Inspiron 1525 Sleep / Hibernation Issues

As you all know, I proudly proclaimed myself to be a proud owner of a DELL Inspiron 1525 couple of months back here. Little did I know that it was infamous for it's sleep and hibernation issues. Apparently, this model has had this problem for a while and it's amazing that DELL are still rolling out new models without fixing it! :S

The problem has been reported in Inspirons that have been rolled out pre-installed with Vista SP1. For some reason, I did not come across it until after a couple of weeks of using it. The problem is that whenever I tried hibernating my system, it would hibernate and then wake up immediately; if I tried putting it in sleep mode, the system would restart and take me to the screen with safe mode options that come up as a result abnormal windows shutdown. Also, this problem did not occur everytime and was sort of random at first (at least thats what I thought). Apparently, the problem lies with the 1395 Dell wireless adapter and turning it off manually seems to solve it.

Therefore, to save other people some distress and hours of scouring the web for possible solutions to this annoying problem, I'm listing some helpful web pages that describe the problem in detail and offer other users' accounts of the problem and how they solved it. Don't get me wrong though, the laptop is still fantastic and worth every single penny, it's just that you'd expect a company like Dell to do away with such problems quickly or maybe it's more of a Vista problem than Dell's - frankly, as an end-user I don't care!

Browsing the Dell forums, you'll find posts by people venting their frustration over the same problem here, here and here. There's even a Microsoft TechNet article about the problem here. The solution that worked for me can be found here and here, and I'm reproducing it below. So, here's what you need to do:

Go to Control Panel > System > Device Manager. Expand the node that says 'Network Adapters' and look for Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card under it, as shown below. Right-click on that, and from the context menu that appears, click on Properties.

You'll find yourself on the window shown below. Click on the Power Management tab, and uncheck the option highlighted in the screenshot below.

This is of course a workaround to a problem that shouldn't really occur on a Dell system, and even if it did, should have been fixed by now. There are other solutions to it, like reverting the BIOS to an earlier version (A09) but I didn't wanna get into the hassle of that, especially with so much important data on my system. So, here's a quick way of fixing this problem but it does come with some side effects. You'll notice a slight power drain on the batteries since the Wifi-card would never be automatically turned off by Vista now, hence the extra power consumption. You could still manually turn it off though when you're not using it, to save yourself some power.

Hopefully, this saved you considerable time in debugging the problem and finding a fix for that. I know I could've done with a straight-forward answer since I ended up playing with the settings of all hardware that could potentially wake up my computer. Anyway, alls well that ends well I guess. I'm a bit disappointed at Dell about marring this great laptop with a nasty problem like this. Hope this solution helped!

Update: Turns out it is a Vista issue - specifically an issue with SP1 - and has been witnessed on other laptops as well. Here's one example.

GRE Preparation Tips

Following on my post earlier on TOEFL iBT Preparation tips, I'm penning down some helpful links and tips for doing good on the GRE. I managed to rake up 1350 in GRE last April, with 630 in Verbal, 720 in Quantitative and 5.5 in Analytical Writing. While I was pretty satisfied with my verbal score, my quantitative score was pretty disappointing. Read on and you'll find out why. Btw, this post also includes excerpts from my post on TestMagic forum here.

Beating the GRE isn't exactly easy. You need to put in some time in the preparation before you can expect a real good score. Preparation-wise, the books I consulted were Barrons, NOVA and ARCO (for the Analytical Writing section). Besides these, there are some pretty cool websites out there you can use to prepare including mygretutor.com, number2.com (funny name I know), 800score.com, Peterson's free online practice test, missiongre.com to name a few. Then there's PowerPrep ofcourse whose tests offer a real measure of your prep - at least for Verbal.

I did the entire prep thing in 2 months time. I had just graduated, and wasn't working so had ample time to draw up a schedule for this duration. During this time, I did the entire Barrons master word list (3500 words), quantitative prep from the books mentioned above, and not to mention writing practice from NOVA, ARCO and mygretutor.com. Like I said, I did the entire Barrons list in 2 months time, averaging roughly 1 word list per day. Initially, it took a lot more effort to memorize the words but once I got used to memorizing, it wasn't overly difficult at all. Be sure not to break your momentum though, for e.g., if you go 3-4 days without doing a list, you start to struggle. In other words, draw up a schedule and stick to it. Also, the important thing is to keep revising! I revised all the lists done in the preceding 7 days at every weekend. I finished the entire list 20 days before the test, and revised 3 times more before the big day, and every time the cycle of revision was less. The result of all this effort was that I remembered 99% of the words. I scored 670 in verbal in my first PowerPrep and was overjoyed! I guess it wasn't to be in the real thing. Still, this should get you into the 90% percentile on verbal like I did.

Speaking of PowerPrep, I scored 1420 and 1400 on the two powerpreps I gave a couple of days before the test. I thought the quantitative questions on Powerprep are a lot easier than the actual test. After the initial Writing section, I had quant. and it went horrible to be honest! (in terms of time-consumption that is!) , and for that I think ALL books are useless because none of the questions there were remotely as difficult as the ones presented in these books. They were, however, extremely complicated and time-consuming! I couldn't manage my time very well and ended up guessing on the last 7! Yes, last seven !! I honestly believe I could have scored more in the verbal section that followed had I done quant. better! So take my advice, don't rest assured of the fact you've done Barrons quantitative prep, YOU NEED TO DO MORE!

The tension level invariably rises as the big day comes closer. I had stopped studying 3-4 days before the test and would do 1-2 exercises per day at most. This helped me relax leading up to the big day where the most important thing is to stay calm and not to panic. If you can manage to hold you own in the test center, you'll do just fine otherwise if you panic, time flies at warp speeds and you'll be guessing on questions before you know it. I guess I don't need to emphasize the importance of getting the first 5 questions right in GRE's Adaptive testing format. You are allowed to take your time on the first few questions as their importance cannot be stressed enough, but after that you need to pick up the pace and work your way towards the end before time runs out. It really is a time-management test as much as it is a test of your verbal and analytical skills. So, good luck and remember it's not the end of the world even though it may feel like it. Just stay cool and you'll be fine :)!

TOEFL iBT Preparation Tips

I have been thinking of doing this post for quite a while now since a lot of people have asked me for helpful tips and links to resources on the web for preparation of the TOEFL iBT (a revamped version of the TOEFL CBT). For starters, iBT stands for Internet-Based Testing as opposed to CBT which stood for Computer-Based Testing. From what I've learnt by giving the old Paper-based TOEFL and CBT, the new iBT is considerably 'harder' and a lot more challenging, especially with the addition of a brand new Speaking section.

You can complete information on TOEFL from the ETS website located at: http://www.ets.org/toefl. TOEFL tests are held 2-3 times a week at two test centers in Karachi (one in Gulistan-e-Jouhar and the other in P.E.C.H.S). As for the format, the new iBT consists of four sections each of 30 marks namely Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing. Anything above 85 constitutes a good score on the iBT, although I've seen a requirement as high as 100 in the case of some top-notch universities in the US and elsewhere in the world.

Anyway, moving on to some helpful resources on the web which I found extremely useful during my prep.

Free Practice iBT Test
http://www.free-english.com/TOEFL-iBT-practice-test.aspx

Excellent Blog with Speaking Examples
http://www.teachers-international.com/wordpress/?cat=10

Sample Questions
http://www.fulbright.cz/download/toefl-ibt-sample-questions-2006.pdf

iBT Tips
http://www.transint.boun.edu.tr/toefl/belgeler/tips.pdf

Score Comparison Tables
http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/pdf/TOEFL_iBT_Score_Comparison_Tables.pdf

Make sure you also download all the TOEFL material from the ETS website, including the Official Bulletin, Test Center Locations etc. Registering for the iBT also gives you access to TOEFL-Access, a portal for students with a lot of helpful material on it. Plus, you can always Google for more TOEFL resources on the web.

The only downside with the new iBT is it's length in my opinion. The test lasts around 4 hours with only a 10-minute break between the Listening and Speaking sections. Nevertheless, the test (although revamped and much more challenging than before) is still not overly difficult as it is sometimes made out to be. With good practice, you can score great too ! All the best !