How do you get to chat support if product ID unknown?

[Guest]

I'm having blue screen issued from a Dell-supplied upgrade to Vista. The
support page says you can chat on Vista during the first 90-days from
activation. But I go to live chat and click to let microsoft scan for my
product id it doesn't find it.

I follow the instructions they give to manually enter it and it says it's
invalid. I then try to enter product key supplied with the Vista upgrade,
it's also invalid.

I guess that's one way to reduce support... not validate any product ids....

Any help would be appreciated... I'm frustrated with blue screens and vista
and I'm and IT director for a public company so I'm not your average
home-computer jockey.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nik

The reason that you're getting the invalid PID message is because you are
entering an OEM ID. The support for these versions of Windows is the
responsibility of the vendor, in your case it would be Dell.

Dell has their own live chat support. Go to the Dell website and register an
account there and then log onto the support chat website.

Dell Support Chat:
http://support.dell.com/support/top...t/chat/en/hardware_chat?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs


They also have some good support forums available.

Software - Vista - Dell Community Forum:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board?board.id=vista

 

[Guest]

Yeah and Dell passed the buck because they say the issue is caused by non-OEM
installed software. So I'm in limbo with no support .... what a great place
to be!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess blue screens are a great decoration that I'll
have to get used to.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nik

Start another thread and give as much detail as you can about what the
problem is.
Someone here may be able to help.

 

[Guest]

Thanks... I have.

I'm having problems with blue screens which seem to be related to my use of
iTunes & Quicktime. I've upgraded each of my device drivers through Dell or
via the mfg'rs sites. I've also updated iTunes & Quicktime versions (I think
three versions since I first moved to Vista).

I've seen MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS_THAN and
PAGE-FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA faults. Also last night was the first time it
listed any program where the fault occurred... WIN32.SYS.

I'm trying to find answers in how to identify the particular driver/program
etc... that might be the cause or how to determine if the drivers I have
installed on my PC are the most current (without going one-by-one through
each one). When I get a blue screen, I know a dump file is created but is
there any information that can be analyzed to target what my issue is?

Thanks.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nik

All of those errors can be associated with hardware drivers, or they can
also be associated with a bad RAM module. The only way you can track down
which driver is causing the problem is to view the error events and try to
glean which driver is misbehaving.

First, click Start and type: msinfo32 and press Enter. In the System
Information dialog, expand Components and select Problem Devices. Note if
any hardware item is in there and the information that is given for the
device.

I would run the Memory Diagnostics first. First, close all running programs.
Click Start and type: mdsched.exe and press Enter. In the resulting
dialog box, click "Restart now and check for problems" option. The system
will reboot and diagnostic program will run. This could take some time, so
be patient. Post the results back here.

If everything looks OK with the memory, run the Event Viewer. Go to Start
and type: eventvwr press Enter. Look in Windows Logs/Application and
also System. Expand Applications and Service Logs and open the Hardware
Events Log.

Look for any Red Error messages. If you see an error(s) that corresponds
with the time a blue screen occured, double click the error, click the Copy
Button, paste the results in a reply here.

Let me know what you find.

 

[Guest]

I ran msinfo - no problem devices found.
I ran mdsched.exe - no memory problems found.
I don't seen anything red and critical under applications in the event view.

Under system I don't find any coincidental red error messages during each of
the times I got blues screens but probably the most consistent thing I see is
this DCOM message:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM
Date: 7/2/2007 7:40:43 PM
Event ID: 10010
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: OfficeComputer
Description:
The server {DC0C2640-1415-4644-875C-6F4D769839BA} did not register with DCOM
within the required timeout.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM"
Guid="{1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E}" EventSourceName="DCOM" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">10010</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2007-07-03T00:40:43.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>13846</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>OfficeComputer</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">{DC0C2640-1415-4644-875C-6F4D769839BA}</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>


_______________________________________________

Also I see another error which points to a BOIS issue:


Log Name: System
Source: ACPI
Date: 7/2/2007 7:34:09 PM
Event ID: 6
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: OfficeComputer
Description:
IRQARB: ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot 4,
function 0. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="ACPI" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49157">6</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2007-07-03T00:34:09.827Z" />
<EventRecordID>13723</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>OfficeComputer</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>IRQARB</Data>
<Data>4</Data>
<Data>0</Data>

<Binary>000000000400300000000000060005C0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nik

The second error message is the one will want to concentrate on.

Error message is logged in the System log every time that you start Windows
Vista: "ACPI BIOS does not contain an IRQ for the device in PCI slot
<number>":
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q930062

Open Control Panel and click Hardware and Sound. In the next window, select
the Device Manager. Start expanding all of the categories and look for any
yellow exclamation marks ( ! ) next to any of the hardware devices.

If none are found, you may need to right click each device and select
properties. In the Device Status section, look for a message similar to the
following: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use.
(Code 12)

Note: ACPI is the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. It's a layer
of software and hardware that allows the OS to configure hardware properly.

Whatever you find, this indicates that you may need an update for the ACPI
BIOS, that you have a bad peripheral card, such as the display or sound
card, or that one of the PCI slots on the motherboard may be bad.

 

[Guest]

Okay, Device Manager found no yellow exclamations. I went to device manager
and clicked properties on every entry. No error message on anything. I did
have entries which indicate "no device drivers for this device" but nothing
else.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

Nik

OK, I was hoping that the Device Manager would identify what was causing the
problem. You may need to contact Dell again and ask what is in slot 4 on the
motherboard.