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

I use the SwissGear Ibex backpack. They are currently on sale at BestBuy.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...+gear&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1186003258092

The laptop section holds the M1730 with a minor adjustment. The inside pocket doesn’t fit, but it does seat well between that pocket and the back of the pack. The base and back are also padded so I’m not that concerned.

I can fit the M1730, my 15” HP laptop, DV camera, both power supplies, digital camera, MP3 player, mouse, two portable external 2.5” drives, retractable lan, firewire, and usb cables, and a 48 CD folder.

It also beats the heck out of my old Targus backpack in terms of comfort.

 

Mine is 100% stable with Battery in.

 

I wouldn't get it even if you buy those games. As I understand, multi-core processors can do pretty much the same thing--the only thing you need are the Ageia drivers and those are free, and don't require the card.

That said, maybe PhysX processor will be huge in the future. Back in the day people complained "Graphics card? You don't need graphics card, a processor will do just fine!!"

So don't buy it yet, but watch out for it in the future. If it becomes standard, then your Ageia 200m (I think that's the model) is going to be pretty useless by comparison anyway.

 

Sweet, my left speaker doesn't work and I have the SEC light leakage special screen. Nice...

 

hey i'm having issues with my dvd drive whan i put my copy of crysis in sometime it just spins slowly and makes crazy noises and windows tells me to incert a disc, it works if i restart my computer with it in or wait like ten minutes, has any one else had this problem?
and is it safe to leave my graphics cards overclocked well gaming? this maybe a stupid question but i'm new to overclocking graphics cards and would like to know if it would do any damage and what level of overclocking would you suggest?
Cheers

 

Good way to get a new battery after it starts to lose its charge

 

Would shaving a few millimeters off the rubber pad (on the battery) with a razor blade not fix the wobble? Or would this be hard to do?

I think Dell should ship thinner pads with a solvent to dissolve the glue and fresh glue to all M1730 owner, that should sort the problem for everyone.


72oo

 

I think the problem with the pads is fixed in newer models - I just got mine a few days ago and it's perfect... no wobbling.

On a side note about my 3DMark06 problem - It turns out the video was corrupt while running 3DMark06 - I never watched - just clicked it and walked away... the screen was a bunch of black horizontal bars that flickered really fast... hence the frame count was probably totally inaccurate and thus resulting in a very high score.

I finally got the 169.17 drivers installed - which are the only ones that actually let me enable SLI in 64bit vista without locking up (all other ones besides windows stock 156.62 (or something like that) lock up the laptop after trying to enable sli mode.

So now with real drivers that provide a real display in dx10 and dx9 and the futuremark benchmarks gives me 8274. Much more normal and realistic. And still a great value I think!

Now I wonder what OC'ing will do.... *grins*

 

Mine is an "older" one since I got it in October and it never wobbled, unless placed on uneven surface.

 

Hi guys. I recently got my XPS M1730 with very high expectations of gamimg performance (like everybody), but i am really disappointed. Here are my specs:

T7700
4gb SDRAM DDR2 dual-channel
Dual 8700M overclocked @ 810core/860memory
2x160GB Hd SATA in Raid Stripe
Ageia Physix card


8700M drivers are version 167.45
running Windows Vista Ultimate x86 (In High Performance power plan of course), performance ratings are:

Cpu 5,3
Memory 4,9
Graphics 5,9
gaming 5,6
Hd 5,9

3dmark 06 score:9224

Sli config: Single Gpu, also tried Alternate frame but didn't change anything.

I thought this rig (with a score like that) should perform great with new games, so i tried the latest and heaviest game: crysis. It runs like **** . not even playable at 1024x768 with all settings to medium. i get a mean 20 fps. Lots of people claim they are playing it at 1440x900... wonder how they do. I also read that crysis doesn't support SLI, but if i turn SLi indicators on they appear and seem to work.

So i tried Bioshock. I expected it to run smooth as a baby's back at 1440x900 Anisotropic 8x. No way. it stutters like **** and gets frequently below 25 fps. Same at 1280x800.

Only game that remains between 40 and 60 fps (capped by vsync) @ 1280x800 is UT3.

Old games like Oblivion and F.e.a.r run good @1440x900. Also tried C&C @ 1980x1200 but no way the XPS handles it.

Is it my fault or is it the real XPS performance?

 

I think, in crysis at least that its your fault... you should be updating your drivers to the latest available version, which if im not wrong is the 169.17. Im on XP with t7500 and 750/850 and i can play and get more than 35fps at 1280x1024 all at medium... so i think that you really need to upgrade drivers!

 

Where did you find 169.17 drivers? no trace of them on Dell nor Nvidia site!

Anyway i find it ridiculous that the super-gaming performance notebook doesn't handle Crysis at least at 1280x800 @ high settings, and also has problems with Bioshock?!!?!? hope those drivers really improve performance if i ever find them. Why dell doesn't put them on their driver section ?!?!?!

 

Because those drivers are not officially supported by Dell, and nVidia does not want to provide drivers for laptop cards. It is a very annoying situation, however you can go to laptopvideo2go,com and download them there. Please note that not all versions of drivers support SLI, so you will have to experiment. However do not expect a huge increase in performance, Crysis is hard even for desktop systems with 8800GTX cards.

 

Thanx darkoroje. I tried the laptopvideo2go drivers but only gave more problems, so i got back to 167.45 since performance is equal if not better and there are no stability issues. It's more than annoying, i am very disappointed with the M1730. Still i can't understand how some people claims to be playing crysis with a single 8700m, and showing crysis GPU benchmarks with an avg 30 fps.

 

Right now im on 169.04 but planning on upgrading to 169.17 tonight the latest... so that you know, from my experience, i gained at least 5fps from official dell to this im using... 5fps might sound like nothing, but actually it is...

 

Hi Guys,

got a 2.4GHz, 2Gigs RAM.

wanted to add something about drivers:

tried Dell Ones from website R167350, which installs forceware 15x.xx.
GRAW2 -> overheats.

tried last 196.12/13 (laptopvideo2go)-> my machine couldn't start (blackscreen etc). I know about the battery trick but I am not gonna pull the plug every time I am gonna turn the beast on.

went back to 163.75 (laptopvideo2go)-> no SLI.

as a desperate effort tried 196.04-> it works fine for me. Performance is slightly better.

I've been asking on nvidia forums and some chap told me:
"Only use what Dell offer you. OR Risk overheating and death. "

What do you think about this? Some games overheat even with dell's drivers, so I don't know what to think.

 

it should not overheat with any drivers. However if you are having heat problems you can underclock the card that will reduce the amount of heat produced, the downside being that performance will be lower as well.

 

That is why I said you have to experiment with different versions of the drivers until you find something that works for you.

Dell should really never have released the 1730 until 8800 chip was available, 8700 is slower than previous generation (7950), and SLI causes lots of problems even on desktop video cards. If you are not happy and are still within the return period, your best bet is to return the laptop to Dell and wait until the 8800 version of 1730 is released.

 

It's not overheating right now, it just did it a coupla times playing GRAW2 ageia island with dell driver that came with the machine. I am just living in constant fear with this all driver thingy.
Just wanna find something stable enough to keep and with decent performances (don't care about very high resolutions).

Best drivers I put my hands on so far are Dell R167350 (downloadable from dell website, will install forceware 15x.xx) for stability and NVIDIA 196.04 for compromise performance/stability.

Playing constantly CNC3, UT3, Oblivion.

 

See my previous posts on gaming performance, examples Bioshock I'm playing at 1600x1200 with everyhting set to high, smooth as silk, COD4 1920x1200 all set to high and 4xAA again very smooth. It's Crysis where the problems lie, it hits my desktop hard which has an OC'd 8800GTX, as other posters have mentioned there will be a patch optimising Crysis for SLI AND Dell are working with Nvidia on a M1730 exclusive driver to optimise the 8700 SLI config.

 

Does anyone know how to kill the back leds??? from quickset i can kill both the mouse and speakers leds, but not the back... I tried from the Bios, but as soon as i log in into XP they will be on again...

 

I did a test with crysis and sli last night.

I did two tests with the following settings, 1280x800, everything on high, DX9.

SLI Off - avg 21fps
SLI On - avg 37 fps

I did this because I was concerned that sli was not operating correctly because the load balancing bar would not appear and SLIZone would not recognise sli. I think this proves that it is fuctioning even if it is not the way other systems or Nvidia report how it should.

 

Well i understand that crysis is actually nonsense (guess it was made for selling lots of new high-end hardware), but i'd like to have bioshock running smooth as you do! are you using 169.09 on vista x86? i'm going to give it a try.... fingers crossed.... i hope so much it's just a driver issue....

 

@MrBubbles - you running 32bit Vista? What's your PCMark05 Score - PC, not 3D...

Has anyone tried playing back BluRay with these fake drivers? I am using the 169.17 (actually work well for me - I can enable and disable SLI reliably even) but when I fire up a bluray disc it tells me the graphic driver is incompatible....

Anyone tackle this? I'm trying to use PowerDVD Ultra for playback...

 

Second that

 

Worth a look (still speculation though!)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=194042

 

I am running 32bit vista. Don't have PCMark05 installed so I can't answer that but I have a T7500 which is the slowest cpu in the M1730 range.

 

What do people here use for bluray playback?! Do you have it working in 64bit??? ARGH I'm so sick of hangups and drivers!!! *sighs*

I have tried EVERY video driver I have:

169.17
169.13
169.12
169.09
169.04
163.75
and some really early windows updates version of the drivers 156.69 I think?

NONE of them allow PowerDVD Ultra to play a disc - keeps telling me my video drivers are incompatible. GRRRRRRRRRRR.

Anyone know how to do the factory restore? I'm thinking about trying out 32bit for a while... let SP1 come out... then head back to 64bit. What program comes stock on the M1730 for bluray playback?? I don't have that disc, nor do I have an image per say - just the vistra install dvd... but there's a partition on my HD with a 3 gig WIM image. Any ideas?

 

The 3 gig image is an image of the OS from the factory, use that to do a factory restore

 

I tried an older application last night. AOE3 and it was terrible. Even the menu screens were breaking up and flickering. I went into the video options and it locked up the computer (power off was all I could do).

 

I've been playing AOE3 on mine and it runs ok but sometimes it crashes randomly. But then again the computer crashes randomly all the time

 

Which driver are you using? I have 167.45

 

169.09 from notebook forums, I always have problems with it crashing and I think I am going to go back to the 156.61 drivers from Dell unless they release an updated driver soon

 

I've been having general/random instability issues using the latest drivers (169.09, .12, .13) with SLI enabled.

I settled on 169.04 (NBF forceware enhanced/tweaked version) and so far so good.

My goals were good performance without sacrificing stability.

Various issues troubleshooted during this process...

* Vista SP1 RC installation
* Matrix Storage manager - enabled write-back cache
* Enabled ReadyBoost
* resolved issue with photoshop license (had to re-enable the FlexNet service?!?)
* flashing divx playback at joox.net - resolved by using NBF tweaked drivers
* Nvidia control panel and 3dMark06 freezes.
* random crashes in other applications, including IE, in which I couldn't kill the process or in which the entire OS froze, requiring restart... very annoying.

Haven't had any stability problems since arriving at my current configuration.

If you've been frustrated by freezes, crashes with the 169.09 (even the NBF version), try 169.04. I had gone back down to 163.75 for a while and then decided to go ahead and try 169.04. I was dubious since NBF has tweaked versions for 163.75, 169.04, and 169.09, and since 169.09 was having issues, I figured 169.04 would be no better, but the NBF forums showed much more positive user feedback for the .04 (12 good, 1 negative), whereas the .09 was more evenly split.... makes sense.

 

Cool, I will give the NBF 169.04 drivers a go. I was using the 169.04 drivers from laptop video 2 go before and they seemed stable so I will give the tweaked ones a go and see how they perform. I cant complete a 3dmark benchmark with the 169.09 drivers and they always crash.
I just got gears of war as well and the game asks for updated drivers when using the dell 156.61 drivers

 

NBF 169.04 drivers increased performance in Counter strike source stress test from around 160fps to 207fps I am going to see if 3dmark 06 will run without crashing

 

169.09 from NBF has worked very well for me, stability is perfect... but as zerg pointed out it seems to be hit or miss for some people.

 

I spent two hours going from DriverCleanPro to 169.04 and then after failing numerous times going back to the screen flicker on AOE3, C&C3 with 167.45 drivers. This really &U#... but I will try other drivers soon.

 

NBF work a treat for me too, apart from some very minor graphic issues when playing Crysis.

Everything else is fine!

 

Ok, Looks like I get the ID 10 T award today. My screen flicker was caused by the )@MN mouse tails. Once I turned that off we are good to go.

 

@mn mouse tails? Im getting a little bit of flicker too, Please explain

 

You may not have it turned on... Control Panel | Mouse | Pointer Options | Display Pointer Trails. Uncheck it if it is checked.

 

what is GSKILL RAM?

 

I tryed installing graphics driver 169.17 and it says setup detected that windows does not have 32bit vista and that its only compatible for that....I know i have 32bit, i checked....what is the problem can someone help me?

 

Looks like http://www.gskill.com/ GSKILL ram was installed on Elganja's machine. My memory is made by Netlist "NL8256421207F-D53M"

 

When I tried to install 169.17 it said my Dell 167.45 was better and windows did not think I needed it. Now the OS makes decisions for me.

 

GSKILL is just a brand, nothing more nothing less. My system intially had 2Gb of RAM... i upped it to 4GB. Performance (3dmarks wise) did not change but mentally it did for me

 

@Elganja - you DO get more of a boost from PCMark05 with the extra RAM even in 32bit. I went from 52xx to 62xx with the extra 2 gigs...

 

So any suggestion on how to install those driver?

 

Sounds like you need to redownload them - perhaps from a different site? Make sure you pick the right ones - 32bit VISTA vs 32bit XP, etc... I think you got the wrong file somehow... bad link maybe.