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

Thank you! Yeah I really can't wait to hold it in my hands. And do a lot of benchmark testing of course
I really don't know why the boxing stage has to take that long. I guess it depends on how fast the person who is boxing it is.

But hey, you have it spec'd out too, dude! Looks nice.

Will my 250GB 5400RPM harddisk slow my system down? Like when i play games?

 

where you flying from hardtimes i work in newcastle airport im starting to wish i had gone for the 2.8 extream i may send it back is it really worth it im only asking because iv just won £500 on the fruit machine at work lol im well happy lol

 

Don't you think its destiny greenfingers? Don't the £500 exactly match how much an upgrade to the extreme costs?

 

Damn! Thats a Kickass configuration!
I think the loading will bit a slower compared to the 7200rpm.

 

when i spec the laptop on dells site if i put the 7900 2.8 extream on it it wont let me have the N router why is this
and do you all buy games or download them just downloaded halflife 2 mint game whats the benifits if any of buying them

 

er...
i got a problem. i decided to give the laptop a quick reformat and sort out the partitioning how i wanted it.
rebooted with vist cd, removed all partitions, added one primary. and continued with installation.

3 times i've tried now to install vista, failing each time.
It starts, copies files, reboots, and then sits idly on Completing Installation...
Does nothing, the occasional harddrive flicker, thats it.
You can still move the mouse, albeit abit jerky.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

you have a point sva988 but im new to the pc/laptop market how much dif will it make and i cant have the wireles n mini card with it?? but if i go for it mite have to go for 4gb ram aswell how much dif will these chainges make my current spec is 2.4 2gb ram 2x200gb hd at 7200rpm blu-ray and wireles n mini card etc any imput would be great as i dont realy have a clue just been winging it so far lol

 

You should be able to just connect it to the laptop by plugging in the USB, I don't think you'll need software. (If it's Bluetooth, then there's probably instructions for detecting it, but nothing to plug in.)

And I think this has been said elsewhere, but it bears repeating that 2 x 256 in SLI is not equal to 512. Since it is in SLI, each memory is a mirror image of the other, so you still only have 256 memory.

I wouldn't worry too much about the 6 that isn't showing up.

 

Thanks Linkin_parker! Ok, i should be able to live with that.

Ah ok greenfingers. Well you can only OC the xtreme processor, and that will give you the edge in CPU powerful programs. And when it comes to RAM, you can always buy them cheap on the net. So you don't have to use a lot of money buying them from DELL.

 

Dear Customer,

Due to the popularity of the product you have ordered there has been a delay at our suppliers.

This means you now have an updated Estimated Delivery date.

We appreciate that you may have been waiting a long time for your order - and so will do our very best to beat the updated Estimated Delivery Date.

The UPDATED estimated delivery date for your Dell Order is: Original Estimated Delivery Date New Estimated Delivery Date
Scott, Peter Oct 3 2007 Oct 29 2007 Dec 5 2007

i knew this would f***ing happen im so upset and frustrated now

dont know weather just to tell them where to go this after hours on the phone and many emails all with a robot at the othee end saying dont worry it will be deliverd on time i hate this am so impationt its driving me mad

 

orderd the 3rd told the 29th so many times and now the 5th of dec i just dont know what to do anymore

 

i was so excited when i saw the email untill i opend it then my world has just imploded right in my face sorry guys im just a bit emotional at the min

 

Wow jesus!! Thats the freakin' worst delay i've ever seen!!! I really feel for you greenfingers. Call them up as soon as you can, and make them explain everything! And it it's still 5th december, make sure you get a compensation, or something!! Cause that is just NOT cool!

Hope it works out for you!

 

Are you referring to the Next Gen Wireless card?

This is not compatible with the extreme processor, you need to choose the second option.

I'm flying from John Lennon airport mate.

I don't know if it is worth the extra money but I just wanted it as it supports overclocking

 

well iv just blasted the girl on the end of the dell help line who had no answers as to witch parts are delaying my order and iv been told i will be offerd a good will gesture but only after i recive the laptop wich i dont trust they could just offer me a £5 once i have it
dell go on and on about there customer service and i have seen nothing to back this up

so again after another call to dell im non the wiser about what the hell is going on

whats the definition of frustration teeth marks on your keybord after talking to dells reps

 

The last time I got a good will gesture off Dell it was a 180 quid all in one printer

I was told the extreme CPU held my order up.

 

well blimey,
finally its taken me half a day to reformat this thing.

For those that are interested, I had to pretty much disable everything in the bios. It was causing the vista install to hang for somereason.

Did that, and finally its finished.
Now Ive just gotta start installing drivers!

 

Greenfingers know how you feel, I've been told that the ssd is what is holding up my order when i asked if i could change this option to get it shipped i was told they would have to cancel it!!!
If it does not arrive by the end of next week I'm canceling, I'm imigrating to Canada, so hopefully dell ca has beter customer service.

 

im sure its the blu-ray drive thats delaying my order i suppsose ill just have to wait it out till the dam thing gets hear once its hear i think ill just tell them that im dissapointed at the performance and maybe they will give me a good discount off the extream cpu im fed up think i need a drink some new vids would take the edge off i think so if anyone who has theres pleas do a vid review would make my day cheers!!!

 

yea harry told me the same thing just cancle and re order but again i dont trust what they are saying

 

When you install Vista again, at the window where it asks you to select a partition, there's an option to load drivers. Select that option, take out the Vista OS CD, and put in the drivers CD that Dell included. Scan for drivers to load. There should only be one found. Load it. Afterwards, you can put back the Vista CD and continue as usual.

 

Aww dude. No! That just happened to me yesterday. That exact problem. So right now you dont have an OS on the system right. It stops accessing the HDD after it reboots and is on completing installation.

I just got off the phone with dell. They are sending me a replacement m1730. I wont do that again.

 

I think lucasite found out how to solve the problem, so I don't think you need a new m1730 tgchiriga!!
Here's what he said he did:

"well blimey,
finally its taken me half a day to reformat this thing.

For those that are interested, I had to pretty much disable everything in the bios. It was causing the vista install to hang for somereason.

Did that, and finally its finished.
Now Ive just gotta start installing drivers! "

 

Uhm, the base model m1730 just went down £500! Is that fair, seeing as us who ordered it sooner and was willing to support Dell for far more, is now being robbed? Just my oppinion!

Oh and thats on the danish site.

 

I have just checked my config on the dell uk site and its now £180 cheaper!!! sending them an e-mail.
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, more amunition for me to throw at them.

 

Holy hell. I feell your pain, but i ordered on the 18th (Oct) and have a date of 28th November. I was disapointed because apart from adding the SB X-Fi, a Dell Mouse & the higher-end wireless card its 'standard' spec, i was hoping that end of october (or very early november) would have been the latest.

I'm worried now.... if it got worse than the 28th id go crazy

 

Zergworld congrats, the pics are great, just one request could you show images of the lid with the light on

 

Hi Guys,

I've been following the forum for a fortnight now, having decided to commit to this machine shortly. I am going to aim for a high spec as I'm really wanting to be able to take advantage of forthcoming DX10 games (Crysis anyone?!)

However, I'm kind of loathe to go with the current 8700m option. I appreciate the old 7 series cards can out perform in DX9 software and I'm prepared to wait for the newer 8800m (G90?) hardware providing it makes an appearance soon. Admittedly it's future DX10 performance I'm interested in, hence the currently superior benchmarks of the 7950's have no appeal. Does anyone have any info regarding release dates? Nvidia seem to have gone awful quiet...

Also, can anyone explain the benefits/performance gains should I opt for a RAID 0 (or RAID 1) hd over a standard set-up? Not too clued up on this and wonder what effects it'll have on the m1730... From a purely gaming aspect, does it make a difference?

By the way - great forum which has helped me decide on this machine! . o O (Just don't tell my wife the price...)

 

Oh - forgot to mention, WHY WHY WHY do DELL seem so intent on ripping everyone off over the RAM upgrade cost on this machine?? I mean, it's not as if it's 800mhz or anything - and even then! Technology costs, but c'mon - it's RAM for f&%ks sake!

2Gb and your own upgrade later on has to be the way to go with this baby...

 

thanx kevi290, its just i cant find a usb for the mouse, it just came with the mouse and the charger, i would of thought you just need to charge it and go but it seems it is not allready connected, i have tried to find bluetooth but it doesnt find anything, im startin to worry its never going to connect cause its a $100 mouse.

 

wilddog I use an old MX900 mouse I connect by going to blue tooth devices in vista scan for new devices and while its scanning press the small connect button underneath the mouse.
Dont know if yours has one but hope it helps

 

sure I will post one tonight

 

RAID 0 means that your double hard drives are treated as 1 bigger hard drive, and that data is stored concurrently on both of them.

For example, counting from 1 to 9:

Code:

  Drive 1: "1 3 5 7 9"
  Drive 2: " 2 4 6 8 "

The advantage of this is that you have 2 drives which can read data at the same time. Very good, because reading from a single hard drive is comparatively much slower than your CPU or GPU, so the CPU and GPU are sometimes forced to wait for the hard drive to read data.

RAID 0 speeds this up, and can be extremely helpful in memory-intensive games. For example, if Oblivion needs 1.5 Gigs of RAM, but you only have 1 Gig, then the remaining .5 Gigs are stored on the much slower hard drive which could cause "stuttering" (a delay when hard drive gets data, even if you have high frame rates).

In the example above, counting from 1 to 9 is much faster because each drive only needs to look at half the data.

This becomes tricky with the introduction of SSD drives, since they're much faster seek time, so I would be curious if there are even any performance benefits of SSD Raid 0.

RAID 1 is different, it means that your 2nd hard drive is a perfect backup copy of your primary hard drive. This offers no performance benefits, but is MUCH safer.

So here's counting from 1 to 9 with RAID 1:

Code:

  Drive 1: "123456789"
  Drive 2: "123456789"

No performance increase, but safer.

In RAID 0, if a single hard drive fails, you lose everything, because neither hard drive has a coherent copy of your data. If Drive 2 failed, you could not count to 9, because you couldn't even get to 2 (let alone 4, 6, or 8). RAID 1 means there's always a backup.

If you have the money, the best price/performance ratio would probably be an SSD primary with a regular secondary (And someone let me know if this is wrong).

Hope this helps!

--EDIT--
If you're stuck with a single regular hard drive and want to game, just make sure it's at least 7200 RPM, since a 5400 RPM could cause much more stuttering in games like Oblivion because it's noticeably slower.

--2nd EDIT--
Some configurations even offer RAID 5, which I *think* is a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1, but I'm not completely sure since I've never confirmed it.

 

Continue - do you need a specific type of RAM for the m1730 or can you buy any ram from ebay or something and stick it in?

/newbie/noob/n00b

 

Well quite simple, it is basically getting a memory that is ddr2 667 or ddr2 800 (if you have the money), and if you still not sure, you can get for more detail, I used to go to crucial.com and they have a memory upgrade guide and you can choose the brand (dell) then you chose the type (xps) and then choose m1730. You can then see detail memory description of the type your computer uses or you can even buy it directly from them. I generally just get the info (CL=5 • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • 1.8V) and get a cheaper brand from newegg.com. You can probably save more than $200.

 

Well, just called to talk to a real person tonight about my order and come to find out my order is NOT in Boxing stage... it's still in Testing stage.

The lady was VERY nice and helped me out to the best I could have asked for. She was very knowledgeable and did a wonderful job helping me.

She said they are currently downloading the software onto my laptop (like installing the OS and stuff) which I assume is an image they use to span across multiple XPS systems with Vista Ultimate.

So, it's actually nice to know where my order is at and that it still has a ESD of the 29th, which is 4 days away, so that's not forever... I can wait.

Just kinda disappointed that their automated order status line is not as accurate as you might think. I mean ... boxing for 3 days?!?!

C'mon!

 

Ok i was in the same boat as you. I would not suggest waiting for the 8800m series as no one even knows when it will come out - or even if it will come out as nvedia might just skip the 8800m - its really anyones guess. But i mean you can wait, however its an undeterminably amount of time. i didnt wait, i just went with it. 8700 - 8800 difference ( i dont know how much exactly) but seriously, is the differenfe worth it?

Now as for your harddrive, i just went with a single HD 160gig the one that they give you. Why go up further? how many games did you want on your machine? i mean 160, lets just say each game is 5 gigs, thats 32 games!! now seriously, you won't be playing that much. My laptop is PURELy a game machine so i wont be installing anything else. 160gig is way enough, so i did notbother thinking about the RAID 0 or 1 etc. SSD is great, however 64gig is to small, and i dont want to buy the two 64gig SSD as i dont want to pay that much.

now as for gaming, you cannot upgrade the video card, however you can upgrade the to phsyX card, i didnt, it doesnt affect the speed of gameplay, only adds some new physics (from what i heard).

Now the other selections in which you can update the speed/quality of gaming is obviously the CPU processor and RAM.

Now CPU processor to 2.8 extreme is a huge uprade, i think it was $1,700 dollars for me. thats quite steep, however this upgrade will help boost your performance by alot. quite simply, if you want to pay for it, go for it.

RAM, windows 32 bit does not use all the 4 gigs of ram. and uses aroudn 3.2 - 3.5 gigs of ram. i say, who cares? i got the 4 gigs, even though it wont use all of it, 4 gigs of ram will still produce a 1.2 - 1.5 gigs extra then people who stick with the 2 gig. now i also want to play crysis and its recommanended to get 3 gigs, so get 4 gigs!

hope i helped.

update on my machine

its arrived!
ordered 19/10/07 and received 26/10/07. 6 days, anyone beat that?

bone white version, i'll take pics tonight

 

remember to post pic of the lid with the light on

 

Oooh congrats! I wanna see pics of the lid too! I think the bone white is amazing probably, though I went with the Sapphire Blue

Honestly, I wish they could send you inserts to change the colors of the back panel, but that's alright I'll stick with my beautiful blue!

 

Yeh... and I ordered 2GB of RAM, and as I'm seeing, most people are ordering 4GB for their systems. When I was ordering, I was thinking.. "meh, I'll just stick with the 2 cause it's cheaper and 2nd off, 32bit systems only recognize around 3GB so 2GB will be good..."

Now I'm kinda regretting it! But a RAM upgrade for my M1730 wont be a problem at all... just save a little money for that too (or... Christmas is coming very soon!) and just get 2 sticks of 2GB!

And don't get me wrong, 2GB is plenty of RAM at the moment because not a lot of games need that much total RAM to play, but I would like the extra boost because of what Vista eats up...

Though, I am very much so planning on dual-booting Vista and XP on this laptop with my 400GB of space to spare ^^.
As for another topic, I've heard there's a lot of trouble dual booting Vista and XP. Is this really true? I have Vista and XP Pro on my main desktop dual booting PERFECTLY fine. I made the partitions, installed Vista, then XP on the other partition and everything is working perfectly first time, so I don't see why it wouldn't work on the XPS.

 

I have the MX Revolution mouse and it's amazing! And it did come with a USB 2.0 reciever (looks like a memory stick, only much smaller). This is mouse is not Bluetooth. It's FastRF, which is much better for connectivity in my opinion.

I love this mouse to pieces! Works swiftly and has great reception... although WiFi can interfere with it sometimes.

 

where is the promised vids ppl, im salivating over here

 

This system and Dell offer a video card upgrade policy so just go for it mate and you'll be able to upgrade in the future. The 8700GT's are performing well and it's only the drivers that are letting it down, they will soon be brought up to speed.

As for RAID 0, it's quick, very quick, where as RAID 1 will be the same speed as a normal hdd, it makes a mirror of you drive so you can restore should the worse happen.

 

I need a little help,
Can someone with a m1730 check their lcd manager and tell me where the programs for the lcd are stored? I screwed it up and i've reinstalled like 10 times but i stilll cant get it to work because it automatically launches a program i put in the folder and crashes. And to top it off I can't remember the default folder where they are stored.

Thanks

 

BTW definately problems with SLi, tried to play COD 4 demo with SLi and it is choppy I tried without SLi and exactly the same settings and it plays very smooth. at 1920*1200
GRAW2 also plays way better without SLi

 

The 8800GTX SLi issues have really only just been fixed with the latest drivers so the same will happen with the 8700GT

It's just a matter of time

 

hey ppl im still waiting and will be for some time now as you heard yesterday my order was made on the 3rd oct was supposed to recieve on the 29th 3days time but got email yesterday to say my new edd is the 5th dec i was really dissapointed as you can imagin so i took to the drink last night lol after alot of thought im going to hold out for it its going to kill me waiting that long but all considerd i think it will still be worth the wait so if you can all help me out with picks vids etc that will really ease my pain

thanks in advance to all you ppl who take the time respect

 

hardtimes are you taking delivery of your today?

 

currently uploading a 2 minute video.

Will post link shortly.

 

your my savior zergword much respect!!!!!!!!!!