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

One more thing. Do u guys lag on GRAW 2 Ageia island? i do...VERY annoying... i thaught it shd be able to handle it. My rig is

2.4 ghz dual
8700 (each 256) dual
2gig ram
Ageia Physx

 

Even with dual 8800GTXs in a desktop system and a qx6800, framerates are barely sustainable at 15fps at 1920x1200 with everything on VERY HIGH!!

A setup that truly masters Crysis isn't available yet...anywhere...dual 9800s are what the game's developers had in mind.

 

Yeah i got GRAW 2 with my system but i lost the sleeve! Anyone never going to play it want to PM me their Multiplayer ID?? i cant install ! I want to try ageia island i have no games that use Physx!

 

Just got through playing the first couple of levels of COD4, max resolution, everything on max, 4x AA and FRAPS is telling me I'm averaging 60 fps during game runtime. Those 169.xx drivers really seem to have done the business, it also confirms my suspicion that the COD4 demo does not support SLI (even though you can select it in options)

 

Thats incredible. Have you oc'ed your cards???

 

May I ask:

Are you using 169.09 or 169.12 (with the vista desktop theme enabled) and running off the mains, and if so, does vista refuse to boot and give you a blank screen when the machine is starting up from cold.

Also, does your NV control panel crash whenever you try to enable or disable SLI (again, when using drivers 169.04, 169.09 and 169.12 only)?

These questions to all owners by the way.

 

Has anyone tried Armed Assault on the M1730 yet? Its one of the games I'm really looking forward to getting into on a new rig.

And if so what are your FPS's @ 1920x1200 and High Res Everything?

Cheers,

72oo

 

Considering you have a legitimate copy of the game why not google a keygen?

 

Okay so maybe i have done that now, But seeming as everyone here who has an m1730 got a copy i figured why not just ask if anyone not using theirs would send me their key. God damn installation bs

 

Call Dell support and say the game wasn't in the box with your laptop, they will probably send you another copy

 

True, but i wont lie if i ask them ill just tell them i dont have the key and another cd=another key. The gens i have found have not worked.

 

Yes using riva tuner 2.0, settings are the same as used by zergworld in an earlier post. No OCing onthe processor so running at stock 2.8Ghz.

I am using 169.09 themes enabled and running off the mains. No problems with vista booting, no BSOD, all running smooth.

 

XPS M1730 owners please help

I am currently working with Dell escalations as I have now had two XPS M1730 machines that run slow whilst on battery. I have found other people with the same problems and would like to hear more from other owners.

Please take a look at the following thread and let me know if your machine has the sames issues or not - your help is greatly appreciated

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=190435&highlight=xps+m1730+battery

 

Thanks,

Very strange, I know other people besides myself are experiencing this issue with these drivers.

I can only assume that it must be down to a specific discrepancy between our various configurations.

I notice that I have RAID, and you are running a single drive, although Zerg has the same RAID setup as I do and the same amount of RAM and apparently has not encounetered the problem. Think I'll need the complete spec of several systems around here if I'm to get to the bottom of this.

Do you have anything significant disabled in the BIOS?

 

The only thing disabled currently is access permissions, the rest of the config is as arrived from Dell.

 

Vista 64bit peoples...

I've had GREAT luck with the latest Nvidia drivers over at LaptopVideo2Go.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16326

My 3dmark Scores went from a touch over 4k to 7980ish with no changes but the new 169.12 drivers.

 

Mine come straight on if I go above 3,0!

 

Yeah mine too. But they stay low when just running 3.0.

@Doove71, I just simply don't understand how you can run at 1920x1200, 4x AA, everything on high, and say its playable. What 3dmark06 score are you getting? I'm not able to run CoD4 at such high res and with 4xAA. I run 1600x1200 with no AA and every on max with no problem.

 

9805pts now on 3DMark 06

 

So no ArmA players here on the M1730 I guess.... ;(

 

Hmm I'm lacking 200 pts from you HardTimesUK and 400 from ElGanja who got 10001... I'll have to do some leaning! I really really want nVidia to make it possible to run two monitors and have SLi turned on soon!!! It's so annoying when you want to play FSX on dual monitors, you have to cut 1 card out!

 

I've a funny feeling that your hard drive is holding you back... @5400 RPM isn't exactly fast! I'd say it could be bottlenecking a little...

 

If the 250GB was to be the western digital WD2500BEVS it will outperform most of 7200rpm that dell ships.

Check tomshardware, its the second fastest in reading/writing.

When im getting my xps, if i get anytime in this life im planing on using raid0 with 2 of them...

 

I'll check if it's one of those when I get a chance.
I also heard somebody saying that the size of a HD also makes up for performance loss. So something like 160GB 7200rpm = 250GB 5400rpm in performance.

I've also heard that there isn't a big performance boost 5400-7200.... again I might be wrong. I kinda hope that thats the bottleneck, cause that would explain my lower 3dmark06 scores.

 

Seems the one to go for according to tomshardware is 7,200 RPM Seagate Momentus 7200.2.

Best transfer speeds hands down.
7,200 RPM champion Seagate Momentus 7200.2
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_momentus_7200_2.pdf

@sva988: Just thinking about it now, it could be more the fact that you are not running RAID 0, than the actual spin speeds. Either way if you're upgrading looks like the above one is the only choice !

 

Argggggh.

I cannot get any driver but the ones that came with the M1730 to work.

Sigh.

Here is what I did:

Defragged. Check.

Created a Restore Point. Check.

Downloaded Dell Performance Driver. Check.

Uninstalled through Nvidia Uninstaller in Add/Remove. Check.

Reboot and Driver Sweeper. Check.

Install new driver.

And that is when the problem hits. No SLI enabling.

And then when I download the 169.09 drivers, I get the black screen on reboot.

What am I doing wrong?

 

try running the HDTACH test (32mb one).... it should give you a good idea of the differences between your hdd's and mine.

 

I used the 169.12 drivers.

Download them and add the modded inf.

Then go to Device manager, find the 8700, and click on Remove Driver button. Don't reboot yet. Then click on the Update driver button. Click on the Have disk and find the drivers you downloaded. After install you can then reboot and enable SLI.

I over clocked using RivaTuner. I have just the base system and got 8919 with 3dmark06.

 

AHA! So you're another eh?

That's four I've counted now-including myself-yet others seem to cruise along fine with these drivers. What on Earth is the cause? Only ever happens with 169.09 and 169.12 with me, all other drivers work fine-except for the control panel occasionally freezing when enabling SLI. If you boot using just the battery, you'll find Vista loads ok! But a cold boot from the mains, and you get the blank screen, seems to freeze just after the internal webcam light flashes. I always uninstall/reinstall drivers in the correct way - cleaning all files and registry entries from the previous revision. HMMMMMM.

 

Hey i ordered a M1730 a couple of days ago, i've been reading through a lot of this forum and would like to know what sort of screens people in New Zealand get, I've read that Australia get the samsung one and would like to know if this too is the case for NZ? also which country is their factory that ships to NZ in?
Thanks in advance

 

We are the lucky country haven't you heard, well Dell hasn't and in their wisdom they have given us (an our cousins in NZ) the Samsung with light leakage at the bottom. Not the end of the world but if you like to look at a black screen it will annoy you to no end.

:wink:

 

First post, yay!

I am considering the XPS1730 as a replacement for my old Toshiba. Seeing all the debates about GPU I have decided to wait until january to place my order.

Is there any drop in prices on theese machines over time? I configured an XPS1710 just for fun the other day and it got really close in price to the 1730, wich to me seems a bit weird.

Any comment on price development would be appreciated

 

Upgrading with Dell can get a bit expensive. For example, the 1710 with updated everything is way more than a stock 1730 etc. Try not to increase the specs too much and the price should be quite different.

 

guys can i pick some brains please , im trying to turn off the little caps lock on and off tab that comes off at the bottom left of the display when i toggle it, any ideas ?!

its really annoying in game cos i use it as a hotkey , any help would be great !

 

Franklins, are you installing the 169.04 the same way? Can you walk me step by step through exactly what you do? I am going to try these today.

 

Almost after every driver install, the enable SLI / Nvidia Control Panel Freezes for me. But it still enables it and I restart and all is well... I assume everyone is installing by this method: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread204406.html

 

When I toggle SLI (which I do fairly often because I run two monitors in FSX), it seems like it freezes, but only for 20 seconds, then I get a black screen and the screen flickers for a bit, and then the SLi is turned on. It works fine. And I found out that I could run CoD4 1600x1200 everything on max with SLi turned off! Thats pretty nice performance.
I can't give the 8700mGT credit though, I'm sure it's CoD4 thats so optimized, it's amazing.

 

Getting closer. Delivery Date chaged to Nov 28th. I guess I will be working from home tomorrow. Ready to test the newest NVIDIA Drivers.

 

Well here is something I need advice on. Do you remove the drivers from BOTH adapters or does it remove the drivers for the second on its own?

 

Hey,

I'd recommend waiting as you plan on doing till jan. Then bite the bullet so to speak and get the latest GPU, it won't be cheap but you'll have a smok'in machine.


72oo

 

Yeah I was really close to pulling the trigger on the 1730 but everything I read about how great the 8800 cards will be, and how lousy the 8700's are, is making me wait. The fact that I will be paying close to $5,000 for a laptop with already old and VERY outdated 8700's (the article I read said that ONE 8800 can kick the butt of 8700's in SLI!) bothers me very much. I didn't like the look of the new Alienware laptops at first but the more I look at it the more I like the fact that it has touch-sensitive buttons, an HDMI and Optical out ports, an integrated digital TV tuner, and of course, the 8800's in SLI. Can you imagine the 8800's in SLI...now THAT rig is something I would be very proud of and willing to pay the steep price.

I would recommend either waiting for the new Alienware laptops (which I'm hoping that "Q1 2008" means closer to January than March) or for when Dell begins to offer the 8800's on the 1730. I think it's a joke that they call the 1730 "a gaming beast" with that steep price tag and only those 8700's.

 

Try both but only one should work since they both use the same drivers. Make sure to choose the option to remove all the files (for vista).

 

Looks like, from the manifest I have the Samsung display.

 

Hello there! Sorry for the delay.

I use the exact method discussed ealier on the thread.

Uninstall previous drivers. (no reboot)
Driver Sweeper to remove "nvidia display only"
Ccleaner to remove redundant entries in registry
delete all files in windows\prefetch (except readyboost dir)
reboot
Install new driver
reboot
enable SLI
manually reboot (after NVCpanel has frozen and crashed with error message!)

As stated, SLI is enabled properly after the latter reboot and on occasion following a fresh install like this, 169.09 and 169.12 will boot properly. But once I have powered down (not s3 standby, but fully shut down), the next time I boot up, I always seem to get the blank screen issue unless I startup using battery only power.

 

Probably a stupid question, but how does one tell?

 

Right click on my computer --> Properties --> Hardware --> Device Manager --> Monitors --> Properties in Monitors --> Details and choose Hardware ID from the pull-down menu

 

I just hot 3dmark06 and it doesnt say i have dual 8700s. How can i tell it i have 2? i am using 169.09 drivers

 

If you do not have your computer yet... (one more thing everyone...Call the Dell Order Status Line instead of relying on the Order Status web page)


Once it is marked as shipped on your "Order Status" page you will get a link for Invoices. At the invoices page you should have your "System Service Tag". Enter that on the "My Account" | "My Systems and Peripherals". Then you will be able to see the "Original System Configuration" page.

PP653 LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., 17, Wide Ultra Extended Graphics Array..., VIDEO ELEC. STDS. ASSOC...., TLF, MULTI-MEDIA..., SAMSUNG...

 

3dMark06 score 9300+ I swear I have everything running as stated in my post, there is no reason for me to exaggerate. You can see I have not been the M1730's biggest fan in previous posts but I have it running as stated.

 

I am SO angry.

I cannot get any of the drivers to work that I have tried.

THe 167.45 Performance Drivers ON DELL's OWN WEBSITE do not work. I run into the black screen of death on a cold boot.

The 169.09s failed.

The only one that works is the September 07 drivers.

Why why why?

I followed the directions about Vista to the letter. Every time I put in the drivers, the Control Panel locks up and on a cold boot I get a black screen and it wont load.