Dell Inspiron E1505 freezes when power is plugged/unplugged

[nathaliev]

Hi guys,

I've had this issue for some time now but no real resolution.

I'm running Windows XP SP2, latest updates, etc. on a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop.

Basically, and this is intermittent, but often enough to be a problem, when I remove the power cord (either from the wall/power supply, or remove the plug from the back of my laptop) the computer just freezes up:

- The screen goes completely black (although not as black as when the computer is completely off)

- the computer is still 'on' (though not responding), power light is still on, any lights that were already on (NUM LOCK, etc. are still lit up)

- the computer is frozen (I can't see the screen, but I can confirm this because for example if I press cap-locks or the key combo to disable the wireless networking, the lights on my keyboard stay the same)


The only way to recover is to force a shutdown and restart the laptop.

I have contacted Dell regarding this, but they said it's not a hardware problem, and most likely some kind of system conflict. Of course their advice (as always) is to re-install Windows.


I have confirmed that it appears to be a system problem, because I booted the laptop off a Linux live CD, and then tested multiple times to remove the power plug and I could never replicate the problem.


I'm trying to find a solution where I don't have to completely reformat and start over as I have a lot of programs installed.

Any advice would be appreciated. And if anyone else has a Dell laptop with this problem I'd be interested in hearing about this.


Thanks
Nathalie

[Mak213]

Yes this would happen as it freezes when trying to switch power sources. Close the lid to force hibernate or shut it down before you unplus it. You should never just pull the cord out while Windows is running. It will always freeze.

[nathaliev]

Thanks for your reply...

But... it's a laptop... it's supoosed to just automatically switch to battery power w/o any problems when the power plug is pulled regardless of whether the lid is open or not.

I've never had this problem on any other laptop, and this does not happen when I test using a Live Linux CD, which is why it seems Windows-related.


As a side note, I've also had the problem when closing the lid (sometimes just closing the lid causes a freeze, sometimes closing the lid and unplugging causes a freeze)

And then of course as this is intermittent, sometimes everything works just fine.


Should I try a Windows repair?

[Mak213]

Have you got all the updates for XP?