-->*OFFICIAL: Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge*<--

Oh! I forgot to mention / ask.
If one thought that Crysis is a system hog, then one should try World in Conflict.
A free demo is downloadable and has a built in benchmark option, which is quite good actually.
Is there someone up to the challange to have a go with that?
(Of course, I am targeting this request to those with a set of 8800's)

My personal wish of benchmark config:
Put everything on max., hold back on the FSAA or at all and then on a resolution of 1920x1200.
I wonder how THAT will turn out!

 

@ 72hundred

Here is 10% discount for Ireland (not sure if it work for other countries). Valid till the end of this week.

NWCJ6TGXFKNH0H

 

You may want to open the system to see if the camera is properly connected to the mainboard. If you want a picture of where it should be connected gimme a shout.....alternatively contact Dell and get them to sort it. Sounds as though the connection may be loose or not plugged in fully.... all you will need to do is take the keyboard out, and the connector is clearly visible...

In regards to the remote - if you do decide you want one, gimme a shout with your offer for my spare

Open Quickset
Go to Gaming Options (within System)
The check box is at the top right corner.....look......



man, the things I do for you guys......lol

No, as long as you opted for the RAID performance, thats what you should get......

 

Damn man - my cooler was delivered today. My wife was in all day and he just bloody dropped an 'attempted delivery' card through!! The git!

Ive arranged redelivery for tomorrow, and made sure the wife keeps close to the front door!! lol

Will have a review of it up on the weekend if all goes well

 

I cancelled and reordered, it is £100 less plus a better processor.

It is stupid that Dell does not let you change the order instead of having to cancel it and reorder.

 

Finally canceled my order and reordered another M1730 with T9300...
But I did not receive the "Dell Order Acknowledgement" email???
I placed the order 45min ago and still nothing,
Does anyone knows what's happening???

 

That is normal, it can take a few hours to receive that email

 

Ah man, this is getting really frustrating.

Whenever I try and load a game or 3kmark06 there seems to be a 50/50 chance that it just won't load. I get stuck and can't even kill the process, my only option is a hard reset.

I seen a poster back on page 100's having this same issue but didn't see a resolution to it.

Anyone have any idea what's causing this. I had zero issues before reinstalling so I'm 99.9% certain it's not a hardware failure issue.

 

Its not hardware. I had the same issue with Gears of War. Sometimes it wouldnt run, but it wouldnt close the process either. I would therefore have to restart the system to get it to run. This was only occasionally though. Only once have I had to do a hard reset.
Ive sold the game since, due to it being buggy in general, and I havent noticed it with other games yet.....

 

Im still a bit pee'd off that the delivery guy either didnt ring the doorbell properly or didnt try knocking on the door and just left a card. Hopefully they will deliver it [my Zalman Cooler] properly tomorrow!!!

On another note, I didnt think my M1730 videos would be so damn popular. Over 26,000 views, 40 subscribers, and I get around 15 emails daily asking me questions/advice!!!

 

That used to happen to me kermit. I found that once you start hard resetting your system Vista becomes quite unstable. I fixed it by booting up and shutting down several times in a row. It fixed it for me but this solution may not work as we may have a different root cause. Also, have you tried the new drivers? That might help as well.

 

Well ifti what did you expect your vids are very good and they explain in detail what to do and its in something understandable to everyone
your using terms that anyone can understand and the videoquality is really nice and you can see the details. Ill be refering to them when i get my system im goin to run it for a while before i do a clean install just to see how it is and maybe try to get some benchmarks for yall(ill need advice on what programs to use) since ill be getting the X9000.

 

I have the latest everything. Tripple checked all drivers, I've checked absolutely everything, I just can't find a cause. Tech support said it might be ram related. So I slid in some new ram and ran some tests, no errors, tried loading a game...crash.

I'm really at a loss here, and XPS tech support doesn't have a clue either.

 

I agree, the fact that you have to cancel and reorder is terrible...
This is what I got for £1.690:

Intel [email protected]
4gig of ram
2x250gb Hdd's
2x 8800GTX

Do you know what's the delivery time in the UK?

 

Cheers man. I didnt expect them to be this popular though TBH. But hey ho, Im not complaining.

Will be good to see some benchmarks of the X9000! Lucky git!

 

Initially people could wait to order and get the system in their lap!
Now it seems like everyone is cancelling and re-ordering! lol
Then again, when you're spending this much money, you wanna get exactly the specs you are after I guess!

 

Discount for anyone (UK) ordering a M1730 - 10% off til March 5th - 22HGWHCJM$NW1R. Enjoy

 

Does this happen with every game, or just 1 or 2?
Also, have you tried a game with SLI disabled? If it works with SLI disabled it may be that your second GPU is playing up?

Im just throwing some wild guesses in your direction, but its stuff to try....

 

All games, tried with sli enabled or disabled, tried different drivers (reinstalling correctly).

The only thing I can't check right now that I've thought about is the raid drivers. Could anyone tell me what raid drivers you're using. 82801HEM are the ones I'm using. There were 2 vista compatible ones I could just when I reinstalled, it's possible I picked the wrong one.

Edit: One common theme though is that it's always 3d games that are causing a hang. I haven't had any none game issues.

I just reinstalled directX, going to reboot and see if that helps any.

 

Time to do what everyone else is Kermit, send it back and get a new one with better specs! LOL :wink:

 

If it was your RAID drivers you should be having similar issues in the OS itself, since the OS would not be able to communicate with the RAID Controller properly.

I really thought it would be SLI playing up, but youve tried with SLI disabled as well.

It leads me back to a driver issue, but as you say, you've tried different drivers, and Im assuming you remove the drivers properly in safe mode with driver cleaner etc.

Have you tried reinstalling the system from scratch and seeing i fthe issue still exists? Agreed, this isnt the most desired approach, but it would ensure nothing is lurking in the background etc.

Otherwise its got me pretty stumped. Im assuming you havent overclocked the card etc??

Failing all the above, I would contact Dell. Either get a replacement card, just in case its the GPUs, or replace the system. Personally I'd replace the cards to start with so I dont lose all my system files/settings etc!

Let us know how you get on, and I'll try offer some more suggestions if I think of anything else

 

Do they have a shortage of X7900's or something? I ordered mine and it arrived within a week. Similar for Pommie. Over a month delivery is rubbish.

 

There was talk of a shortage of X7900's, and a shortage of the 8800 cards a few days back......not sure of current stock levels though....

 

Pommie, it should be in the accessory box. If you have a decent internet speed, watch Ifti's video on unpacking the m1730 - he shows you exactly where it is.

 

Ifti, you're only semi-famous. Your backpack however is fully famous =) I can't believe you sold it, you should have framed it!!

 

Ifti, I understand you have the LG panel now. Could you check for me please if you hear a high pitch buzzing when you change the monitor brightness with Fn + Arrow Up, Arrow Down keys?

The noise is coming from the panel, low center to right end portion of the screen. When brightness is on 100%, there is no buzzing. This setting is too bright for me though so I lower it to 80% and then that high pitch noise gets on my nerves. Especially when working on the computer at night, when everything is so quiet. When just the display is off the noise is gone altogether. Changing brightness setting by 10% increments changes the pitch.

I hope every M1730 has this because it would mean it is all normal. But then I think I did not have it when the machine was brand new and this noise developed about two months after delivery.

What about other panels: Samsung and Sharp? Are they quiet when at different brightness levels?
Anyone?

 

That is the noise coming from the LCD inverter when not on max brightness.

 

Pommie, here are the XP drivers for the camera:

http://support.ap.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/downloads/en/downloads_splash?c=au&l=en&s=gen&~mode=popup&file=214676

 

lol. yup. I think its £40 when you buy it with the laptop from Dell - at least thats how much it was when I got it with my laptop.
I sold it for £45, and with postage on top of that
I should have personally signed it! lol

Ive just cycled through all the brightness settings - I typically have mine at 100% since I like my screen nice and bright

Anyways, I hear no high pitched sound as I cycle through the brightness - from the lowest setting all the way through to the highest.

However, since you mention it, I do have a high pitched noise when I start my laptop up from cold. It lasts for about 10 minutes then goes. I notice it when I turn my laptop on from cold and it gets on my nerves, but then when I start to use the laptop etc, I forget about it, and when I suddenly remember the noise is gone anyways. I just thought it happened while the panel 'warmed up'.

Ive just had my head right next to the bottom corner of the screen and dont hear any high pitched noise whatsoever. If I turn to battery power, then I do get a noise though, but its not really too noticable.


On another note, I used to have a really bad high pitched noise on my Latitude D620. Dont ask me why, but going into the BIOs and enabling 'High Speed USB' (it was disabled by default) cured the problem completely! lol

 

I can confirm that this code will NOT work in Australia. Just as well since it saves me from having to change my order which is on imminent arrival.

 

Yes, I suppose so. Dell had messed up my orders a few times. The last time was on the 23 of Feb and ETA was 14th of March. Then i reordered it on 25th of feb and ETA is 1st of April! Well...at least they got my order right this time

 

@ kermit1979

It is defenately has something to do with graphics. Did you overclock your graphics card? Also i can suggest you to reinstall game and see how it goes.

Also do you have Process Explorer? If not, you can download it from Microsoft website and it is free. Kind of like task manager, but better. And try to turn background programms one by one (Process Explorer shows you, which are not critical) and see how it goes. If you are using vista, try to turn off every visual effect (it's when it looks like Windows 98 ).

These are just suggestions, hope it will work.

 

Ifti, are there any requried drivers for Raid with Vista? From memory once its configured in BIOS, Vista will detect that and install everything you need.

 

You are probably right. I had a similar high pitch noise in my Toshiba G10 Qosmio and some time later I had lots of vertical lines on the display. It was a nVidia graphic card failing. So Toshiba exchanged the MB since the graphic card was integrated with it. Actually, Toshiba exchanged this mother board four times for me until I retired the computer. I have heard people had it done ... eight times, so the problem was well known. This is one of the reasons I switched to Dell.

SPEEDwithJJ, could you tell me if your M1730 also has this high pitch noise? And if yes what panel do you have in your lappy?

 

I think I'm just going to try reinstalling again...sigh

Attempt number 5 now.

It's not consistent, only 50/50 when loading games will it crash. I just loaded Vanguard, played for an hour, no issues. Tried to exit the game and it crashed again. Definetly sounds like gpu or ram issues from my experience, but it could still be the raid array. Impossible to tell at this point.

If anyone can provide the name of the raid driver they're using that would be helpful. The driver file dell provides has 4 drivers built in, 2 are for vista. I chose 82801HEM. Not sure if this is the culprit.

 

Thanks, ifti. This high pitched buzz might not be noticeable if the background noise is strong or when the fans are not running on the lowest setting, though. On the other hand I believe I did not have it when the computer was brand new. So I am a bit worried that something bad is developing here.

 

You use your own OCZ RAM, don't you? Did you try to run it with Dell's RAM?

 

Hey,

Something a little off topic but handy for people checking a thread that grows as fast as this one does!

I came across a add-on for firefox the other day (works for IE7 too). It can set up macros for web browsing. Very hand if you want to skip to the last page of a thread at one click automatically!

1) The Addon is here; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3863

2) The macro itself is really easy to make;
What I did was set it to go to the first page of this thread, then start recording.
( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=173512)
And then select the "Last Page" link. When the page has fully loaded just stop recording and save it as a bookmark.


- It works a treat every time and saves me the time of doing it! (Albeit a 5 second process! )


Hope you enjoy!

72oo

 

hehe Nice finding. Too bad I don't use neither of these browsers

 

Hey all,
Had a question... I did a fresh install an have all the drivers installed properly. Nothing is left out in the device manager.. But i cant figure out how to get my damn built in mic to work... Is there a program that i need? I am very confused here... If anyone has installed XP or knows how to get around this.. Please lemme know!! Thanks!

 

Kermit.. I had to load RAID drivers to re install XP.. I am almost postive you are running the correct driver..I am gonna check which one iam using when i get home.. Unless someone else here can look at theirs.. Alot of them look very similar.. However, you said you just picked one during install? Did you download the drivers from Dell an load them during installation? If you didnt that may very well be your issue.. I had to make a custom XP install disc with the Intel Matrix Driver to install... But from my EXP.. If you had an incorrect RAID driver i am not even sure you be able to get through an install.. So i think you should Boot into Diagnostics an see if you get any Video/Memory fault codes... Just hold F12 at boot then get into the Diagnostics.. If nothing comes up.. Its got to be a software issue...

 

Here is a post from page 214, you might want to try this:

Have you tried to use the microphone which is fitted with the web camera? See if you can get any sound to somebody over the net. If this mic does not work you might want to reinstall the Sigmatel driver. I ended up calling tech support and this is what they told me to do. They also had me reinstall Intel driver and Mobile Chipset driver over the existing ones. Which one was at fault is hard to tell but this cured the problem.
I only noticed the problem with nearly dead camera microphone (barely audible sound coming through). I have not tried the line-in yet, though.

Also, in Control Panel -> Sound -> Playback: Speakers/Headphones should have a green check sign next to it.
And Sound -> Recording: Microphone/Line In should have check sign when plugged in. If not plugged in than Microphone Array should show check.

You can try to record something and see if it plays back through the speakers.

Also see: Control Panel -> Speech Recognition Options -> Set up microphone -> Set up Microphone Wizard

 

This was from SergioP, who then reports above is just for Vista, but perhaps he's solved the problem since then and can give advice.

 

^^^^^^

Thanks i'll try that out..

 

LG screen sucks compared to Samsung lol i had 2 Samsung screens, and 3 LG screens.

LG screen is so far inferior to Samsung.

 

Why do you say samsungs are better so far everyone one on here said LG's are the best that they have the least light leakage and the clearest and brightest image

 

Tried with both, doesn't make a difference. RAM test passed with both, issue exists with both.

 

Hehe I just bookmark the last page I read so I can pick it back up from where I left off.

 

Yeah, appreciate the tip but I've tried that too...rofl

Seriously, I've been working on this for 12hours a day for the past 3 days. Not too much left to try here. I've finally got my install done again, all drivers, all windows patches. Just waiting on my defrag to complete before I try 3dmark06 again. If it fails again I'm just going to have dell send me a new one.

 

Alright, clean install. I stayed the hell away from media direct. 2 full runs on 3dmark06 with no errors. It's looking promising.

I think I may have been corrupting the OS files trying to get Dell MD working.