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Hello, some advise would be much appreciated.

For my daughter getting her grades and into Uni. I promised her a good gaming laptop. We configured and it duly arrived. Within a few hours it locked up and would only start after removing the battery. After the windows screen I got the bsod IRQL not less or equal error. I was unable to continue even in safe mode to do a system restore and the windows repair failed to change anything.

I re-formatted and reinstalled all bar nero as I had read incd causes this sometimes. So far it has behaved not too well, set to laptop power scheme, on battery when it turns off the hard drive it will just not awaken. If the battery is removed and replaced windows will come up with the options screen and the only way to start is safe mode then system restore and all is ok untill it does it again.

Am I doing something stupid, I know pulling out the battery is bad but have tried all the holding power butten for 10 seconds etc. to no avail.

My daughter would just be unable to use the machine as it is. I stupidly never even thought that the battery life would be so poor and the machine would make so much heat.

Here is the spec.
[1] Area-51® m9750

Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology - Stealth Black
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Professional UK with SP2 - English
TV Tuner: None
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 2.16GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Graphics Processor : Dual 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX - SLI Enabled
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 200GB 7200 RPM SATA
Optical Drive: 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo with Nero Software
Sound Hardware: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with surround sound
Keypad: Mobile Keypad - English
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Communications: Integrated 10/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet & 56K V.92 Modem
Floppy Drive: USB Floppy Drive
Bluetooth: Integrated Bluetooth® Device
Warranty: AlienCare 3-Year Free Phone 24/7 and Collect & Return
Security Software: Kaspersky Anti-Virus Personal Professional - 12 month subscription Included!

Any thoughts much appreciated. I have emailed tec support on friday and so far other than the automated response have had no contact.

hell yeah...
its a high end laptop, heat is a "no-wonder" issue i suppose...

btw about the InCD. i got t agree that InCD is sux.
it fail my computer to burn any cd the other day,
which require me to reinstall the windows and reinstall physically (happen to dvd drive in desktop)

in the meantime i suggest you to check the minidump and event viewer if you could get it....

Well I got hold of tech support on the phone and they were pretty good, I have run some tests and updated the bios and so far that has appeared to sort the waking up issue. Now moving the mouse works wakes it up and that did not happen before. I need to make it do some work now and see how it perporms.