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

installed driver 173.65 and simply right clicking the desktop causes Windows Explorer to crash.............

 

^^^
rofl!

Thats the worst Ive heard yet!

TBH once I have a working driver thats running the games I want to play pretty well, I just stick to it, until I get a new game that needs the driver update...

 

Ifti,

I think I'll stay away from the "desktop drivers". Would you recommend any of the 167.x ?

 

TBH I didnt use any of the LaptopVideo2Go drivers for the following 2 reasons...

1. Most of them are not WHQL certified, so my BluRay drive wont play movies.
2. The drivers are desktop drivers, with a modified .inf that 'fools' the OS into thinking its a mobile driver. Desktop drivers are created for desktops only, since their running temps differ from notebooks. A desktop card is much bigger, has a larger on board fan, and is in a much more open space then a notebook GPU. The notebook GPU will need the fans to kick in earlier to cool it, since they are in more of a confined space with all the other components, such as the hot CPU, etc.

Hence, Ive stuck to either Dell drivers, or drivers direct from Nvidia.

Currently Im using 167.51 - the Beta drivers from Nvidia's site, and have all the Nvidia recommended Vista hotfixes installed. They seemed to be the most stable drivers I could use, and give me good performance in games (well I only have UT3 and COD4 right now, but Ive also played the Bioshock demo at max settings perfectly fine).

With the stock Dell drivers, even viewing some photos in Windows Picture & Fax viewer caused my system to crash!

The only issue I have with these 167.51 Nvidia Beta drivers in regards to stability is that it will crash when using Windows Movie Maker, so I have to switch SLI off. Other then that they seem completely stable, and as I said above, give me good performance. My 3DMark06 score with these drivers was just under 8900.

 

Gutted, Dell cancelled mine due to their mistake... Now quoting me 3rd march, they say they will order it as high priority... bet that means nothing..

Does make me wonder if this was fate and just cancel and take my money elsewhere....

 

Looks like we may be able to use our Physx processors after all

http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1202161567170.html

Hopefully our M1730's wont be out of date by the time some decent games with Physx compatibility come along!

 

Have they taken the payment for it yet??
Why did they cancel it?

 

Somebody made a mistake... A woman with a different email address tried to cancel hers and they messed up and cancelled mine. The customer services woman even asked me if I knew a Michelle ?. I asked how they can cancel without my explicit permission ? different name, different ***, different email address and domain. No real answer and just we will reinstate your order etc.. etc..

I was in pre production so I assume they haven't yet ?

Better call my CC company and get the scoop.

Really frustrating.....

And of course the delivery date I now have means I will be in California for a week so won't be until mid march or something crazy that i get my hand on it.

Do feel like cancelling I must admit...

 

For some reason, unless I use NBF tweaked drivers, i get really pixelated divx playback. Viewing in WMP is fine, just in divx player... weird.

SHOOT, now i get pixelation even with the NBF driver. arghhh.

Trying out the latest mobile driver 167.59

 

Man, when are the 8800 cards coming to Australia?

 

I'm guessing that we will be the last to get them, just like everything else

 

maybe the 8800 will solve my driver problems LOL

 

Booooo, Australia wants the cards today!

Wonder how much they'll cost out here? I reckon about $800 - $1000 extra?

 

Ouch, that must have hurt! I would have been well pissed.
A bit of a stupid mistake though, I must admit. I think you should stick with it though. Although the M17x is also a beast, I stil prefer the M1730 due to the other little extras with it.
Pre-production means that they havent started building the machine yet, and are waiting for the parts to enter their inventory. Im guessing all customers who have ordered the 8800 machine are also in pre-production yet, since the 8800 cards havent arrived.

Im hoping they will be a lot more stable as well, although I have a feeling the SLI issues will still be apparent! Im also hoping they bring out some good stock drivers! However, Im comforted by the fact that even if I have to use a single GPU for now and switch SLI off while they release some better, more stable, drivers, at least I'll get the same performance as the 8700 in SLI.....

 

Just checked the status of my second M1730 with the 8800GTX in, the estimated date of arrival is 29th Feb, and its in pre-production at the moment.

So much for my account manager marking it as urgent!!! Oh well, I guess its because thats when the 8800's are arriving or somethin.....

3 whole weeks!!!!!!!

 

Order Date: 08/02/2008
Estimated Delivery Date (on or before this date): 29/02/2008

Can't wait

Never thouht I'd spend 2.6k on a laptop

 

^^^ you what??!!!!

Thats EXACTLY the same as my details!! lol

I also ordered my second m1730 (for the 8800 card) on the same date as you, and expected date is also the same!! lol

I spent £1300 on it - since its a low spec one for someone at work to use. And on the evening of the 29th the 8800 card will be removed and placed into my system, making it a max spec m1730 once again

Cant wait!

 

Fecha de pedido: 07/02/2008
Fecha de entrega estimada (en esta fecha o antes): 29/02/2008

Ifti im still waiting for your 3dmark06 at 1920x1200 XD

 

Seems like everyone ordering now is getting the 29th Feb as the estimated date.

3DMark06 score with my current 8700's?

 

8800GTX Sli at 1920x1200 = 10k
8700GT Sli at 1920x1200 = ?

 

I was getting a score of around 8830, using drivers 167.51.
No overclocking whatsoever. SLI enabled.

However, that was just using the free version of 3DMark06 - Im not sure which res that runs at? My native screen resolution is 1920x1200 but I didnt make any changes in 3DMark06.

 

The free version runs a 1280x1024, tip of the day told me this just as I opened 3dmark 06 to check lol

 

If I install x64 version of Vista will the m1730 use all 4GB of ram?I heard there might be a chipset limitation?

 

Yes you should see all 4GB of RAM.
Make sure all the drivers for your hardware, and any peripherals, are available in 64bit versions before you reinstall though!

 

Oh I didnt know that, cool cheers.

I usually only check my 3DMark06 when I install a new piece of hardware, or update the video driver (which I dont update often as long as the games I have run fine and its stable), so I only use the free version

 

Ok, Im going to look for the 1920x1200 3dmark06 version and run it... more info after the break.

 

^^^
I think you need to buy the full version to be able to run the test in that res....

 

I got it, and ran at 1920x1200 and got a score of 6307. 8800m GTX SLI kicks its ass lol

 

^^^
lol
Kicks it over twice!!

 

Well finally I ordered my new M1730 with 8800m GTX in SLI Have you already got yours wogstaa? Post some gaming benchmarks, preferably Crysis

 

Also note, that 64 bit version of vista won't run any 16 bit applications.
P.S. You will be surprised how many of them is out there still

 

so, this is my 1280x1024 score




I will proceed now with the 1920x1200

 

so at 1920x1200







I have to say that the speed of the card is at 740/840 so even with a 20% increase of OC the 8700GT is no match against the stock 8800GTX SLi

 

Which system did you do the test above on? The one with the 10k 3DMarks? Or is that someone elses?

 

no, they haven't even released it in Australia yet, I will be getting it though, when it comes out and i have enough money

 

So what would the 3DMark06 score be for the 8800mGTX SLI using the default resolution of 1280x1024?

 

Its not mine, its from someone in notebookforums...

Again, this 3dmarks are not representatives, they are based on 06 technology...

 

I would have to say we would be looking at well over 1200, probably closer to 1400, this is just a guess though. Hopefully we will have some benchmarks soon at 1280x1024, but the benchmarks at that resolution don't really matter.

I don't know if this is right but looking at the scores and resolutions, the 8800gtx sli should perform at 1920x1200 better than the 8700gt sli performs at 1280x1024 in games, if the 3dmark score corresponds to real world gaming performance

So basically the 256 bit memory bus is making a huge difference to the performance, along with whatever else they have changed in the design from the 8700 to the 8800.
Theoretically, the 8800m GTX SLI should have about double the memory bandwidth of the 8700m GT, 256 vs 128 bit. The 8800m GTX also comes with 2x512 mb RAM, so it should perform much better than our 8700 sli

 

While I wait for the 8800GTX Im considering whether to buy a notebook cooler (Zalman ZM-NC2000).

At the moment I have my laptop propped up from the back by about half an inch to aid cooling.

Im assuming the 8800's are going to generate a lot more heat then the 8700's?
If so, do you think its wise to buy a cooler?

 

From what I've googled, the TDP seems to be the following:

8800M GTX : TDP of 35 W
8700GT (29W) .
7950GTX (45 W)


So the 8800 GTX doesn't seem to generate a lot more heat than a 8700GT.

 

It is nice to see some replies with some thought and data back up. I get really tweaked reading the Dell forums and seeing all the ranting and replies on this system by people who have no clue about what their talking about.

 

Well... Unfortunately I had to google everything. I was unable to find any official Nvidia specs...

 

cheers for that.
I may see how things go with the lappy propped, and if it feels like its a lot hotter, then I'll get the cooler I guess.

 

From previous readings I came to the know that the architecture on the 8800GTX was 65nm while in the 8700GT 90nm... so my assumption is that it will not only run coooler but also it will be a lot more overclocable... XD

 

Well i have just ordered the lian li nb-02b cooler, as the fans are adjustable in position so that they can be placed directly under the m1730's vents..

i looked at the zalman, but im not sure it would be as effective..

 

Specs of the 8800m GTX can be read on Nvidia´s pages.

Core clock 500, Shaders 1250 Mem 800, these will be easily clockable to 575 core, 1500 shaders and 900 memory

 

For what its worth Dell in the US has released 8800M GTX Sli drivers.
Maybe a good sign?

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&fileid=238581

 

I have seen 2 ppl allready on notebookforums saying their computers are on the production stage...

 

Using some extra cooling? And also how can you overclock GPU, through some software or through BIOS?

 

At last, I was wondering when the drivers would come along. Hopefully they will be stable and give some decent performance.

Cool, mine is still in pre-production, but my account manager has just emailed me saying he has requested that they prioritise mine - hopefully they will and it'll come a little quicker!