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Hi Guys
Been a while, right i now have sp1 installed, which should be a good step forward, in all views, but it has not fixed my problem where by if i put my laptop into hibernate or sleep it decides to wake itself up when it feels like it!

Next my laptop is even worse at booting, it will get stuck quite often at the bios, and just after that and usually takes turning on and off three times to get windows to load.

Also, this is not really your sort a thing, but i have zonealarm which decides to alert me that it has blocked access to the internet every five mins, when it has not because i have been loading a page or streaming a video at that time! By the way i have the very latest version of zonealarm which i downloaded 2 days ago!

Any help on any of these topics would be a great help and relieve my stress a little, i have tried scouring forums but whatever they seem to say it never seems to work for me!

Thanks
Ed

P.S. I am really, really regretting now, not saving up for a mac. If i had the money now i would buy one and chuck this laptop, well i mean vista in the bloody bin and be rid of it, and my life would be so much better!

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Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
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the problems you have stated probably dont have anything to do with vista.

anything could be waking your system from hybernate, do you have any paripherals plugged in that are doing something and could be waking it? i know if a mac system is sleeping and you click a button it comes back to life.

You say your having problems and get stuck at the bios. at this point vista wouldent have loaded up so it wont be vista's fault but a different problem.

the zonealarm problem you are having is problems with the zonealarm software not vista and is probably because you havent set it up properly and its blocking a service in the background when it shouldent be. With vista I find the built in firewall that comes with does a good enough job.


For some reason its the 'in thing' to slate vista and say how bad it is when in fact its not as bad as all these people make it out to be. the only thing that was not so good with it for a while was driver support and system requirements. Unless you have an issue with one of these two things or run a huge network and have compatability problems there shouldent be any reason to stick with XP exept for personal preferance.

BTW I am a primary mac user and I also use several forms of linux, XP and vista, im no fan boy and dont preffer one over the other, they all have there benefits.

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Tobywuk personal website || My Flickr
Gear: Sony a700! || CZ 16-80mm! || Sony 75-300 || bag: Crumpler PB xxxl / Lowepro slingshot 200

When you leave it in hibernate or sleep mode with nothing but the power lead connected, it still wakes itself up.

I still have not got full driver support for my wireless card, which drops out on me and just does not work when i return to my laptop after it has been supposedly sleeping!

I know what you mean about, the vista slate, but vista is still no where near as stable as a Mac OS X or XP with SP3, also i can't think of a time since Feb 07 when i got vista, when i have not had some sort of problem with it, just really bugs me!

Thanks for your opinion though!

_________________
Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
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Im afraid I have no idea what this could be, possible some software that is running on your system may be doing it?



Have you tried going to the manufacturers website and seeing if there are any new vista drivers available for download? are you in good signal range of the access point, I have previously had some issues with signal loss on my macbook pro because of access point placement. im asuming that you have an older laptop and when you bought it, it came with xp on it? in this case if you cant find drivers for your wireless card it may be an idea to go back to XP.




I would also agree and say that OSX is much more stable than any vershion of windows, XP or vista, but that is because OSX is designed to only work on the limited amount of apple hardware and not 1,000's Plus different hardware that runs Windows, this is one advantage of OSX. It just depends on what hardware you are using and what the driver support is like. With apple stuff the hardware/driver support is nearly always spot on, but with windows its more difficult.

Good luck with your problems, I hope you find a solution!

P.s Since usin Mac OSX I have had much less problems that I do with windows, for home users I would highle recommend macs!

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Tobywuk personal website || My Flickr
Gear: Sony a700! || CZ 16-80mm! || Sony 75-300 || bag: Crumpler PB xxxl / Lowepro slingshot 200

Wireless: I am in perfectly good range of our router (about 3m), secondly my computer came with vista, and also to get my wireless without restarting it if how to disable and enable the driver! I have looked on the dell website and downloaded the latest version, but it does not make any difference!

I see what you mean about drivers, must be difficult, but i think i am going to get a mac in the next year or so!

_________________
Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
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My first instinct is to suggest disabling Zonealarm and enabling the built-in Vista firewall. Zonealarm is junk, btw.

Have you run any checks for spyware as this is a likely cause of the wake-ups you're seeing. Don't use any of the Zonealarm bloat to test for spyware. Try Spybot, a2 or something like that.

See what happens with Zonealarm disabled. and report back.

Zorro

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http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head

Something is PHYSICALLY wrong with your computer. You need to send it in for repairs if possible. The fact that it is freezing at the bios screen suggests some sort of hardware problem. Because it's a laptop, there is limited advice I can offer about fixing it. Contact technical support and inform them of your issues. They might be resolvable through a bios update. And your problems have nothing to do with Vista.

Hibernation saves the contents of your RAM to your hard drive, and upon powering back on your computer, Windows will load it from the hard drive back into the RAM. If your computer turns back on from Hibernation, then this suggests a physical electrical short on your laptop.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

@ Zorro
Zonealarm is very good and definitely not junk, yes i admit it can be a right pain sometimes, and it does have some system drag, but it does the job it was written to do very well!
I am scanning my pc at this minute.

@csrussell
Bios seemed to load vista better, i have now established that it only does the bios thing when it has been on hibernate mode, and it does not wake itself up so often on hibernate mode, where as on sleep mode it does it every 10 mins or less! It has only started waking itself up in the last 1.5 months or so, but the RAM seems to be doing its job fine! I am trying to remember what programs i installed that long ago, because that my have caused the problem.

Thanks everyone for your help so far. I am steadily getting through the problems, although it is still very tedious and annoying.

_________________
Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
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The laptop should never wake up from hibernation mode by itself. When it goes into hibernation, it completely shuts off so that it is in a state no different than that of a completely powered down machine. As far as the freezing at bios is concerned, if by "gets stuck at the bios" you mean after the bios splash screen it goes to a black screen, or starts loading vista, and then freezes, that's different.

Those issues need to be dealt with first as they are the most severe. With the wireless drivers, you should be able to get an updated copy from the manufacturers website if not your laptop vendor's website. Because you said it came with Vista, their should be drivers out there for it already.

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Sony A300 || 18-70 Kit Lens || Minolta 70-210 f4 Beercan || Minolta 50mm f1.7 || METZ 48-AF1 Flashgun || flickr

1. yep you hit it right on.

2. Its fine most of the time, but if i put my laptop to sleep and wake it up sometimes, i have to disable and enable the driver to get the wireless to work without restarting my pc.

_________________
Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
Flickr
Portfolio - Not recently updated!
Saving for: -