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

Make sure you have the latest drivers and BIOS installed on your machine before doing anything.

 

Have you tried reinstalling windows and the the video drivers? The initial vista installation is very buggy. After I reinstall and drivr update mine in running flawlessly.

 

I havent yet. Ill try that, thanks.

 

Has anyone noticed that the entire system slows down when you're copying files from a media card?

 

I was copying some files from my sd card to an external hard drive, and YES it did slow down quite a bit. The animation of the file copy process was really laggy also. Hmm...

 

my laptop order?

 

Has anyone had their CD/DVD drive replaced? I was wondering if it was a job I should trust to be carried out under warranty on a one day old 1340. This laptop is a replacement for a 3 day old 1340 which stopped charging its battery. This one ate the first DVD I gave it - a Photoshop Elements installation disk. It took the disk in slowly, made lots of very strange noises and struggled to read the drive whilst successfully installing PSE. However, it will not eject the disk. It keeps trying, but it appears there is someting blocking the disk ejection. I have had to disable the cd/DVD drive as it keeps trying to eject when trying to run other programs.

I have called Dell and asked for another replacement laptop. This current one also has the wobbly feet syndrome - the front left foot is high. Fitting a nine cell battery makes the wobble considerably worse. The first laptop was OK apart for the charging failure. Dell wanted to replace the motherboard on the 3 day old machine - I said No. Now they want to replace the DVD drive on a one day old machine. I said No - but they wont make a decision on replacing the machine until the next weekday - Monday.

Shoul I risk having the DVD replaced, or should I stick out for a replacement laptop? It took Dell 3 weeks to replace the first laptop, despite promising priority treatment, and who knows what problems a third machine may have. By the way, both laptops are UK machines made in Poland.

So - replace or repair - that's the question??

 

What does the battery status LED look like on the front of your guys' laptops? Mine keeps flashing randomly, all the time. Is that how it's supposed to be?

 

What battery status LED?

The only battery LED's are on the actual battery itself..

 

Hello Everyone!!

just purchased a new studioxps 1340 on 17/03/09 and received it on 25/03/09

Despite promising start....let down with some technical issues.

I am wondering if you guys having some problems with your latop as what I am having.....If yes then can you tell me please how you solve this problems

1). At each side of laptop with dell logo, Amber light not comes on when battery is low, goes straight to flashing amber when battery is critically low...(it says on manual it should come on).

2). In icon tray there is a green logo when you click on it...it gives you option to select between boosted performance and hybrid sli mode...but hybrid sli is grayed you cannot choose that option.

3). On keyboard pad, there is a button right next to insert iwith laptop logo, to choose from different external display...when i connect to hdmi..and use that button to select it...keeps on crashing showing error message of "quick set closing"...and you are stuck with what ever mode of display you chose..button does work anymore.

4). BOY OH BOY......does it get hot or what...use yesterday for 40 mins watching movie...and did it burn my lap or what....man even charger was boiling hot....

Sorry guys for giving you long list....as I have only 2 days left for my refund...therefore I need answers...otherwise I know dell customer serv they wont refund my money if even 1 day is above the time limit.

SAD to see this problem from day 1

 

Dell has left a bad taste in my mouth (2nd time buyer, first purchase was a XPS 420, I love my Dell Desktop, can't say that about my first laptop purchase from Dell). I first attempted to purchase the XPS Studio 13 on 1/12, and waited a whole month (due to an accessory holding up the order, & no one couldn't tell me that @ Dell as to why the order took so long) before they shipped it out on 2/24. Then when I get the laptop, the lid didn't close flush, one side of the lid had a centimeter gap, while the other side laid flush. On top of that, the battery had to be given extreme force to take it out. So I called Dell & they issued a replacement, once I received the 1st replacement laptop, the lcd screen has hundreds of dead pixels!.. Where is the quality control on these laptops! Seems like Dell doesn't believe in making a superior product, just one with subpar build quality. After receiving the two defective laptop, Dell sent out the 2nd replacement, this time the laptop seemed ok at first, until I attempted to use the slot loading disc drive. It wouldn't feed in any disc I attempted to put in it and mad a grinding noise when it tried. So once again I'm back on the phone w/ Dell's helpless support people. After being transferred around 7 time to the wrong department (India gets a "F" in support, I'm sure many of you feel the same way!).. I finally had to call the sales team, and finally had the issue escalated to the "Escalation Team". They called back within 24 hours, and really didn't offer much choice but to return the laptop for a full refund, including accessories that I purchased that lapsed past the 21 day return policy. I really like the laptop and all of the features it had. Compared to other brands, Dell has the most features for your dollar. Too bad they can't build a superior product! So I'm a returning the laptop, I guess I will wait a month or so to buy this laptop again. Hopefully by then the quality assurance improves!!..

 

Hmm, I don't know what to call it then, but on the front edge of the laptop there are the bluetooth, wireless, wifi and battery icons that light up. So far, the wifi light is on, the antenna with the bars doesn't ever light up, and the battery icon keeps flashing. Also, did this laptop come standard with bluetooth? I can't remember...

 

Right there are 4 lights at the front. From left to right:

Hard drive activity, Bluetooth, Wireless, Infared.

The laptop doesn't come standard with bluetooth, you had to specify if you wanted it or not.

 

The last icon is not battery or infrared. Its Network (HSDPA) for mobile internet that will not come on unless you ordered it for the additional £99

 

Ohhhh, hahaha, guess its the hard drive then. That makes more sense. Thanks!

 

Return it before it is too late. The heat is here to stay in this book...so if you use it on your lap a lot it is a no go

 

Have nothing but sympathy for you. See my post on page 205. I always thought Dell used to stand for something. I could always rely on very good customer service. But since things have gone to India it has all gone pear shaped including build quality. I think this is my first Dell since they moved production from Ireland to Poland.

Even if you ask to escalate matters you end up going round in circles on the telephone.

If my replacement laptop is not upto scratch l will be cancelling.

For anyone interested l have stuck Win2008 Server on my Studio XPS 13, had to use an external monitor due to dodgy screen, and everything is ok apart from the following:

1) Issues with the Bluetooth stack, but there maybe a workaround
2) No OSD when using volume, mute, play, etc along the top.
3) Wifi doesn't work out the box, you need to add wireless lan role.
4) HyperV won't use Wifi card, you have to bridge the wired and wireless card together if you want your VM's to have access to internet if your using wifi on the host o/s

Apart from that Win2008 rocks on the laptop, have been playing with HyperV and got some Win2k3 and XP VM's running on there as well.

Not sure whether l will load Win2k8 on my replacement laptop or stick with Vista64 and put VM workstation on.

 

Spoke to technical dept about my problems...told me that motherboard faulty...

Now need to call customer care serv and either ask for replacement or new one...ahhhhh...I can see myself spending hours and hours on ph and going around each dept to get my msg across with their highly communication skills

 

Can someone post a picture of amber from the SXPS 13? When will it turn amber like what % of battery life? Mine just skip to the amber flashing when battery has around 7% left.
Edit: I asked the Dell online service and they said that it is normal to behave that way. He said that if the light goes to just only amber then the notebook does not function correctly. But I am still not sure tho.

 

$899 this week at Best Buy

P8600
9400M
Home Premium 64-bit
No LED screen
4GB DDR3 Ram
320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive

 

The sxps 1340 supposedly has an aver media tv tuner... but how do you use it
there are no ports or anything...

Does anyone have any info about the tv tuner?

thanks

 

I noticed the Dell provided video driver doesn't properly switch between GPUs when unplugged, or after 4 minutes of inactivity like it should, I have to manually select the 'Power Saver' power plan to cause it to do anything. I can install the latest modded desktop driver and the power management works, but I lose sleep mode, and I the screen flickers black every once in awhile when it's plugged in. Seems I can't win can I?

 

so going through all these posts .. i was just wondering .. how many of you actually have perfectly working machines?

since i seriously want a xps 13 .. but just dont have the confidence yet to go ahead with a purchase

 

Well, after testing my laptop for two days, I am confident to tell you that i have a perfectly working machine. Don't be afraid to try it. All you need is patience. If you get a defective one, then call Dell to give you a replacement. And wait for the 2nd/ 3rd/ 4th...to the perfect one arrives.

 

Perfectly working machine here, runs quiet and cool, no wobble, no quality issues.

As hanming said, if you get a dud, Dell will keep replacing it until a perfect one arrives.

 

awesome .. how well does hybrid sli work? .. good enough for casual gaming?

 

After a couple of days use, l have had a couple of freezes. One was 10 after on a cold boot. Fingers crossed my replacement SXPS_13 will not have this issue

Fresh build of Win Server 2008

Also l have noticed that when l rebuilt the laptop with Win2008 and the drivers off the supplied CD, there was an option in the Advanced section of the Power Schemes to set the GPU. I had a custom scheme to have CPU at max and GPU min.

Since l have done all the latest updates from the Dell website the GPU option is no longer present. Any ideas?

 

ok is it just me or are my temps crazy.
Core 0: 65
Core 1: 65
GPU 9200MGS: 70
GPU 9400MG: 70
and the ACPI, THRM or whatever it is: 70..

i knew it was hot, but wow, this seems crazy

 

Replace the thermal paste

CPU 0 40C(103F)
CPU 1 40C(103F)
GPU Core 56C(132F)
GPU Core 51C(121F)
ACPI/THRM 49C(120F)

 

yes the.. thermal paste.. ? haha i havent got a clue.

while playing dawn of war, my CPU 0 is 73, CPU 2 is 77, and each f the GPU's are 83, and 81 for the THRM.

also from your sig picture it says your using an SSD, dont they greatly reduce heat as well? at least i read that somewhere

this is more suprising as well. my start up temps are between 40 and 55 for the various components. ive only just turned the thing on!

 

My DVD drive was bad and Dell sent me a replacement which took about 20 minutes to swap out. No problems now.

 

No problems here, and mine is from UK outlet

 

Besides the DVD replacement and wobbly feet (which were never there until I replaced the DVD - gotta play around with the screws) mine works perfectly. Of course I formatted it and reinstalled Vista before ever even booting into the Dell supplied image, but that goes without saying.

 

I tried these step by step, first few moments, everything seems like OK but the display drivers cause my lcd to go black and HDD light flashes in a once per second rythm, no other way than to turn off/turn on.
Tried many MCP79MX drivers as well as GF 9400MGS drivers, nothing helped.
When I enter safe mode and uninstall the drivers, leave the devies as "standard VGA", with a question mark, everything else seems to work.

After installing XP 8 times and having to restart, install/uninstall drivers countless times, I'm about to throw this machine out of the window, or better start jumping on it...

I don't think it's a hardware issues since Windows Vista doesn't seem to react that way...

Somebody please help... Any ideas ?

 

Anyone have an answer?

 

Thermal Paste
You take off the heatsinks on your CPU, GPU, Chipset, and removed the existing thermal paste on these Chips and apply thermal paste.

And yes, the ssd does make it run cooler

 

ok i might give it a go. another thing that suprises me is that the start up temp of the various components is between 45 and 55 degrees, and thats after i just started it up!

 

hybrid sli comparison for the last remnant uploaded here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9bj1xWj9SY

pretty significant difference.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/31/dell-studio-xps-13-unboxing-and-hands-on/
Engadget unboxed one.

 

Cool. I took pictures when I unboxed mine and was thinking of posting them here

 

New nVidia GeForce 9500M (A05 178.98) drivers are available for 32 bit and 64 bit Vista from Dell Support...

 

LOL look at the date on the new drivers 4/1/09... that scares me

 

What are people using their XPS 1340's for? Anyone running CS3 or 4? 3ds Max? Revit? I'm curious how hard you are pushing your systems and how hard it is working for you. I see that the specs should be able to handle some serious work but from what people are saying it sounds like it may not be up to the task.

 

good question das4340...the answer may help me as well...so anyone knows?

 

Might be a good idea to share!

Cin

 

The photos in that link make it look really cheap looking I think. Thats bad with the rippled leather, I wouldn't even accept it like that.

Also the track pad should be central.

 

anybody with this laptop (with the 9500m GE) play WoW?
i'm wondering what frames this laptop can get with high settings (assuming it can even run the game at high settings)...

thanks in advance!

 

is anyone experiencing a false positive virus on faservice.exe its part of the fast access software but Nod32 keeps quarantining it

 

It would be worth letting eset know about that one.

 

i use cs4 on my 1340.. works just fine! highly considering ordering the 1640 as a desktop replacement and just use my 1340 for travel and school instead of buying a netbook.. hmmmmmmmzzzzzz000rrrzzz!