Is The Dell D830 any Good?

The wireless card would either be a Dell Wireless 1395 B/G or 1505 A/G/N, or Intel 3945 A/B/G or 4965 A/G/N. The Intels are better at picking up signals, but it may not be worth it to upgrade if the Dell ones are sufficient.

As for games, simpler ones would work fine. I think it'll be fine.

For memory, I would stick to 4GB. 4GB sticks are expensive, so unless you can get a good deal on them, I wouldn't spend the money.

 

Long Lasting? That's an understatement. They are tougher then an SUV. I honestly thought my D620 was tough, until I used the D830 - built like a tank, seriously. Come to think of it, I actually think they have the D820, which they would've got in 2006, they do use them still though, for direct server work, classroom tech support, etc.

 

haha,Thanks everyone for The input. I'm getting one with Windows 7, and i will install XP mode...Microsoft office 2007, and aswell a 64GB "SSD", how do you think cod4 will run?

 

The D830 is a fantastic machine. Only good reason to buy one of the newer ones is if you truly need the faster CPU. I've had mine through airport security over 200 times, have dropped it down flights of stairs (onto concrete), and have used it in all temperature extremities without issue.

Only weak point, IMHO, is the keyboard. Mine is a fairly early build (July, 2007), and I seem to put a new keyboard in it every year. But it gets 12 hours of use a day, 7 days a week.

Just make sure if you buy one, that you get the one without the Nvidia Quadro 135M. The intel onboard is good. The quadro 140M is good. The Quadro 135M is known for premature failure that will require a motherboard replacement.

 

what he says is true, the keys tend to wear out especially if you play games. you can use it, its just the letters get worn off and the keys get shiny, but thats like after 2-3 years of use, and replacement keyboards are cheap on ebay and easy to install.

 

I did some testing on a D830 today and was surprised to find out that it does not throttle when pushed hard like many of the newer Dell laptops built during the last 2 years like to do.

A great synthetic test for any computer is to run Furmark + Prime95 with the Small FFTs option at the same time. This works the GPU about as hard as you can possibly work it and significantly loads the CPU too. There aren't any real world applications that can load a computer like this so if you can run this test at full speed then you won't have any problems with normal applications.



The D830 handles this load and maintains full speed. The T8100 has a default multiplier of 10.5 when both cores are active and the D830 had no problem with throttling during this test.

Even with a 130 watt adapter and the updated bios, a new Dell XPS 1645 with a Core i7-720QM will choke on a test like this and will throttle down and run at well under its rated specification. So will many other laptops from a variety of manufacturers.

The Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M is not a speedy GPU by today's standards but at least the D830 doesn't throttle back to the speed of a Pentium II when pushed hard.

 

I find my D830 is extremely sensitive to any dust or contamination of its cooling circuit, and if I neglect to clean it every 3-4 months, it quickly does throttle down when pushed. But yeah, I've heard nasty things about the E6400/E6500 throttling problem. There's a paper by a computer engineer out there who owned one and had the problem.

Really, between the D830 and the E6500, the only difference, IMHO, is the ability of the E6500 to drive a 2560x1600 display (through Displayport), while the D630/D830 is limited to 1920x1200 (WUXGA) through DVI.

Plastic case in the XPS?? The solid metal chassis on some of the Latitudes is immensley useful for keeping the CPU relatively cool. Whereas, with plastic, as found on 'cheaper' laptops, all of the heat must be dissipated through the air circuit.

It does, when not kept very clean. If I had to/have to buy a replacement and/or "parts" laptop, I will probably buy a D830 with the Intel graphics. Just for the cooler operation and longer running time.

 

I use this D830 for almost 2 years now for work. I can tell it's a tough life for a notebook. It works still perfect. It's very reliable.

Only the touchpad get's really worn quick as I don't use a mouse often. The coating of the touchpad disappears after a while exactly where you use it the most. When your fingers are a little wet the surface isn't so smooth anymore. Because of this I have my palmrest replaced 2 times under warranty. A third is coming in a few month.