Mekablog

My computer is wounded After an extensive troubleshooting session spanning almost a week, I have finally been forced into my last resort; I have to send in my machine to the company to get it repaired. I was hoping to avoid this at all costs since it will put a serious damper on my Project Vega mapping (specifically for the QuakeCon demo). But alas, I think I’ve done all that I can to try and fix the problem on my own. I’ll be calling the tech peoples tomorrow to get the laptop in and repaired.

If you recall from the previous posts (and possibly much older posts), I’ve been having some weird problems with my Alienware Aurora m9700. I bought the thing just over two years ago as my very first brand spanking new machine for my personal use. It was definitely an upgrade over my previous machines (namely my cheapo school laptop I got off of eBay and [before that] my 9 year old Win98 machine). It was a great machine and it fullfilled all the aspects that I wanted in a computer. Then about a year into my ownership of this wonderous laptop I ran into my first major issue (some of you may recall it). The wireless, which I actually used on a semi-regular basis, was giving me some very VERY serious problems. Long story short, it would cause the machien to skip around violently until an eventual BSOD. I called the tech support and tried a bunch of things that I had already tried with no luck. I searched around the interwebs for a solution but none really presented itself (without me cracking into the machine…which I really do not like doing). So I gave up; atleast I still had my wired connection. Fast forward to, let’s say, a few weeks ago. I finally released Claustrophobia 1024 and I’m ready to start on some mapping for the QuakeCon demo. I open up the editor and start working when, all of a sudden, I get a BSOD! At first I thought it couldn’t have anything to do with the editor, so I tried again. BLAM…BSOD-city as soon as I paste a face in the editor. I was able to confirm this problem and I reported it to Carn. Turns out, neither he or esselforutium have the issue, so the likelyhood of the problem being in the editor is very low. By this time I’m getting that sickening feeling in my stomach that something is wrong with my computer. Turns out that this is the case.

So here’s what I did once I reached that point. The first and logical thing for me to try was to update my video drivers. I never had a problem with them in the past so I never updated them. But updating those drivers didn’t fix the issue. So the next thing to come to mind was to reinstall Windows. I try my very hardest to avoid this option when possible because it’s a huge headache to backup all of my crucial files, reinstall, move files back, and then update and install everything again. Well, I do this thinking that it would really fix the problem. BAM…welcome back to BSOD city Mek By this point I’m beyond frustration. Carn suggests that I seek Supergod’s wisdom in the hopes that he could figure out the problem. What ensues after this is a 2 day excursion in what turns out to be futility

Supergod does most of the work for the next two days while I either watch or give input and help out here and there. He installs this nifty software that allows him to connect to my computer and then pretty much control everything on it. We do all sorts of things; install new/update drivers, clean drivers, reinstall new drivers, reinstall windows…etc. Finally he comes to the decision that the version of Windows that came with my machine could possibly be the problem, so he has me install a clean version of Windows XP Pro with SP3 integrated. Going on into day two, we get this clean version of Windows installed with all of the drivers and whatnot and everything seems to be looking up. I finally get a chance to try out my wireless and map editor to see if the problems were fixed. Next stop, BSOD-city! Ok, so he tries a few other tweaks and changes with updates after that but still with no luck. We then try one more thing; we tested the computer’s memory. This took 6 HOURS to do and everything came back clean. The last thing that Supergod could think of trying was another OS; Windows Vista. Ok sure, why not. Fast forward to the 4th of July and I finally get Vista installed. It took me another 6-7 hours to get all of the drivers and whatnot installed (btw, alienware is horrible about updating their drivers it seems) and everything is looking good on the surface. The first thing I actually try is to get my score on that silly Windows Experience Index. But I get an error saying that it can’t complete the process; in the log, it apparently fails with one of the VIDEO TESTS. Hmmm…ok, so I then try the editor. Hey, no BSOD! But oh wait…it gives a generic Windows crash…not much progress made there At this point I decide that I’ve got to take a look at the inards of this machine, regardless of how clumsy I am.

And so today I cracked the beast open. Before that I read a few articles on the m9700 about it’s really high heat index and how it’s thermal paste and whatnot tends to fail after about a year. The heat index thing didn’t surprise me; it’s a SLI notebook so both of those video cards running produce a lot of heat. But I was sorta shocked that it can start to have problems because of the heat after only one year; I thought the alienware folks would have engineered something better than that, especially for the $3500 that was shelled out for it. I had some hicupps and whatnot with the video but nothing major until recently…but I had a strong feeling that the heat was the problem. So as I open up the laptop, I get to the video cards. The cards themselves look ok on the surface but the thermal protectorant is pretty much gone. What’s left of it is hard and flaky. So I remove the cards and then I make my way to the wireless card. This required me to remove the keyboard and some other things. Once I get to it, it’s an dirty mess…but the card looks intact. So I go out to town to grab some canned air and some thermal paste to hopefully fix this mess. I clean up the cards and apply some of the Arctic Silver that I bought. I also remove the wiresless card, clean out the entire area with the canned air to remove dirt and dust, and then I reinstall everything. I boot up, with fingers crossed, to see if this last endevour was worth my time and 20 bucks. And it turns out…no, it wasn’t :p I apparently didn’t get the keyboard reinstalled correctly (because god dammit my hands are too big and WHY IN THE HELL AM I DOING IT WHEN THE ALIENWARE PEOPLE SHOULD BE?). I can log in to Windows though, but it’s no use. The editor still crashes. The wireless works (!!) but I can’t really say if my exploratory surgery fixed it or not; I wasn’t able to install the wireless driver until after I read some info about it on the alienware site. So I suppose that’s a 50/50 chance there. But it doesn’t really matter at this point. I’m pretty sure something borked one or both of the video cards (probably the heat). I suppose it’s the end result of a poorly engineered laptop, which is too bad because with that aside it really is a very nice machine. If only I had more knowledge of hardware and the inner workings of the machine. I’m not sure how long it will take the alienware guys to make the fixes and ship it back, but if I get an estimate I’ll be sure to make a post about it.

So to end on a slightly more postive note, I’ll pose this question: What shall I be doing until I get this thing fixed? Well, I’m not really sure. I’ll be limited to my Windows 98 machine (which I’m on right now) which can access the internet. It can also run Doom Builder so I might do some speedmaps if I get too bored (interesting tid-bit: I was actually using this Win98 machine for a large portion of SMDM’s development). I already tried running the Vega editor on here, but Win98 is too old for it. I also won’t be able to work on any of my in-progress Doom maps since Win98 can’t read my external hard drive or any of my thumb drives. So I suppose I’ll be lurking around the interwebs just slightly less often for a bit. Sorry for the incredibly long post/rant :p

Oh, and on an even more positive note, Claustrophobia 1024 has been reviewed in the /newstuff Chronicles #348! Check it out! It has alo been nominated for a 2009 Cacoward, which is very cool