Sputtering Dell laptop running ME

Had a lady bring in a spankin new Dell Inspiron laptop running ME. Dell's replaced the HDD, Mobo and memory to no avail. Seems to run along fine, then suddenly bogs down and pukes, no mouse, nuthin'. Reboots don't help, only turning completely off for a while helps.
The ME reload disk is a product of Dell, is this different from a standard ME disk?
Also, are all the ACPI utilities in the device manager resident in ME, or is this a Dell thing too? I assume they are power management utilities, but could not find the script that loads them anywhere, so I assume they are hidden or embedded somewhere. I've disabled Power mgmnt in CMOS, still did it once. Am I on the right track, or should I reload a non-Dell version of the OS? <IMG SRC="smilies/confused.gif" border="0">

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Originally posted by ScooterWad:
<STRONG>Had a lady bring in a spankin new Dell Inspiron laptop running ME. Dell's replaced the HDD, Mobo and memory to no avail. Seems to run along fine, then suddenly bogs down and pukes, no mouse, nuthin'. Reboots don't help, only turning completely off for a while helps.
The ME reload disk is a product of Dell, is this different from a standard ME disk?
Also, are all the ACPI utilities in the device manager resident in ME, or is this a Dell thing too? I assume they are power management utilities, but could not find the script that loads them anywhere, so I assume they are hidden or embedded somewhere. I've disabled Power mgmnt in CMOS, still did it once. Am I on the right track, or should I reload a non-Dell version of the OS? <IMG SRC="smilies/confused.gif" border="0"></STRONG>

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Replacing the mobo would usually solve the problem but I guess not in this case... <IMG SRC="smilies/frown.gif" border="0">

Well, if you HAPPEN to have a copy of Windows 95 or 98 (NON OEM preferably) lying around, format the HDD and try putting that in. *Of course you can't leave it there, but you should at least see if it works.) Are there any extra devices plugged in? If so remove those.

Try installing 95/98 or a non-Dell ME *gags* on the system. DO NOT install any other device drivers, then play around with the system..if it has no problems, load in the device drivers one by one until it exhibits problems again. Then if one driver seems to kill it, maybe it needs an update.

Also see if the BIOS needs updating.

I eliminated a couple of unnecessary TSR's, couldn't find the load script for all the ACPI utilities? Set up her Del for MSN for her, everything's goin good so far. Maybe just needed a little burn in? I don't mind Dell laptops, until they start messin with the already messed up ME OS! Told her if it puked again, I'd threaten it with 98SE.
Thanks for the post.