===> The Official Studio XPS 1640 + ATi 4670 GPU Owner's Thread<===

was just going to add they are 100% Windows 7 compliant

 

I just noticed that windows update on windows 7 added an updated ATI 4670 'optional' software update .. it was published 8/28

do you think it is newer than ATI's published 8/17?

 

scorpeoon. im not sure you follow me here.
we played around with settings until both laptops had similar FPS.
(both had Native resolution (1080p) + AA enabled (X2 and X4)...then we just change the settings until the FPS where similar)

the result became as i posted..........and yes, it tells pretty good the difference between 4670 and 3670, (it wasn't mind blowing so to say)

 

Actually, I agree - I think its a quite useful comparison, since you're at native resolution, you can't go higher on the laptop, so it gives an idea of what you get between the two cards. Makes me happy with the cheap model I got from the outlet that has the 3670!

N

 

i see what you did, but different graphic options have different hardware requirements, only by changing one graphic option from medium to high (or opposite) could cause a dramatic fps increase/decrease while other settings don't even notable change the performance, it's not really predictable so by doing this, you can only guess the amount of the performance difference.. if you know what i mean. sure, you can see approximately the difference from this in most cases, but i think if you want to be precise, the best way to compare them is to use the same settings and see how much fps they give.
peace, bro

 

At the end of the day, both the HD3670 and the HD4670 are 128bit mid-range GPUs. There is a performance difference, but of course it's not mind blowing as you're not moving up the ladder in terms of GPU classes. I mean, the HD4670 is currently the 2nd fastest mid-range GPU(the Nvidia GT240M being slightly faster) and the GT130M, the die-shrunk 9600M GT/9650M GT from the last generation, still holds up to the top 5. As you can see, there isn't exactly huge leaps in performance from one generation to another.

 

Since we're talking graphics cards, I got 6851 on 3DMark06 with Windows 7. I also got dual 6.7s for the two graphics values in the Windows Experience Index. Not bad for a mid level graphics card.

 

anybody here have experience buying a certified refurbished laptop from dell's outlet? Do you think it's worth it? Also what do they mean by having observable cosmetic blemishes?

 

Anyone having trouble with the webcam working with Windows 7?

 

Hi folks, new here to NBR and also a soon-to-be proud owner of a 1640. I placed the order back on 8/12 with a delivery of 8/31, but half way through the waiting period i called Dell to find out the status because according to their website, the ship date got moved to the 14th. According to the rep, the reason for the delay was because the 1640 was a popular model that they didn't anticipate the surge of orders, nto to mention their stock got depleted on some hardware. So, I exercised extreme patience and waited, but alas, Dell came through with their promise of prioritizing the order and it shipped. I should be seeing that beautiful box today, according to Fedex. happy day!

I'd been lurking here for a while in eager anticipation of joining "the club" and I have read a ton of posts about the good and bad of the 1640, but all in all, I am still looking forward to getting this machine. My specs are similiar, if not the same as many others here...16" FHD WLED screen, 4gb RAM, etc. etc. one thing I did notice that I thought peculiar, but I'm not complaining is that when i placed the order online, they stated for processors that they offered the T9600 processor, but when i looked at my invoice, it is a P9600. i know the P series runs on less power than the T, so seeing that they made the replacement seems cool to me, so if anyone ordered the T9600, you're more than likely gonna get the P instead.

I went to Best buy over the weekend to pick up a brand new laptop back pack to house my new bundle of joy and I saw that they had a 1640 on display. it was nice to actually "see" the machine I am getting, although BB's machine has a lower configuration, but in terms of seeing how it works and to observe the construction, it gave me a better sense of what i was getting. From what I saw, it looks very sturdy and as far as temperature, it doesn't run any hotter than my current machine which is an HP DV5. I love that machine to be honest (and it's not even a year old), so parting will be sweet sorrow. Once I get everything transfered over to the new machine, I'll be putting it up for sale. The specs of my current machine are still good mind you (P7350, 4gb ram, blu-ray, 15" screen, 320HD), but I found I needed better resolution on the screen and a faster processor for all the CADD and 3D graphics I do (not to mention I needed the new hotness, lol).

Anywho, when I get her unpacked this eve, I will go over her with a fine toothed comb and make sure everything works before I start transferring files and reinstalling software. i have to admit that i am very excited about transitioning over to this machine...and this is coming from a guy who avoided Dell like the plague (guess it was the bad feedback i got from folks who had to deal with Dell's CS).

Well, sorry for the long post. I'll be here and i will hopefully look forward to asking tons of questions and looking for any advice anyone has to offer. Thanks guys!!!

Jim

 

Funny how you brought this up because I was looking online about how to insert special ascii characters (inserting a "blank" character to be exact) using a laptop and I found a website that stated that in order to use ascii, you have to hold down either the alt, ctrl keeys and use the m , . j k l i o p keeys that mimic the 1-9 keeys on a numeric keypad...this eliminates the need for a third party program. Hope this helps.

 

@jmorv: I'll keep my message short: Welcome!

 

T9600 is faster then P9600 so I would certainly complain. Try to make an arrangement that you can keep the P9600 (as said: it's 25W) but get a refund to compensate the difference in speed.

I already tried that, but didn't work. Will try it again when I am home to be sure. Thank you anyway! What is the link to the website?

 

1st post, hi to all!

My System (Purchased in the UK, 05/08, direct from Dell):
Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.80Ghz, 1066MHz, 6MB)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT)
Black Leather Back Cover: 16" Truelife 1080p Full HD RGBLED Edge to Edge Display
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM (2x2048)
500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive
Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Internal Blu-Ray ROM Combo (Blu-Ray, DVD and CD Read, DVD & CD Write) Slot Load Drive with Software
1GB ATI Radeon HD 4670 Graphics Card
Intel WiFi Link 5300 Half Mini Card (802.11 a/g/n) (Centrino)
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
Integrated DVB-T TV Tuner and Antenna (MLK Base)

Have now read all 161 pages of this thread , and some good information to be had, thanks!

Have decided to wipe and re-install, and already made a backup of the drivers with Driver Genius.

Got a couple of questions:
1. Still can't get the TV card to find any channels, but to be fair, haven't yet tried the method suggesting to get 'WinTV MiniStick (55xx)' from Hauppauge.co.uk, just wondering if anybody's had a faulty 1?
2. Find the slot loading Blu-Ray to be rather noisy reading a disk, also, having never had any experience with slot loading devices, how far should I be having to insert the disk before it's meant to get sucked-up?
3. This might be for UK only, but have been on to Dell about my machine not being recognized when attempting to order my Windows 7 upgrade, and they have told me they'd have it sorted by Thursday, we shall see, but that it's also going to cost me £20, I was under the impression it was FREE?

Anyway, a happy camper, it's a great system!

 

I alway thought the diff was just in wattage...so how much faster is the T over the P? i currently have a P7350 and it runs like a champ, even with games that i have, but not the same caliber as some of the more intense games. I am primarily using this laptop for CADD and 3D work, not much for gaming on a laptop as I have a PS3 to handle that.

If in fact the T series IS faster in terms of speed over the P series, i will surely call Dell about it....damn, now you got me thinking.

 

I have a refurb'd 1640 arriving today. I can say from past experience, I got my wife an XPS1330 with a white cover from the outlet that was covered in scratches. The tech support rep had me email him a pic showing the scratches and he had a tech come the next day and replace the cover with a brand new one. So, from my experience, it seems if the cosmetic blemishes are too much, you can try getting support to send a new part.

N

 

Quick Question. when i ordered my XPS16 i paid 25$ extra for the SoundBlaster Xfi software. I reformatted my machine and dont have a disc for this. I contacted dell and they said i can downlaod the application from the driver section on dell.com support. So i downloaded the "creative labs soundblaster A00-R213242" and installed that. However,, i still do not have the whole "suite". I have no creative or soundblaster section in my start menu, and cant access the "control Panel" section for the soundblaster where i can make changes and enable any fo the enhanced sound or anything. Has ANYone had this issue? Thanks

 

Most excellent, this is exactly why i came to the forum today. That's got me thinking as well.

I also have the P7350. I did it to drop the price initially. It runs great but i'm a video, 3d max, maya head and i ran a side by side with my 3 year old xps210 with a 2.13 E6400 w/ 2 mb fsb. and my laptop was only marginally faster. Like 7 seconds faster in a render test.

So...

I want to upgrade the processor. My questions is...

Do the the 6 mb fsb processors need a totally different motherboard/chipset?

I would ideally like to upgrade to the T9600 (6MB cache/2.8GHz/1066Mhz FSB)
if the chipset is going to be a conflict I'll go with the
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8700 (3MB cache/2.53GHz/1066Mhz FSB)

Info and thoughts?
thnx yall!

(p.s. love this machine)

 

Nice list here where you can compare Mobile Processors, perhaps you will find it useful.

 

Is it possible to just order the white screen cover part and replace my osbian black (fingerprinted unatracted cover) ? would this be a complex job? will the cost of the part be expensive?

 

P-series Core 2 duo is just amazing CPUs.....
my P8700 2.53Ghz 3mb Cache performs just damn great.

have been using a lot of different mobile CPUs in the past, mostly Intel, but also Turion and of course my favo Pentium M.
(my first Pentium M 760 2.0Ghz was just sooo damn fast with my go6800 ultra FS M4438G ..... i really really loved that laptop

that was the start of loving Intels Pentium & Centrino family

 

Right on, thanks for that reply! yeah everyone loves the P's.=) my question is a little noobish, forgive me.

If i upgrade my 2.0ghz p7350 3mb to a 2.8ghz p9700 6mb will i run into problems? power overconsumption, overheat, bios compatibility, because the cache is now 6mb instead of 3mb, etc?

I just want to get everything clear before i drop $400 and totally start messing with the internals of my baby. haha

 

or can i just pop out the p7350 and drop in the p9700 and call it a day with no extra work.

 

its enough with a P8700 or a P8600. (really)

 

Well Dell uses a universal BIOS for all the laptops, even with a different configuration. Consequently the BIOS has to support all the possible CPU's (and probably even more) you can choose on their website or even on all their websites from all regions (If I'm not mistaken the BIOS is universal on an international scale).
TDP will not be a problem, the CPU has 28W TDP.

The question is: what in the world are you going to do with it that you can justify a CPU-upgrade of freaking $400???

 

Does the "Obsidian Black High Gloss Finish" option not have the leather under the metal strip? Cause there is also the "Obsidian Black with Leather Accent" for $40 more...

Also, What exactly is "Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled"?? Is this even a hardware upgrade? Or is it just a piece of software?

 

Hey guys,
I just received my S XPS 1640 and I just finished formating and reinstalling vista 64, I do however have a small problem regarding the reinstallation of drivers... Could you guys help me out?

I inserted the utility disc and went on installing the drivers according to the list here: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=339949 BUT, I started off installing drivers that did NOT have the "V" mark in front, does that matter, do I get double driver's conflicting etc.? And, after reformatting and reinstalling the ATI driver, I can't change the resolution back aaand the screen is much more grainy so I wonder if I actually did install it (Files are in c:/program files/ati.... )?

If I get double drivers etc, I'll probably end up formatting again, I hate it when stuff don't work as intended.... -_-::

 

Right on man, yeah I think i'm going to lean that way. No reason to get all crazy. I'm a slave to numbers. haha

Thanks for the information disco.
why? well...i think i'm crazy. hahahaha. I'm impulsive. I just want to make sure that this machine is going to be able to handle being relevant for more than two years. but after thinking about it..yeah it's pretty stupid.

i think i'm gonna roll with the p8700 although i'm chomping at the bit for 2.8 ghz for running massive amounts of HD footage

 

Yeah i ran into that problem as well ( i don't know about your driver conflict situation. don't think that is a big deal )

for the ATI driver i have your quickfix. You need to download mobility modder. Simply google it and go to the mobility mod page. Follow the instructions absolutely and you'll be rockin in no time.

if you happen to figure out how to the get the camera to work with the dell camera software let me know. currently i can only get it to work with google video chat.

 

I would like to know the answer to this as well !

 

Im barely getting 2 hours, if that, outta my 9cell..I hate to think what the 6cell would give me...

 

Thanks a lot, I got it now, now I just have to figure out how to get the actual Dell webcam software back, I've tried to download and install (and the driver's seem fine) but I can't get the software itself?? (With the interface etc..)?

And, What sound driver do I need if any? I get 3 options from the Dell.com site but so far I'm using the IDT High definition Audio codec, is that right?
I got the stock soundcard.

Sorry for typos, I've been using a mini netbook the past month so this big sxps keyboard is a bit strange for me still.

 

Does anyone know what the memory type for the ATI 4670 is? DDR3 or GDDR3?

 

Gddr3..............

 

Did you check with GPU-Z or similar? Dell has the inconvenience of only writing 'ATI 4670 1 GB' everywhere, I don't see them mentioning the type.

 

I rarely use battery power but I have to agree. With the 9 cell I'd say 2 hours at best on the default power managed settings.

 

with my p9500 undervolted, wifi on lcd at min brightness, web surfing I get 2h30m with the 6 cell

 

Well, I pickup my machine, unboxed it ever so carefully, gave her a good once-over for scratches, dents, scrapes, etc and found her to be in perfect condition. Since this is my first Dell, I was a bit scared that SOMETHING would be wrong, and seeing as though the invoice was already showing something wrong with regards to the processor, I bit the bullet and went ahead and started her up. Long story short, I checked the hardware and first off, it was Dell who made the "typo". They told me I had a P series 9600 processor, but the machine showed the T series, so i am running at 2.8ghz which is a good thing and I dodged that bullet. Everything else checked out, so I continued with the setup and registration. The ONLY thing I found to be buggy was the facial recognition software. It would do it's thing at windows login, but would occasionally start a new profile. i would reboot and it would fine...no biggies, I may not use it anyways in the future.

Of course, having Windows Vista ultimate was a nice perk, but then this IS Vista and I dealt with it's slowness for about an hour and decided to upgrade to Windows 7, which actually went faster this time around (about an hour or so) compared to doing the upgrade on my HP (that took almost 3 hours). Everything STILL works fine with the exception of the facial recog software (hopefully that wil get rectified with the retail release of 7).

I brought my puter to work so I can finish installing my software and copying all of my backup files to her. So far, everything is smooth. I am having NO hardware issues whatsoever, so it gets me thinking as to why so many others are having probs?? I found the article about the RGB LED screen calibration and installed the recommended profile which made the screen look better than it did (I have to agree that the default profile had the reds a little too red). Did I mention that i LOVE Windows 7?

One last thing about this machine and please take into account that this is my first DELL, but as far as temps, she does get warm, but not any warmer than my HP DV5. The palm rest is warm, the upper portion around the power button gets warm, but that's understandable and not a great cause for concern. i did notice that around the bottom of the touchpad, along the outside edge, it gets really warm, but again, I suppose with touchpad hardware, this is normal. All in all, this machine hasn't caused me to call DELL or the fire department...it runs just fine, but I believe this is due in part to keeping my power profile set to balanced instead of high performance. I'll run some tests this eve to tax the machine and see if the profile needs changed if the performance is slow. I have successfully run CADD, Photoshop & Illustrator CS4 without a prob, although i do hear the fan speed up occassionally, but I am sure that's the machine maintaining it's cooling ability.

I love the keyboard with the backlighting. I typically work in the living room of my home and the lighting is very low, so the backlighting comes in handy. The media controls work fine and as far as the "loud" slot load DVD drive, it's to be expected but much better than the drawer type I had before, always bumping my mouse off the table. lol

The only nitpicky issue I have right now is the power cord. Why on earth would they design a connection to the power brick to make the cord wrap beneath it? That brick gets hot, so why insult to injury by having the cord pressed against it? In terms of length, it's fine, could be longer like my HP.

Lastly, in case anyone is interested, my specs are is follows:

T9600 processor running at 2.8ghz
16" FHD RGBLED screen
4gb ram
ATI 4670 w/1gb gddr3 ram
Dell bluetooth
Intel 5300 wifi
500gb 7200rpm HD
slot load dvd drive
The rest is yada, yada, yada...typical Dell inclusions

IF anyone has any questions they want to ask me about this machine and my experience with it, I am all ears.

 

jmorv: congrats on your new lappy
i'm also going to install windows 7 at the end of this week. i think i'll also try undervolt my processor, i heard some good experiences about that.

 

It is a very bizarre power cord design.

 

Haha, ya the power cord design is ridiculous! I thought maybe it was me as this if the first laptop Ive ever owned so I thought there had to be a reason for it..I just don't get it.. Also it gets incredibly hot too!

I thought I was the only one that thought this, lol

 

I think its so its easier to wrap the cord around the brick when you need to pack so that the connection won't come lose over time :S

 

Bit late, but, from one Brit to another............

I posted about the hauppauge solution to the TV channel problem. As you found, WMP just can't find nowt! I was told it was "sumfink to do wit the way the frequencies are set up", but don't quote me. Anyhow, the hauppage download works a treat.
As to your Windows 7 upgrade problem. it also happened to me. You need to get your TAG number recognised by Dell support.............give em a ring.

Regards.

 

Indeed it does! Fingerburning hot actually! Especially when the machine has been working hard, it becomes so hot that I cannot hold it for more that 5 seconds... Pretty crazy if you ask me...

 

Don't wanna mess up your budget, but I must say that I'm quite happy with the T9900! It runs like an absolute champ; don't want anything else! Rendering a 2 hour Full HD H.264 movie with Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack from my Full HD Sony camera (SR-11e) takes little over 4 hours to complete! That's extreme performance, since I got used to my desktop machine working for 2 days on the same job...

 

yeah, i showed my roommate that and all he totally freaked out! I wonder at what point it will just melt. lol

 

I've included the power brick with my laptop when it comes to "cool down time" prior to packing it up in my bag. My HP Pavillion power brick would also get toasty, but what's funny is how small the brick is for the XPS...almost like it shouldn't be the right one to use. oh well, I keep the brick away from any exposed skin.

 

Ya wow its fricking hot..really hot..You've all heard of the laptop battery fires of the past..maybe now its being transferred to the power brick.

Power Brick fire headlines incoming!

 

Yup, same here... Just disconnect the power brick 10 minutes before packing up to keep it from burning a hole in my bag...

Ow, and good news:

My new machine just got delivered! So I can now officially apply for membership of the "1640-with-4670-GPU-club"...

Looks like I'll be doing some benchmarks soon...

 

I have no games to benchmark..what can download and use to bench my baby?

Any idea how to get rid of a squeky spacebar button?