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

It does!
I originally got the Grey since I thought the colours were silly. But then my second XPS came with the Blue lid an dthe LG screen! lol.
I took one look at the blue and thought, wow thats actually really nice. Then I checked and saw it was an LG screen, so I swapped the entire lids over as quick as I could! lol Also I have all my other lights on Sapphire Blue as well - the laptop power lights are Blue, the Zalman cooler power light is Blue, and my external MyBook HDD light is also Blue! So it all matches nicely

Both photos are taken with the laptop switched on, and lights on. The first photo used the camera flash, while with the second photo the camera flash was switched off.

Bear in mind when you switch the laptop off, or the LEDs on the lid off, the shade of Blue is slighty more darker.

Would mind seeing pics of the Red actually.....

 

Going for a collection, eh Ifti?

The blue does look quite nice. Makes a nice, bold statement. I opted for the grey one mostly due to the LED lights on the lid. I would imagine if one day red struck my fancy and I put the red LEDs over the blue lid, it wouldn't look quite right. Grey is a nice, neutral colour that I can put darn near any LED light colour over and would look sharp. At least, that's the hope

Was looking at the white lid as well, but a friend of mine is going to order a white lid and I didn't want to mimic his laptop appearance! I want to be a unique and beautiful snowflake

For bamber: As far as backpacks are concerned the Targus TXL617 17 XL is really nice. That's the one I will be purchasing. It's not professional looking for say, a business meeting with executives. But, it's very comfortable, spacious, and durable. Priced nicely as well. Around $80 USD in stores and $70 USD through Targus online. I would seriously consider picking that up for your needs.

(Grrrr! 8 more days till shipping! I can't bear it!)

 

Impressed!?
LOL I am canceling my laptop and keeping my PC now that you told us this.
No I am kidding.
But the fact is that I can run everything maxed out with FSAA on a rez of 1280x1024 on a 2,4 Core 2 Duo and a 8800GTX.
So how come a SLI powered notebook with an equilevant processor cannot do the same?
Sure it's heavy... but not insanely heavy forcing you to turn down stuff to medium and even low!
I think there is something not right with your system config there mate.

Confirmed!
I ran this game again (since I have the G15 keyboard) and indeed it utilizes only one core in general.
That's just silly!
Didn't the original Supreme Commander support Quad Core if not more due to the fact it's so CPU intensive?
I hope there will be a patch for Forged Alliance for this soon!

 

nice pictures ifti i just ordered the blue yesterday now im gunna be thinking about when my laptop is comming in just to see it in person and show it off
and yea i do think ifti will end up with a collection with one of every color untill he gets bored with that then he will get 2 of ever color

 

The following pic, is dedicated to all at NBR, who are still waiting for their M1730's, or are having trouble ordering etc................





rofl

 

I keep reading stuff like this, is there something wrong with the screen of the 1730 ?

 

The LG is the best out of the three, as it doesnt suffer from grainy-ness or light leakage like the Sammy or Sharp.
If you have one of the others, chances are you wil probably be happy anyways as they are still bright and sharp etc, giving excellent quality images - unless you see the LG you dont know what you're missing anyways!

 

please Ifti,

Could you post a picture of the two LCDs side by side so that we can see the difference???

 

I'd liked to thank everyone for their help choosing a case.

 

do you or anyone else have pic of a red one please

 

^^^^

See my avatar

Only joking!

Try youtube / google. I'm sure that'll throw up some original images and not just the PR ones...



72oo

 

hmmmm, why is the blue one smaller than the gray?

 

Because blue costs more than gray... so they cut down the size to compensate! j/k
Anyway, have you noticed the height difference ?

 

tried google carnt seem to get e good pic after seeing a pic like ifti posted

 

lol. They are both exactly the same size. The Gray is simply on the next shelf up on the desk so looks like its bigger in the picture since it was closer to the camera.
Before you ask, they are also the same thickness - the blue one is on a cooler!

 

In regards to the cooler - I have a USB to Power adaptor on order, and I highly recommend that if you are thinking of purchasing this cooler, you consider getting an adaptor as well. They are very cheap, and cost little. Its the same thing as you can use to charge your iPod from the mains. You simply plug the USB cable into the adaptor, and plug the adaptor into the mains socket.

Why?

Firstly it free's up a USB port on your laptop (but then again you wont be able to use the ones in the cooler!)

The main reason is because by having the cooler on external power, it means you can keep the cooler on when the laptop is off. Obviously the laptop is quite warm/hot when you switch it off. When its on the fans are there to cool it down. When its off it has nothing to cool it. Having the cooler running from the mains means that when you do switch the laptop off, you can keep the cooler on for a few minutes to continue to cool the laptop down.

I really dont like closing the lid of the laptop when the system is still pretty hot. I hear this is not good for the LCD screen, as the heat will be rising onto the front of the screen when its closed. Cooling the laptop properly before closing the lid is supposed to be healthy for the LCD screen.......

 

found some now cheers guy
quick question vista 64 bit or 32 bit?
anyone running it at the moment?
anyone have any problems with the drivers or with games not running?

 

... but there's no heat being produced! So there's no need to take heat out of it! If you turn off you're laptop at, say, 45C CPU, it'll only go down from there to room temperature, around 20C usually. The cooler will accelerate this but I don't know if that's much of an advantage really in terms of longevity of the system.


I do agree about the LCD + Heat = Bad Thing!


72oo

 

I've got a usb hub and I do the exact opposite to what you do Ifti. I have mine connected directly to the laptop so it automatically switches on and off with the laptop.

 

I'm running Vista x64 and I haven't had any driver issues. x64 driver problems are something of a misnomer anyway. We're a year on from the release of a mainstream 64bit Windows (XP x64 was never mainstream) and hardware lifecycles are 12-18 months a lot of the time. With all new hardware sporting 64bit drivers, not a lot of people are bumping into the problems users were having a year ago.

Even my printer, a Canon, which didn't have drivers at release (and no ETA on them) is now supported (even under Linux, but that's another story).

I wish I could say x64 Vista was more stable, but 15 minutes ago I switched my Nokia's bluetooth on, expecting the Nokia software on my laptop to pull all the new photos and videos off it. I got a BSOD instead.

I spent most of Friday night resintalling Ubuntu Linux and getting the Nvidia driver to work (it doesn't, not properly). I'm using Linux more and more and Vista (and XP, I'm triple-booting) less and less.

Apart from the lack of SLI (and a strange "let's make everything that should be white, yellow" occasional glitch), Ubuntu Linux is working out extremely well. It's great for graphics work and learning C++.

I'm rambling now

 

Thats just it though, how are you supposed to get it to 45c before you can shut down? The lowest the temp goes to it around 58-59. Even then, I cant be bothered to sit there and wait for the fans to kick in and cool it before I shut down. Im really looking to be able to shut down even after intensive gaming, for example, without having to let it cool a little before I shut down.

What I mean was that when you shut down the laptop, whether its at 58 or at 70, there is nothing cooling the laptop down to room temperature. Fair enough, no extra heat is being produced, but the heat that has been produced still needs to go down, and while it does its hitting the LCD.

Hence by keeping the cooler on for just a few minutes after shutdown, it'll bring the temps down much quicker, rather then leaving it to cool itself with no fans etc....

Thats what Im doing at the moment, since I have it directly connected to my laptop....while I wait for my adaptor to turn up.
Ordered it from eBay, was only a few £'s, but then I realised the bloody seller is shipping it from Hong Kong!!

 

Here is the red version as well as some other pics:
http://www.laptopspirit.fr/5345/dell-xps-m1730-decouvrez-de-nouvelles-photos/

My favourite is the red one and it is the one I have. I fell in love when I saw those pics and I wasn't disappointed. I usually prefer purple to blue, so the blue one was nothing for me. The grey one looks pretty cool too. I didn't like the white so much although my account manager says it is his favourite one because it looks very classy...

 

Actually, the red also looks pretty nice.......

 

That's how Dell says...There is really no reason touse Vista 64 at the moment...

All my applications and games combined don't reach 2GB. And I have ADD so multitasking is a word for me.

 

True. I have 4GB, and rarely have I ever seen my RAM usage go above 40% !!

 

Yeah im the same, never really see my RAM get used that much!

Supreme Commander is running as I expected, its a serious system hog, more so than Crysis in my opinion! My brother has a desktop system, with similar sort of specs, but he only has a single 8800gts. He pulls 3dmark06 scores of 9500. His performs the same as mine with a couple of settings that I have at medium, set to low.

Someone earlier mentioned I should install World in Conflict as a performance test. This game was also a serious system hog?! I played it on my last M1730, and wow, it really brought it too its knee's. Its funny, everyone always use Crysis as their benchmark. I would only use Crysis as my GPU benchmark, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict are my CPU/RAM/HDD benchmark tests

If I can get the time today, I'll try installing and recording some benches for World in conflict.

The bad news, called the ISP today, they said they're negotiating with Telstra to transfer our phone over the VIOP functionality. Probably won't have the broadband back till Friday. Thats pretty much when I fly back to Perth. Not happy at the moment. Its seriously dampened my enthusiasm for this machine. Its not easy to setup a machine to my liking when I don't have internet. But its not Dell's fault!

 

Ok, my beast has just arrived.

 

First impressions.

The box was quite damaged. I don't know if this is in transit, or due to customs opening it up. But you kinda expect that its going to get treated with kid gloves. I guess thats international transport though.

When I opened it up, I was surprised about the lack of packaging. Really concerning seeing the state of the exterior box. I expected it to be really tightly packed so that it was not possible to be damaged during transit - I don't think this is the case.

Inside the accessory box, most of the discs were strewn around. I don't know which discs are supposed to be there so I can't say if any are lost or not (box was ripped, so its a possibility). Also given Pommies experience I looked for the DVI/HDMI cable and Remote first. Cable was there, no remote. Pommie have you called up Cust_Service about this yet? What was their response?

 

Taking out the laptop. Wow - I expected it to be large, but nothing prepares you for its actual size. The thing is huge. I know it has to be and I won't be taking it out of my house, so its not a problem - but it really is intimidating in proportion. The surface is very shiny and reflective, so I guess this adds to its presence.

Turning it on, realised it came with A05, so will need a BIOS flash straight away. Going through standard windows first time setup. Screen really is amazing. Very bright large and crisp. Since I'm in Australia its pretty much 100% I have the Samsung, but I haven't confirmed this. No noticible light leakage, and no problems with brightness. I will have no problems with this screen. Sure, the LG may be better, but really this is really great.

First time I've seen Vista. Quite impressive visually. I really like the Aero menus. I know they degrade performance, but until I have it impeding my games and apps I will leave it.

Installed 3DMark06 off the bat, no other configuration. Realised that I need an internet connection to see the results. Darn. Ok, packing it up again to have a better look at home.

List of tasks I need to do:
1) Run 3DMark
2) Configure SLI and run again
3) Flash BIOS for A06
4) Check discs for Raid0
5) Probably have to reinstall everything as Raid is unlikely to be there
6) Forget MD on reinstall cause I'll never use it and it seems a pain anyway

 

so you saying go 64bit or not not sure which way your point was going

 

The consensus seems to be that running 64 bit, on balance, does not seem to deliver much (if any) benefit. It can however be a pain for driver support and 'cleanliness' of your disc structure.

 

Julian, I tried calling them this morning, they were busy so they said they'd call back sometime today. No response yet... Will give them another 1 hour then will try calling again.

Also, my box was the same, looked like it had seen better days, some of my manuals had a couple of scratches on them, might have been from stuffing them into the leather binders holder.

I've achieved hardly any of the things I wanted to do with this machine so far, due to having no broadband! That list you made is what I was thinking of doing too Julian, although I admit I forgot to check what BIOS version I had. Thanks for reminding me! It would be awesome if you could detail a little guide of how you went about doing the things you specify on that list Julian!

Stay tuned to hear about the lack of remote issue, I hope its not a US only thing and we don't get one or something... The XPS tech support lady did say that its an option you specify when configuring the machine??? I never saw a "remote control" option? Did you Julian?

 

It wasn't obvious when I went through the ordering process, however having a look now I can see that it is on there.

Its listed as Dell(TM) Travel Remote Control and costs $15.40 additional. Kinda a pain, they should just include it with the order (as they do in other regions). Still, I figure a bit of a call to CS including details of damaged box etc and they'll fire one out to you. Give your hassles with the webcam, its the least they can do I would say. I probably wouldn't ever use the remote control if I had one though =) So I may just not bother with it (especially seeing as it's actuall my fault lol)

 

And yes, it is quite amazing when you first groan lifting the beast out of the box. Quite a large machine, and it weighs a fair bit too. Then you lay eyes upon the huge power brick... Definetly not a machine designed with portability in mind.

Regardless of what people say about the Sammy panel, im very impressed with mine. Just the light leakage from the bottom which isn't the end of the world. But yes, if I did have the option to change to the LG (Australia does not get this option) I most likely would, simply because the LG is slightly better.

 

Been trying to load the configuration page, finally managed too just then. Yeah, took me a while of looking, but finally found it. Another reason I don't like ordering over a phone, I'll talk to them about this as well. Grrrr, getting slightly annoyed with Dell.

Julian, on another note, I can't remember if you mentioned whether you'd picked up a bag for it yet? I was going to try finding the time to hobble out to rushfaster.com.au's office and have a look at a couple of their bags.

 

No, I didn't get a bag. I am replacing a fairly portable Compaq notebook for home. I got a bag for it and never used it. So, double the size and weight, there is no way I need it =)

 

You (lucky) bastard!!!

That sure is a nice score since my Core 2 Duo E6600 & 8800GTX gets a score close to that.
However, I played Supreme Commander with up to 4 players on a LAN and it always ran quite smooth with everything maxed out.
Mind you, I must admit I haven't played Forged Alliance over a LAN yet.
But I did LAN the original Supreme Commander with 3 others. No unit cap.

*Raises hand* ... yeah, that was me heheh.
A single desktop 8800 GTX even chokes on that one.
But again, I like cranking it all up and still I get a nice 24 frames average and that was some time ago with older Vista drivers and before the latest 1006 patch.
I know it runs in the 30's on XP (which I have installed at the moment) with the latest patch.
So you say you have tried Wold in Conflict on your last XPS, as in with the 8700's?
Hence, I am reffering to my desktop again with the 8800GTX and comparing it to the 8800 setup in the XPS.
Bit worried about the resolution though. Hope it's playable at 1920x1200.
(On my desktop it got benched and runned at 1280x1024.)

I would be most interested! Thanks!

 

Should be playable at 1920x1200 considering I tested World in Conflict on my old XPS M170 and depending on which battle I usually have around 20-40 fps, many explosions on screen at once brings it down to 17 fps though. But all in all plays very fluidly and with almost all options maxed this in DX9 XP.

 

From what I've seen, Supreme Commander runs better than Forged Alliance, why, im not too sure, most likely they've done a few subtle graphics updates?

I tried WIC on my last XPS M1730, which had the dual 8700's. Would play on highish settings, but as soon as it got busy on screen with 4 players, the thing slowed to a crawl. Meant to turn it down to medium settings, but didn't play it again (only had the 10 day trial CD). I do have access to the game now, so if I get the time, I'll install tonight and see how it runs, will post my results.

Dell called today, said they'd be out here tomorrow morning between 10:30am and 12 to fix my camera. Dell customer care never called back about my lack of remote issue. Will have to call them tomorrow again.

 

Ok, here are a couple of early benchmarks.

Out of the box (nothing at all done): 8,650
SLI enabled and MS Updates: 10,727

Although I thought that the SLI mark would be higher, as repeated many times this test is quite CPU intensive and with the Penryn 2.5GHz T9300, this was always going to be limited against the 7900 overclocked.

 

Ok, applied A06 BIOS update and ran benchmark. Result was 11,566. This makes sense as A06 has better support for Penryn chips.

 

Hmmm, so what are the thoughts on Raid0 configuration. I know it improves data access perforamnce, but its software controlled through the use of CPU cycles. So overall, is it the right thing to do?

 

That could be possible, yes.
But one would think those graphical updates are heavier leaning towards the GPU and not the CPU.

Make sure you install the latest patch.
And did the 10 day trial had the benchmark option? I never even heard of this version heh!
TBH I ran the single player for 2 levels and that's about it.
Did try the free online beta demo and it was indeed a bit sluggish and choppy here and there.

Very nice result indeed.
But still I cannot help but think that this score should be much higher.
I really hope drivers will make it a lot better.
If I read correctly, DELL boasted that they got 13,5 when they were mentioning the upcoming 8800 powered M1730.

 

I think two things:

1) My Vista is still 'bedding in'. Many users note some sluggish performance in the first couple of days while it sorts itself out.

2) I have the T9300 CPU which is 2.5 Ghz. It would be expected to get a much higher score with a 7900 overclocked to 3.4Ghz, especially using 3dMark06 which rewards CPU power.

I'll test again later in the week and see what happens.

 

On a separate note - I have uploaded an Avatar picture but it won't show. Image uploaded, show image option checked. What am I doing wrong? Is my image non-conforming or something?

 

Ifti, before you got the Zalman, you mentioned propping up the laptop a bit. What did you use to do this? I was expecting some pop out legs or something.

I use this laptop on a glass table - after moderate use, its getting preppy toasty at the back there.

 

RIVATUNNER 2.07 IS OUT!

However I cant manage to increase by one bit the mhz... thats so weird...

 

You don tmiss the Internet until its gone - then you realise how much you used and need it! Just like that saying "You never miss you water till your well runs dry".

Thats a pain. My box arriived as though it had just been freshly made! Perfect condition, and I though all was pretty well packed. The CDs are thrown loose into the accessory box though, but still in perfect condition.

Whether you use the remote or not, its good to still have. Comes in useful
Good you got the cable though - I didnt get that and had to ring up about that and the Physics card - did you check for the physics card by the way or didnt you order that?

New driver is currently being test by Nvidia/Dell and should be out shortly. Its really looking pretty impressive so far and the performance increase seems pretty great.
Cant wait for it to be released!

I had this small plastic AA Battery cases, and used two of them. They were about half an inch thick.

Alternatively people have used beer bottle tops or CD cases - but if using this I would double us so the laptop was raised about half an inch at least. It makes airflow a bit easier - whether it did any good or not I dont know - but check out my video of the cooler etc, - its not essential but I'd recommend it

 

Sorry, it was a bit of a ramble. I'd say that you should install x64 Vista if you want. Don't shy away from it for fear of driver availability issues.

I would perhaps be patient and await the release of SP1. Slipstream SP1 into your Vista install disc (no easy task, I understand, but entirely worth the effort) and go from there. Either that, or face a massive download-and-reboot party when you install.

Don't install x64 merely for some potential speed increase. Unless you are using some specifically optimised x64 software (I'm thinking of 3D renderers or massively multi-tracked 24-bit audio synth/sequencers) you're going to perceive no improved responsiveness in general Windows tasks.

 

I have the exact same problem with my signature.
Perhaps I wrote a bit too much text in it because it simply doesn't show under my posts.
Instead of an error message or an indication of how much you can type, it simply saves all of it (because I went back and checked it) but it doesn't appear.
Not a big deal so I left it for now, gonna play with it later.
Edit: What the hell? Now it does show... didn't do smack. Perhaps a browser refresh glitch? I browsed a few pages here back and forth not using Forwards and Back... Weird...

Are you talking about the 174.20 drivers that Anandtech used in their review, which was posted a few pages ago?
If IIRC, the game performance increase here and there was amazing but it made the 3DMark06 score 100 points lower?
Edit: a couple hundred points even... http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3242&p=12