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

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4591753#post4591753

 

Lucky you i saved it to my lappy

 

Thanks!!!!

 

I restarted.. now how do i get into the hybrid sli settings??.. sorry

 

I've got a little question...

Does the SXPS 1340 have a sleep button? There's a button with a moon-like symbol on the F1 key, but that seems to power the laptop completely off.

Is there any specific way to configure this button perhaps?

 

Check here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4787400&postcount=2344

 

Fn + F1 is the hibernate combo, you can change that on in the energysettigns to sleep instead.

If i want sleep if either just close the screen or press Fn + Esc, which puts your lappy in sleep, and then use the Fn + F1 to hibernate when i know that im not gonna use it for a while.

 

Is this only for people who have the upgraded 9400 video card?
Or does this work for the onboard video?
I do not see GPU options

 

Yes you need the 9500 gpu (hyridsli, 9400 + 9200) to save power this way.

 

Whoops.. sorry to waste everyone's time

 

Has anyone installed Win7 on this beast yet? I am seriously considering actually getting it when it comes out to put on my 1340. Right now I am using Ubuntu 9.04 98% of the time and it runs great!

 

Hi guys!

Well good news. I called them up and I told them straight out whats wrong. The dude said they'll send out free upgrade to 64bit but he said some software dont work on it I told its cool, but what did he mean?

Furthermore, they said its a known problem where the notebook heaps up more than usual so the technician or whatever will come out and take a look replace some parts and I'm still in the 21 days return warrenty period or whatever so I'll send it back and get a new one if it still has problems. I think he said the lag might be due to the fact the notebook is heating up too much. Hope it all works out.

So do I need to get more ram? Just get 2gb DDR3 for one slot and sell one of my 1bg ones? Will it make a big diff?

Cheers,
ReeNah

 

I'm running the RC right now and everything is working perfectly, all the dell drivers work fine (not sure about graphics though since I got that from windows update) and it's pretty damn fast.

 

Hello going to post here too since one is a 1340..

OK, well my OCD kicked in, and I bought 4 XPS systems to compare against each other, and would like some input.

For reference, I am happy with all screen sizes (currently on M1210 now), will NOT be for playing games, playing movies, professional photo/video editing, nor music production.

WILL be using some intensive CAD programs and doing SQL/Oracle reporting (Toad & Golden). (Still OK with smaller screen size.)

Can you please review the following systems and put your 2 cents worth in which would be the best system for me? I'm not configuring cost, because I got good deals on all 4.

What I'm looking for is which certain hardware configs may have known issues, and what would be best for what I'm going to use it for.

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

 

I've been keeping up with this thread for the past few weeks, and finally decided to register to ask a few questions before I make my purchase. It's been very interesting watching the progress of the XPS 1340 over the past few weeks, and it looks like the A06 BIOS update has helped fix a lot of the overheat issues. Thank you so much to all the folks who post here, because it's really helped keep me informed.

But I have a question.

I've had an Inspiron 700m for almost five years now, and the machine has been an absolute gem to me the whole time. But it's getting old, and honestly, I'm finding my eye is wandering by newer, shinier, sleeker laptops which move faster.

I'm a bit of a traveler, so I use my laptop quite a bit on the plane and carry it with me to press junkets, media briefings, and the like in order to do liveblogs. I use the laptop for watching movies while traveling, as well as for my daily productivity tasks, which involve writing articles and emails, browsing the web, and scanning through videos.

I'm currently debating between one of the new Studio 15 models (Studio 1555) and the Studio XPS 1340. I like the slightly better specs of the Studio 15, such as the Blu-ray drive, as well as the added screen real estate. But the smaller dimensions, lower weight, improved battery life, and overall sexiness of the 1340 really appeal to me. Especially given that I carry my laptop with me every day.

I'm looking for a laptop that can handle video editing (will be recording to a camcorder, then dropping the flash media into the laptop to import it into Pinnacle Studio) as well as some light games. I won't expect Crysis to run on it, but being able to play Civilization IV and Galactic Civilizations II on it... even FEAR on medium settings... would be nice.

So which would be better for me?

 

I would strongly say the Studio XPS 13 is no way any good for anything graphically intensive......

 

The GPU (9500m) in the sxps 1340 is seriously limited by the driver availability right now. In the other words, the drivers stink. COD4 plays much better on the integrated chipset alone, than it does with the GPU power cranked all the way to full power. Hopefully one day that will change.

 

Hi,

I just have bought the following studio xps 1340 for $1200 (tax included) on the dell outlet using the coupons availale online but i am second guessing my choice after reading a few pages on this forum

Studio XPS 1340 | P9600 2.66 | DVDRW | 500GB 7200rpm | 6GB DDR3 | 9500M | Windows vista x64 ultimate | 6 cell battery | Dell Wireless 1515 | Dell Bluetooth | wled screen | webcam 1.3

I have a few questions in mind
1) Is the heat a real issue as of today on your studio? Do you have any reliability problem?
2) can i see a dvd in the plane entirely?
3) does it worth it to buy the 9-cell battery

thank you for your answers, finger crossed on this pc that looks too good at this price point.

 

1) Yes heat is a problem. Install the latest BIOS update A06 and see what you think if you find that hot.
2) I've tried, it's practically dead watching 1 film even just web browsing with Bluetooth off WiFi on it doesnt last long. It's not a portable laptop in my opinion it's more suited to constantly being plugged in say at a work place to give presentations. It's not much cop if it's not plugged in all the time and in my opinion not much cop at much else.
3) It needs more battery life for sure.

 

sweet, and a very good deal, you have almost the same config as mine, except you have more ram and a bigger hard drive for $300 less than what I paid. as for your questions.
1) I never found the heat to be that big a deal, especially in power saver, but everyone has a different comfort level, so see how it feels to you.
2) depends on how long the dvd is. if you watch on power saver, you should be able to make it through most movies, but you won't have much power afterwards if you want to watch something else. just web browsing and watching hulu i get between 2:30-3:00 hrs, and as the dvd will use more power you'll probably get between 1:30-2:00hrs, though I'm not sure about that since I have yet to watch a dvd movie on this thing.
3) for my needs the 6-cell is fine, but since you asked about being able to watch dvd's you may want the 9-cell. You should first try it out and see if the 6-cell is enough for you, if not then order the nine cell, as it generally adds about 2 hrs of battery life. Moose did a review of the 9-cell on this site, so just search for 9-cell review and it should pop up, he has pictures and everything, a very good review. There was also a sale on the 9-cells for $70, not sure if still going though.

As for this laptop, I love it. The screen is awesome, its lightning fast, and stable. What I think is going on is that dell has screwed up the quality control on this thing. When its done right, this laptop kicks , but unfortunatly it seems that lemons do seem to be getting through, though not as many as this site makes it seem. Just take this thing through its paces once you get it. Oh and one more thing, if you begin get the blue screen of death, take out the 4gb chip of ram and see if that helps, some people on this thread have posted about their 6gb configurations coming with faulty 4gb chips. Then call dell and explain and have them send you out a new chip.

 

1. They can get a bit hot. There have been a lot of reports of them getting hot but not really any of actual overheating. Also some seem to get hotter than others, probably a lot to do with whether they applied the thermal paste well. They're reliable as long as you do a clean Windows install after you get it.

2. Probably. Make sure it's in power saver so it's only using one graphics card, switch off wireless/bluetooth (there's a button), and turn down the screen brightness a bit.

3. Possibly. I can get 4 hours battery on the 6-cell but I've got the SSD.

 

Has anyone removed their battery? I have a couple of times and the edge toward the optical drive cracked off on top... and now the long edge on that side is starting to crack as well. Its strange, it was very had to remove the battery and replace it so I am assuming that is part of the problem why.

Anyways I would really like to know everyones Win7 experiences with this machine. I really wish I would have installed it before I get my system how I wanted it, I would have really liked to see how it performs. The more and more I use Vista the more and more I do not like it... but from my previous posts you might know that I run Ubuntu 9.04 64bit and love it on this machine, but dual boot into Vista to play games.

I just wanted to check with everyone on the battery thing.

 

Can you take a couple photos of this to show exactly where its cracking? that shouldnt happen.

 

These are probably the WORST photos I have ever taken, so please excuse them, my regular phone that has auto focus is at the Nokia repair depot.

You can see (kind of) the crack the bottom right of the battery, and you cannot see the other crack that has just appeared up farther from it.

From Stuff

From Stuff

 

Hell yeah I can see that crack, thats not good. Looks like a build quality issue if it's tight as anything to remove the battery and replace it. Id be on to them to replace it, you have photos now of it too to send them.

 

Thank for all the honest replies. I can't wait to have it. I will take the time to check it up , check the heat, the memory, follow the advices and give a verdict. I have sold my old thinkpad r61 for that (great resale price on these babies by the way), so I am really picky.

Any issues with windows 7 rc x64, i am looking to have this as my main os.

 

I have not used RC x64, but I did use the beta buil 7000, and found it quite buggy. Vista on this machine runs extremely well, so I'm sticking to it until the final build of Windows 7 is released for retail. You should probably set up a seperate partition for windows 7 and dual boot, I wouldn't be too conftorable using a non-final product as my main OS. Also see how you like vista on this laptop, I know on an HP I had vista ran like crap and was frustrating the hell out of me, but on my xps 13, it runs beautifully.

 

You paid $1200 for that? and it is an outlet pc?

I paid $650 for mine and it has 2.4ghz, 320gb 7200 hard drive, and onboard video, and wled, 4gb ddr3 ram

So you paid an extra $600 for .2 extra ghz, 180 extra gigs of hard drive space, Graphics card and an extra 2gb of ram (i doubt you will notice the difference between 4 and 6gb of ram)

You should take it back and buy a outlet pc that has 2.4ghz, 500gb 7200 hard drive and video card.. keep it with 4gb ram.. probably can get it for 750 or 850 then buy a 500gb external hard drive for $115

Then still have money left for a nice carrying case, laptop cooler, external mouse, Flight Stick, 50 pack of DVD+R DL

Thanks-
Daniel

 

Hi Daniel, thanks for the feedback,

This is called the "max everything out geek premium"

What you propose is basically $1200 me) vs $900 (average of you proposal) for a slightly better configuration. I think I will keep it as is since I have sold another laptop to buy this one and for me it is almost a non cash out deals. the deals also got vista x64 ultimate and office that might have no value for some people here ;-) but in reality they do.

However you got yourself an incredible deals at 650 ( I have seen you config at 662+tax on the outlet including the coupons)

 

umm. he actually got a great deal, his computer has a bigger HD and more ram and I paid 1500 new for mine. Also its not just .2 extra ghz, its got twice as much cache and an overall speedier processor. Just the upgrades on the dell site cost:
$175 for the processor
$425 for the RAM
$75 for the hardrive
$100 for the graphics card

so thats $775 before taxes in upgrades compared to yours and it only cost him an extra $550, and a new one with these specs cost $2,034 before taxes, saving him over $800, so I say he got a very good deal.

Now if its worth the extra money for these upgrades or not is completely subjective. Obviously to you its not and what you have suites you just fine. To me its worth spending a couple hundred more to get the fastest maching you can afford. Everyone has different tastes in what is important for them in their laptop.

 

Gotcha.. I guess if people really use their computers for intense graphics apps and other things .. you would need to max the specs out.. but most people are stupid and buy extra specs they don't need
One guy in our company bought 6gb of ram to run 2 16bit applications..

I am sure that extra cache and things are nice.. about a 1 or 2 seconds difference.. the dedicated video card is nice and 6gb of ram may also be slightly better..i am not impressed but I will go back to my corner as this fight is over! buy whatver you like =D

When we get Core Duo 3 i will be happy

 

No fight/battle here, just friendly comparaison that are helping people out , I am sure. maybe this is the sound of the delivery truck that will be soon coming down the street that makes me feel happy today...

 

I just thought I would say that I bought a brand newstudio xps 1340/1640 off ebay today for $15
Dell Studio XPS Express Remote
The seller has at least 10 more available if anyone else wants one

Keep in mind they cost $23 at dell.com

 

haha, no fight really. Some of us just like having the best specs we can afford, even if it only speeds up boot time by half a second, its all good.

 

Actually its core2duo and the "2" means that it is a dual core cpu with 2MB L2 cache. I am not sure why they don't call some CPU's like the P8600, Core3Duo because it has 3 MB L2 cache and then there are CPU's with 4MB L2 Cache...

 

Actually the 2 means that it's a second generation Core Duo processor..

The first ones were called Core Duos, and these ones are Core 2 Duos.. and I'm sure we'll see Core 3 and 4 Duos.

 

No we won't. Intel's new processors (Clarksdale quad core and Arrandale dual core) will likely be called Core i3.

 

Oh... lol I heard somewhere that it meant the L2 Cache... OH well no one really knows how intel makes up its names

 

The power cord they give you with this computer is too short.. it really annoys me.. need to get a 9 cell battery thats all.

I hope you got your computer today mr vibe.. gonna be sweet!

 

I bought one of these off the dell outlet...

P9600 2.66GHz
6GB RAM
320GB 7.2k RPM HD
LED Backlit LCD
6-Cell battery

I am pretty happy with it, except I'm having the issue where it BSOD with anything but the 2GB stick of RAM in it. Does anyone know if the new nvidia driver fixes this?? I thought it was a RAM issue (I've heard these hynix sticks suck!) but recent research has made it seem like it's a driver issue with the video stuff. I knew this hybrid SLI stuff sounded too good to be true

I'm talking with dell about the issue now, hopefully I'll have a resolution. The only reason I'm not pissed is because I only paid $1000 for it

 

Another person bought an sxps with 6GB of ram and it would BSOD unless he took out the 4Gb stick and left in the 2GB.
I'm not sure if the ram is the problem though... dell is probably going to do something about it

 

Damn my 3rd one from the outlet was working perfectly but now the fan has started rattling! What is wrong with these computers?

 

Hi guys.

I have ordered my XPS1340 today from the dell outlet £676 delivered,,

Studio XPS 13 Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz)
Internal DVD+/-RW (DVD & CDread and write)
Hard Drive 320GB Free Fall Sensor (7200RPM)
Wireless Europe Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
Power Cord UK/Irish 90W AC Adaptor 3 pin
Keyboard Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Battery Primary 6-cell 56W/HR LI-ION
Dell Wireless 1515 (802.11n) Half Mini Card
1 Yr XPS Premium Support
4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Display 13.3in WXGA (1280x800) White LED
Graphics 256MB nVidia 9500m graphics card
English Genuine Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium

Ive been a stalker of these forums for a while as i have owned several XPS M1530 laptops,,,

I wont say i have read all 240 pages but cetainly the last 100

and glad i have prior knowledge of dell laptops else i would have run amile after some of the horror stories on here, ,,

but re the heat issues, i would be keen to know how many of you with severe heat probs have the higher end proccossors, i mention this because all my 1530's got warm especailly playing games but , my latest one which had the
T9300 2.5ghz cpu in it, ran very hot to an uncomfortable limit on the lap..

anyway looking forward to getting mine and clearing all the problems i'll encounter lol

 

just ordered one of these bad boys and was wondering if anybody has a remote control for it?

If the expresscard remote control from other models works on this?

 

Just posted on the previous page:

 

At the dell uk site it's only £3.49 delivered! Thats crazy! lol Thanks

 

I just received the notebook and did a clean Vista install. I think I got all the drivers installed -- no more yellow question marks in Device Manager. Anyway, I have the 9500 graphics card and that seems to be installed okay. However, I also see VGA Controller (VGA compatible) under Display Adapter and whenever I start my machine, Vista reinstalls the drivers every time. Does anyone else have this issue?

Also, how do you see the temperature of your CPU? It feels hotter than my Vaio even though I'm just browsing the web. I have the A06 bios installed.

Thanks!

 

Sounds like your display drivers are not installed correctly... Dell says you need to install chipset first when doing your driver install, not sure why but I suppose it's possible there is a good reason, perhaps that caused the issue. I would try using the following steps:

1) Go to control panel > programs and features
2) Click uninstall on nvidia drivers
3) Select only the graphics drivers and uninstall
4) Reboot
5) Go here and get the latest video drivers... make sure you select either 64-bit or 32-bit properly
6) Reinstall using that package
7) Reboot again

Basically you should end up with a 9200 and a 9400, or for some reason on my machine now i only have the 9500 showing *shrug*

 

are you talking about the remote? if so that is crazy
BTW I just received mine today and it nice. It does stick out about 1/4" but its actually a good thing IMO because it's easier to put in and out instead of normally having to push ur fingers farther in and all.

 

Guys, I just bought my lappy a couple of days ago! Hope I get a good one!

Ordered: Apr 31st
EST Date: May 18th

Specs
-2.55 ghz 3mb cache
-4 gig DDR3 RAM
-500 gig hdd 7200rpm
-Slim WLCD LED
-Hybrid Sli
-3yr return to depot
-Rest is regular stuff

For around $1880 CAD