Vista is not perfect and I am not going to make excuses or try to say it
is, however the problems you have could be caused by several things.
You must have the right Video drivers and have installed them correctly.
They WILL cause blue screens that look like something else. Find the
correct drivers from you video card maker's website - download them do
NOT run from the website. Reboot - uninstall the old drivers and do
nothing else, reboot again and install the new drivers from your (now)
local copy of the archive.
Same thing with motherboard drivers, although I have not found it
necessary to uninstall the old ones first.
Test your RAM. If you have added some yourself that is most likely where
the problems are coming from. Vista is very sensitive to RAM timings and
even a RAM test may not show this. The best way is to replace ALL RAM
with a matched set from a reliable source (Not Best Buy etc). If you
don't go with a matched set then at least order it all together from the
same online store. The reason I say Not Best Buy etc is because their
packaged RAM is unlikely to come from all one batch. I know you say it
shipped with 4 G but there's no guarantee that Dell tested compatibility
or function before shipping, or even that they knew what they were
doing. My "Gut Feeling" is that faulty or mismatched RAM will explain
much of what you see.
You will only see just over 3GB available unless you are running Vista
64 bit. No 32 bit operating system will show more than that unless using
a kinds of paging method normally only found in server versions. That is
the whole point of Microsoft producing the 64 bit version.
Yes One Care is a waste of space, but at least it does not do more
damage than viruses like Norton, McAfee and lately Trend have been
doing. I hope they soon fix Trend, the others have been a lost cause for
years.
I've never seen a problem with Steam, especially not involving DEP. You
will have to turn off the Firewall for certain ports though - is that
maybe the cause of your trouble? I think you need to open port 27015 and
maybe a couple of others in that range. I am sure Valve have the numbers
somewhere. (I am thinking of the Half Life series of games here, others
not by Valve themselves will differ).
Hope this helps a bit, you should not be seeing these problems as often
as you apparently are.
I would download an ISO and burn a CD and let it run for a few hours...
http://www.memtest86.com/
AWilliams@Techneto wrote:
> #1 Constant blue screens: Why is it that I get blue screens stemming from
> my video card drivers, and check for a solution only to find that the issue
> was supposedly fixed in SP1?!!!!
>
> #2 Freezing: I'm getting Windows Vista freezing (sporadically, 30 second
> lockups) after your last update?
>
> #3 Booting: Why is it that I freeze 1/3 of the time I boot up my PC?
>
> #4 Data Execution Prevention: I downloaded a piece of software from Steam
> (Valve's product for gaming), and not ONLY does Steam get blocked by DEP even
> though I've already told the O/S that the app is fine, but I can't run my
> game as well?!!!!
>
> #5 Security: I recently downloaded your "One Care" nonsense; there was a
> day where I WOULD NOT remove a detected virus no matter how many times I told
> it to. And why does it seem that my PC has become marginally slower since
> I've downloaded your "One Care" nonsense?
>
> #6 Hardware compat.: Since my PC shipped from the Dell factory, I've had
> nothing but problems finding drivers and certain pieces of software that I'd
> like to run with Windows Vista. You lure us in with DX10, but why is it that
> my dxdiag (even though I've updated vid card, dx, and o/s) STILL say I'm
> running 3 gigs RAM when the PC shipped with 4 gigs?!
>
> FINAL ANALYSIS: YOUR O/S SUCKS. Please fix it. Sooner would be better
> than later. Oh and this is not a COMPLETE listing of every problem I've had
> with Windows Vista. I can't keep a stable network connection to the other
> WINDOWS VISTA!!!! PC in my house which I use to print from. You really make
> file sharing a total maze!
>
> I can just keep coming up with reasons why you should fix this jacked up
> O/S, and you know and I know I'm not the only one. I HAVE YET to meet a
> person who knows more than "email-internet-word" to say your O/S is good.
> NOT EVEN ONE of my Vista clients at my last job were happy; none of my former
> larger corporate clients were willing to cut over to it. I'm going to see
> about obtaining a copy of XP (hopefully it's still available somewhere) and
> VOIDING MY DELL WARRANTY just to get rid of this chaos that you call an O/S.
> After working for a dell reseller for a year and a half, for me to actually
> WANT to void my warranty is like committing PC murder, especially for a
> heavily used gaming PC; but I just can't take it anymore. After a small
> incident with the HD, I KNOW ALL MY HARDWARE IS GOOD.
>
> Myself and Dell have spent countless hours on the phone for other Vista
> users. I just can't continue to deal with all the problems this O/S has
> given me, and I'm either going back to XP, or going elsewhere (namely Mac).
> Once again Bill, don't think I'm the only one. Get your team in gear. Fix
> your product. Leave XP alone UNTIL you fix your product. In a parody on the
> words of my USMC drill instructor, "William Gates, the command was 'make a
> next-generation O/S.' Correct yourself!"
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