--->The Official Studio XPS 1340 Owner's Thread<--- *Part 2*

The previous Studio XPS 1340 Owner's Thread was getting too large and slowing down forum search, so this is the new thread.

Original Link to The Official Studio XPS 1340 Owner's Thread

Remember to keep all comments/discussion related to the Studio XPS 1340.

Thanks!

 

well that sucks. whats the point in having the 9500 if we shouldnt use it!
let me know if anyone successfully gets a rep to change your laptop with the new card.

 

I dont see the 9400 having a power consuption of 12 watts, definitely not idle. What i want to know is what we can expect from the new graphics in terms of idle usage?

When downclocked, my P9500 + 9400 have a combined powerusage of about 11 watts, giving my approx 3½ hours or more of battery time.

Will the new boards us the same nvidia chipset, or will they go for a intel one this time? If that would be nice with hopefully better control of energyoptions and better e-sata etc.

 

Check out guys the Dell website for the upgrades on the SXPS 13 GPU -they have a new one (Shows up as N10M, But I'm sure it's a 210M! ) for $135 extra.

 

The 210M has a maximum of TDP of 14W. The 9400M (including its chipset) has a maximum TDP of 12W.

Furthermore, the 210M idle TDP is 7W. Don't know about the idle TDP for the 9400M.

However, the Intel X4500 and Nvidia 9400M seems comparable in terms of power consumption. And if I am not mistaken, some of the newer Asus UL series uses dual GPU solutions of X4500 and Nvidia 210M, apparently to achieve better battery life by switching to the integrated X4500 when needed.

So my conclusion is that the 210M will not be comparable to either X4500 or 9400M in terms of power consumption at idle, or close to idle. I gathered this data by some quick googling, so this may not be fully correct.

 

I'm still looking for a solution for my webcam and facial recognition
my original post
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5363829&postcount=3520
Thanks a lot!

 

I'm just worried that there's absolutely no news regarding this new GPU on the polish Dell site. That and any SXPS laptop only has the 9400 option (the 9500 is strangely absent).

Bah, if I know my luck it'll be a long long while till the new GPU is available and while the tech guy didn't say it would be a problem to replace the motherboard, something tells me the price is going to be like a kick in the balls.

 

You are right on that ^^^ i've read a few reviews that state whenever u want to save more battery life it swtiches from 210m to intel... asus keeps it smart, i mean thats why they have reputation for very good motherboards.

 

for anyone who is thinking of buying getting a new motherboard, just to give u an idea of the price... ebay sells used 9400mg motherboards for around $260+
that being used and low end model. so refurbished 210m will be a price to pay + on top on site tech charge of $100+ ....
so u guys can stop dreaming... I have

 

I heart the part 1 thread!

The 9500 stinks, I'm glad they're replacing it with something else.

 

I'm eagerly awaiting someone to buy a 1340 with the new GPU so we can compare it to the 9500 and see how it runs overall

Is anyone here going to buy one, hopefully I won't have to be the one to buy the new one

 

I think people need to wait for the Dell to have the chipset driver for this new motherboard or can they use the same one?

 

I ordered mine today with the 210m, and its estimated delivery date is 10/22. If nobody has posted benchmarks by then, I'll put some up.

 

...stupid Dell, charging ~$130 for the 210M is a ripoff. It's not even that much of an improvement. For comparison, Sony (yes, Sony, the mother of costly laptops) only charge an extra $50 for the 4570, which is on the same level, if not better, than the 210M. But, knowing Dell's pricing strategies, there should be a coupon for that in a couple of weeks.

 

Keep in mind that Dell is replacing your entire motherboard, not just the GPU. I'm probably going to get the mobo/gpu upgrade too...

 

just curious does anyone notice an increase in performance when using sli? i turn off the boost mode and played cod4 and i get about the same frames.

 

How are u planing to get the upgrade? they dont offer new motherboards only refurbished, and that is if you convince them, then u gotta pay $250+ for the motherboard or it might be a lot more!! then probably different heat sink setup, they wont just send it to you without an onsite tech because that would void the entire warranty, (its not as simple as swapping the HDD) even tho its not really hard, but thats dells view point on it... so overall its gona cost somewhere about $500( thats what Im guessing)

All we can do is wait for someone to buy the 210 setup, who is not afraid of removing the bottom panel and taking pictures, so we can see how the chipset is set, if its using differently shaped heatsinks, etc... plus benchmarks would help just to see how well it does.

So whoever is getting it, please provide us with some pics by removing only the bottom panel( its very easy and will not void your warranty)

 

The 210M is not available for purchase in either new or refurbished form for the studio xps at this time. In a few month time i think that it should become available it you guys want to upgrade. Here's the thing. the 210M should be a sgnificant upgrade over the 9400M, and should be roughly equivalent to the 9500M GE with much better power consumption.

 

They seem to change their minds on this though. I had a defective screen on my M1530 and I offered to replace it myself rather than them send out a tech (lots of people were having problems with the techs breaking things etc). They said no problem, shipped me the screen, I installed it and sent them the old screen back. They even paid for the return shipping.

 

thats good to know that there is an option. Do you know what happens in case you break something like crack the body of the laptop white taking out, or putting in the mobo? Will the new body be covered by the warranty or since its a do it yourself thing you'll have to buy it yourself?

 

Hopefully with a new mobo, those awful latency spikes would go away and make for a better e-sata.

 

The only remaining qustion now is which chipset they will use?
Stick with the non graphicalversion of the 9400 or go with a intel chipset now?

 

Yes, I replaced my entire 9400m motherboard like this as well (to try and fix the esata 3gbps problem). I was surprised they agreed to it.

 

I didn't ask what would happen if I broke something (I wanted to sound competent, after all! ) but it's quite possible it wouldn't be covered if you did it yourself. A guess that's a good thing about getting a tech. They might tend to break stuff but as least it's covered that way.

 

I had a tech replace my motherboard and hdd and I can say they guy was very friendly and did a very clean job. I guess I was lucky

 

Just a random question:
Dell gives us option for only ddr3 which is 1067mhz... is it still possible to put 1333mhz ddr3 in it? or it wont recognize it

 

It would work, but only at 1067MHz...

 

so what limits it the motherboard?
Also when I purchused my xps1340 from bestbuy it said maximum ram upgradable to 8gb.... but at that time on dell it said 4gb ram maximum.
I know that now dell offers xps13's with up to 8gb or ram, but will I also be able to upgrade it to 8gb? The reason Im asking this is because dell kind of confused me with my ram limitations. are all xps13's upgradable to 8gb ram?

 

I'd guess even with the 210M it's still the same chipset, otherwise Dell would have probably renamed it 1345.

 

Same chipset, so yes, all of the 1340s should go to 8GB of RAM. Also, the 1333MHz RAM seems to have CL 9-9-9 ratings, versus the CL 7-7-7 of the 1066MHz stuff you can get for a little cheaper. If you can't get the bandwidth of the 1333MHz, you might as well get the lower latency of the cheaper stuff.

 

-Lagging/Stuttering video and audio on battery power
-15 second yellow/red latency spikes in DPC

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I apologize if this is a rehash of other threads, but I've searched through so many now, they've all pretty much blurred together. Sorry for the length of this post as well...I really just want to get this problem fixed.

I received my new Studio XPS 13 laptop 6 days ago. The laptop came with the A11 BIOS revision already installed, but I reinstalled it just in case. I have the NVIDIA GeForce 9500M video card with the 8.15.11.8628 driver from 6/26/09 installed. I also have the Dell Wireless 1510 N Mini-Card (5.10.38.26, 10/22/08).

The main problem I've noticed so far is lagging/stuttering whenever I watch videos, regardless of whether it's online streaming via YouTube or a standalone .avi file. After maybe 2-3 minutes of play, the video freezes for a few seconds and I hear a "de-de-de" sound, almost like a skipping CD. Then the video will resume, sometimes slightly off-sync with the audio.

This stuttering problem only occurs when I'm on battery power in Balanced or Power Saver Mode. I haven't seen it on High Performance mode yet or when I'm on AC power. The graphics mode is in Save Power mode, although I think I had the problem on Boost Performance as well. I travel a lot so I would really like to keep the battery usage as low as possible to avoid having to recharge it constantly.

I'm not sure if this is related to the latency problem that others have been having regarding scratches and pops in their audio. I've only played mp3s using Winamp and so far, nothing out of the ordinary with that.

Using the DPC latency program, I've noticed that I get mostly yellow, occasionally red spikes every 15 seconds. I read that disabling the ACPI battery driver helps and when I do, I get solid green bars on the DPC output. I haven't seen the stuttering with this driver disabled, but I just feel like maybe it could happen at any time...

Is anyone else having this same issue?
Is there a PERMANENT solution to this without having to disable drivers?
Is it even ok to run the laptop for extended periods of time with the ACPI battery driver disabled?

Disabling the wireless card does not fix the 15 second spikes either. Please help! I prefer not to constantly run my laptop at maximum on battery power.

Other than this issue, I've had no other problems. It's a great laptop and I'd love to keep using it, but I've still got a couple of weeks to return it if there's no solution. I've been surfing around in circles trying to figure this out so I appreciate any help. Please lead me in the right direction. Thanks!

*Edit to add: I'm using Vista 64-bit

 

I dont know anything about latency or what it is but I can tell you that people had many problems on xps13 with both 9400m or 9500m cards!! since you have it only for 6 days! exchnge it for xps13 with the brand new video card n10m 512mb with that your problem should go away!

 

How would you go about getting it replaced with a laptop with the newer card? I just got mine and I have the stuttering problem and it drives me crazy.

 

just tried hdmi out for the first time and it didnt output. it does for a split second then it stops but on my friends laptop its fine. so its not the cord. what am i doing wrong?

 

if your not over 21 days (as that is dells policy) tell them you want to exchange it for same setup only with a n10m card... they'll have to replace the whole laptop since the card is attached to the mainboard

 

I just got it Wednesday last week. That is all that I have to do?

 

Yes just really stress that you arent happy with this laptop due to the graphic card and tell them instead of leaving dell for a different company your gona go with another xps1340 with n10m video card. That card is gona have a lil better performance too. Call right away dont worry. "the customer is always right"

 

Would that work? I'm pretty sure they'd just replace it with one of equal value. You'd have to pay for the upgrade and wait another month

 

thats why there's a 21 day policy if you order from dell.com if you dont like it just return it within 21 day policy

 

Anyone know if there is a dell quickset driver for Win XP as I tried the vista one for studio 13 and no luck.

Thanks.
Also is there a new Nvidia driver out for the 9400?

 

Dell started posted win 7 drivers on their supportsite now.
Only new one is a audiodriver tough : /

 

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...UDE PRECISION M70&os=WW1&osl=en&catid=&impid=
Click on applications>download dell quickset

Don't worry, it's not exclusive to the Dell M70, it will work with most Dell-XP laptops

Ttell me if that works for you

 

Oh, and while the motherboard part was in my hands my account showed a $354.99 charge until I returned the old one. And that's just for the low-end 9400m without the extra gpu. So I doubt anyone would want to buy a an upgraded motherboard for this laptop. Might as well save up for the next gen.

 

Im sorry I missed that you had an upgrade? or a free replacement? was it a replacement for equal mainboard or an upgrade?

I know that it is very pricey thats why Im trying to stress to people that really its not worth it!! Unless they can sell their laptops and get at least 80% of the money back and invest in same one with a better gpu.

For me I was lucky before xps13 I had the latest macbook for 4 months, and I didnt really enjoy it, but since its kind of a trend right now for mac's I was able to sell it for $950, even tho I payed $1100, after 4 months use I didnt really loose any money.

I doubt that it will be the case for dell, as its loosing its "good name" and it doesnt stand out like mac.

But upgrade will be very expensive, the video chip itself being a high end of low end chipsets probably costs around $60 dollars.

So is it really worth it?

Big no, you'll save more money by reselling your xps13 and buying it with n10m card, but doing that will only help dell out, which in my personal opinion they should go bankrupt for making very unreliable systems.

 

I swapped out the 9400m motherboard for a newer one of the same to try and fix ESATA. Didn't fix it. Did fix my chassis wobble in the process (the 1 million screws with half of them overtightened seemed to be the root problem).

 

Bcc...so you bought a newer generation of the 9400m motherboard? If so..you can ask dell to change that for you. If not then you must have g10m-GS gpu. Can you run some tests for us if you have the 210m gpu?

 

does anyone burn dual layer dvd's on the xp13? i just started burning and no matter what i cant burn faster then 2.4x the dvd's can burn at least 4x cuz i use them on my desktop. any tips?

 

No, I swapped out the part myself under warranty to try and fix a defect. But as a side effect I found out the price on the board since they debited&credited my account for the part until the RMA came back.

And, no I don't have the new gpu just the 9400m. The point is that the bare motherboard costs $355 without cpu or anything. So the bare motherboard with the latest&greatest 2nd gpu soldered in will be >>$355.

 

I see...I will just wait until someone has the 210m GS gpu to see the difference between the 210m GS and the 9500m GE. If the 210m is better then i will bug the dell rep to change my motherboard.

 

And you're going to pay dell ~$400 for that luxury??
I don't know why they'd do it for free unless you do something like six figure business with them each quarter.

The point is it hardly makes any sense to swap the motherboard for a few fps improvement when the motherboard is ~1/3 the price of an entire studio xps laptop.