Freezing

[Bginger]

Hey guys, ive had my new Dell XPS 410 for about a week now, I play WoW on it, here are the specs

Core 2 duo

2 gigs of ram

256mb Nvidia GeForce 8600gts

Soundblaster x-fi soundcard 320 gig hd.

Every once in a while usually after i log off and it takes u back to the character screen, when i click back it will lock up and i have to restart my computer by holding the power button down for 5 seconds, is this bad to do? Is there a way to fix this?

Thanks guys

[Kalos]

Would the OS happen to be Vista by any chance?

[Bginger]

yeah it's vista

[Kalos]

It's one of the quirks of the OS when combined with certain hardware components. The most likely one is your sound card, try removing it and just running with your motherboard's onboard sound for a while. Or simply ditch Vista for XP until it is has been ironed out more. There have been huge problems with certain high end parts like Raptor drives and X-fi sound cards.

[Bginger]

So if i got xp it would fix it?

[Kalos]

That is almost certain. I've seen a series of lockups and other failures being generated by the X-fi/Vista marriage, remove one or the other, and test. If the problem no longer appears, you have your problem. I'd recommend removing the card and using onboard before a messy reinstall, in case the cause is something else and this is a coincidence. Not to mention it's quicker for test purposes. But traditionally X-fi and Vista is a no-no for stability, don't bring the two together without expecting problems in my experience.

The main reason I'd recommend dropping the sound card over the OS is this: DirectX 10 is on the boarders of coming into the theatre of software. We're going to see titles appearing which XP can't play this year, the OS is on the verge of becoming outmodded and unable to keep up with the gaming industry because it can't run DirectX 10. If you buy a new copy of XP and shift to that, chances are you'd be cursing and swearing in six months time when a product you wanted to use was a Vista exclusive. If you were on XP already I'd urge you to stay there, but there's not point kicking it back down a generation only to have to go straight back up to Vista when a desired title that isn't XP compatible arives.

On the other hand, XP is a more compatible and efficient operating system for the moment, and should last into 2008 without severly hampering choices or having to deal with Vista's growing pains. It's a balance you'll have to decide which one is more worth taking, one of them has to go to be able to be stable.