can't run activation on laptop

[wazoo42]

I have a dell inspiron 8100, and windows xp pro will not play nicely with it. I was trying to install sp1 on it cuz I thought it might get rid of the random lockups I am having. I tried running the activation key changer proggie, but it always locks up when I get into first screen where I choose to activate by phone. I tried doing it manually, but I got the same results. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. One last thing, win2k pro works just fine on this machine, only xp freaks out.

[bigjackusa]

Has Dell posted winxp drivers and/or a bios upgrade for your machine, and have you installed all of them?

[wazoo42]

There are drivers and a bios update. Unfortunately the bios will not install. I will try a floppy setup though. The drivers don't seem to make a difference, it locks up just as before.

[tjgartner]

I too have a Dell 8100 running XP Pro. I'm not sure if your problem is the same as mine, but my computer would occassionaly lock up. It was the video driver. I'm not sure if I fixed it completely or not yet. Windows update has a new video driver that supposedly works. I updated with that, and still had problems every now and then. It may have been due to my anti-virus program (which they tell you to turn off before installing the video driver). I wasn't sure if my Norton was turned off all the way or not, so I finally just uninstalled Norton, put the video driver on, then reinstalled Norton. So far, I have not had a problem (although it has only been a couple days). Anyway, it's something to consider.

[wazoo42]

I have been running norton anti virus 7.6 and utilities 2002. It locked up even before I loaded those though. I will try getting the latest driver. Thanks.

[tjgartner]

Well, about an hour after I replied to your post my computer locked up. I then went to Dell's site and tried downloading the driver from there. So far it works (fingers crossed).

[wazoo42]

I lied in my last post, I hadn't loaded any proggies yet. Sorry. I have loaded and reloaded win xp so many times I can't remember what I have just done. I got all the critical updates and drivers from the M$ site. Then I ran the serial changer proggie, and it worked. So, a big thank you to you. I wonder why it worked on my main box, cuz it has all those proggies loaded. Perhaps I had one of them turned off. Hopefully sp1 will fix this for good. Thanks again.