freezing on me on start up and it was still loading.  Do I really need the Advisor? 

[GaryJ51]

anthone,

Perhaps I am bnot making myself clear.  I would like to read the posts you've made at the sites you recommend.

[nicoalas]

madstofern  : very interessesting what you said about non freezing from a UBUNTU live CD. I am currently under Linux (ARCH) , but it is a full install (dual boot ) and I ve got the freeze following a cold boot every day (it is my "second" machine as HP replaced the mobo, proc and fan in my e9180f a month ago,  but I have still the same issue) .

Following a restart , the system works great for hours ...

Prior the freeze both in Linux and Windows, I got fancy messages about problem with USB (in Windows , the system seem to lost the USB first , try to reinitialize it , but failled to use the device in USB2.0  , that why I got the message that WINDOWS discovered new USB device that could not be used in USB2.0 ...   exactly the same in LINUX .... following this freeze occur within the 1 to 10 mn )

I will also try with a live Linux distrib , but really wonder why there could be a difference between the live and the full install..

[hakanson]

Got my first lock up and auto reboot since I did the factory restore on 9/25.  I was playing Peggle and studdering audio and then an auto-reboot - no BSOD but it was in full screen gaming mode.  When the machine came back, no keyboard or mouse (HP originals).  It sat for 10 minutes like that until the screen saver came on.  I called tech support, and I hit the power button for a clean shutdown.  I tapped F9 during boot for the hardware diagnostics which passed.  When I rebooted after, I see 4 WHEA-Logger warnings (a corrected hardware error occured) with type Internal Timer Error on 4 different processor ids,about 1 minute apart.  I am on the phone with tech support now and they think it is a software error and I should order (for $15) the factory restore discs in case my hard drive partition is bad.  So I asked why I have to pay for something that is related to fixing my system.

I'm a little scared to send it in for repair with the stories on this thread, when we think they haven't found the solution yet.  I guess I may get to do another factory restore.

my system: e9180t, i7-920, 1.04, 5.18, Mexico

[HP_PCOwner]

You should be able to find an updated version of HP Advisor. I had the same issue, its now fixed with the update.

Some of the problems may be the software and drivers on the PC or NAV or a combination.

[GaryJ51]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Core+i7+BSOD+freeze+lockup&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq...=

The word is spreading.

[GaryJ51]

  Interesting post!   http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/hp_core_i7_glitch/comments/ HP issues - or should I say ANY quad core CPU issues #

By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 29th September 2009 21:33 GMT

Their are two fixes to this problem, neither of which HP is fessing up to.

1) A quad core processor cannot run correctly in a system with only 1 hard drive, the CPU, memory, and subsystem is just to fast, which results in lockups and slow downs all the time.

The system was shipped with a Raid controller, use it, purchase another hard drive (or 2) of the same size or larger, set up a RAID, Raid 1 is preferred as it is about 50% faster in access time.

However, Raid 0 will work OK and eliminate the lockups. The on board controller will not support Raid 5, so if you want to use this you will have to purchase an aftermarket controller.

Regular backups are still REQUIRED, so purchase an external hard drive or make backup DVD's on a regular basis.

The 1st hard drive should be on SATA port 1, the second on SATA port 2, the third hard drive on port 3, DVD/CD should be on ports 5 and 6 - no exceptions.

2) Cabling appears to be incorrect in these systems. The first 3 sata channels on the system board were designed for a RAID array, since you only have one hard drive, the system get's confused.

Fix: Requires are reload of the system in ALL cases

a) go into the BIOS and change the Sata controller settings, to IDE NOT RAID (this is default), or simply use any setting other than RAID - be sure this is saved.

b) move the DVD/CD rom drive connectors to sata channel 5 and./or 6

c) disable sata (S-IDE) channel 2 and 3 (and any other one you are not using) in the bios.

Also disable P - IDE channels if you are not using them.

d) Reload the machine using the restore CD's

e) Immediately after reloading - load ALL Microsoft and HP updates for your machine, this is MANDATORY, and not an option.

f) Load anti-virus and Anti-spyware software (Norton and McAfee are NOT recommended for Vista - they simply do not work well in a 64 bit O/S).

I would suggest Kaspersky's or AVG for anti-virus, these seem to have the least problems

For Anti-spyware, use Spybot Search and Destroy, Spysweeper, Malwarebytes anti-malware or other recognized known programs.

3) Their are timing issues with Seagate SATA hard drives in these systems. Either get the flash upgrade for these hard drives (version 7200.11 or lower), replace the drive a newer model, or with a different brand of hard drive. Seagate is fessing up to this issue in forums.

This appears to affect faster machines more often than slower ones. The faster the system is the worse it is on the hard drive.

WD Cheetah drives also have timing issues, and require a reboot every 49 days. This is a known issue. So be aware of this. WD blue/green hard drives are significantly slower than Seagate drives in the same systems are NOT recommended due to high failure rates.

Fujitsu, does not appear to have any hard drive issues.

Samsung does not appear to have any issues with hard drives - these tend to be slow but reliable.

Hitachi/IBM have some timing issues also related to firmware - this is dependent on system speed and controller used.

[95mustang]

Oh just wait , the chips are about to hit the fan, as they say.