Dell 8000 Laptop Question

[THumpre]

I apologize in advance for any repeat posts but this problem is driving me nuts and I haven't found anything in the archives which helps.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop with 256Megs RAM, 32Meg Geforce2 Go video card, DirectX 8.1, and WindowsME. I have downloaded all of the latest drivers and reinstalled directX, however, I still get the same odd problem when I try to play CM. CM starts just fine but when the game loads the 3D map and units things get strange.

First, all of my infantry are standing at attention- I know this sounds like I'm on drugs, but they really are, I'll send you a screen shot if you gotta see it for yourself- also the movemnet animations are very choppy and jerky, as if the game was skipping frames of animation.

The second problem has to do with the turn time counter. This problem has been duplicated by others on this board and involves the couner going crazy- numbers like 09879 will appear and the turn will not end. If you let it run from beginning to end this problem won't happen but it is still a really weird glitch. I have a Dell Desktop with a Geforce2 card that has shown no problems at all. Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Schrullenhaft]

Have you tried turning off any power saving settings (including unloading any power-related programs) ? You may need to disable any power saving features in the CMOS/BIOS setup too. The GeForce2 GO drivers are different from the standard GeForce drivers. There are some ReFerence GeForce2 GO drivers out there if you would like to use something other than what Dell offers (if you're not using them already).

I can understand everything but the 'standing at attention'. I have no idea why the 3D models would be any different on your laptop compared to your desktop. I can't recall if someone on this forum metioned that they had similar problems with a desktop. I'm guessing that the culprit here is some program/utility/driver that Dell is loading up. I believe that one user went as far as wiping out their OEM-specific Windows installation (Dell) and installing non-OEM specific copy of Windows (and not using the OEM Restore/Install CD which would reinstall all of the unique programs). This is awfully drastic, especially for a laptop with unique drivers and programs, but it seemed to be the solution (though I believe this may have been a desktop rather than a laptop).

[ 11-27-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p>