===> The Official Studio XPS 1640 Owner's Thread<===

alex09: There's no heat _issue_ with the SXSP16, it runs a little hot if you're gaming, but it's not an issue.

about the win7 upgrade: i guess it just upgrades vista without removing any applications. So you will have to live with the initial bloatware.

 

When I ordered the 9-cell from Dell a couple of weeks ago, they gave me an estimated ship date in January, so I canceled. Must be backordered from their manufacturer.

 

Hi guys ,

This forum is so damn slow!!!!!!! I'm having a really hard time doing searches and reading the knowledge here.

Maybe someone can point me in the right direction:

I have an XPS 1530 and because of a simple problem I have, they are replacing my laptop with an studio xps 1640. I am obviously consider its an upgrade, so long as my specs are >= the 1530 I have.

Has there ever been a direct comparison done? I already know I will loose the fingerprint reader.. which I'm not happy about since it has really become a habit.

Will a 1530 battery work in the 1640? (Just bought a new 9-cell, doh!)

Any other differences? If you guys know of any thread I can look at that would be helpful too.

Thanks!

 

This is not a faulty hard drive. See this thread, this verbose post specifically, for a quick and effective fix explained by yours truly. You need only a cmd line.

 

Even when using the 6-cell battery? I am not a gamer, just need the notebook as a desktop replacement (i.e. running it for approx. 8h per day).

 

just leave the back and bottom vents open to fresh air. Do not cover them. Having some sort of lift for the rear will help the bottom vent pull in cool air. I use 2 water bottle caps. You have nothing to worry about, especially if you arent going to game

 

Suddenly the 1360x768 resolution disapperead from the available modes list, and I can't use it in any games either. I'm running Win7 with latest
ATI drivers from their website. It's so strange, because I haven't installed or changed anything after I gamed last week (using 1360x768).

Is 1360x768 supported in Windows 7?

My screen is the 1080p RGBLED.

 

I want to use a lower resolution, but all of them do not fill out the screen? What is your experience with increasing the DPI or font sizes?

If anyone has any advice on making it easier to read on the studio xps 16, i'd greatly appreciate it. I have tried to increase the dpi but other menus, and text become distorted or boxes look off. I have also tried lowering the resolution but then there are black portions of the screen.

Is there an alternative to these?

 

If you pick a resolution that's the same aspect ratio as the screen, it will use the whole screen, but won't be as sharp as the native resolution. That's why I don't want a super high resolution screen on a notebook (or monitor for that matter).

 

yeah, go into your display settings, find the catalyst tab, click the button to open the catalyst manager, and when it asks basic or advanced, choose advanced.
in the "notebook panel properties" tree, choose attributes. There you will have scaling options like "preserve aspect ratio", "full screen", or "centered".

I dont know why im responding to help you .. no one bothered to help me!! Oh well , Ihave my new 1640 now and Im going to learn to love it because 8gigs ram and 3Ghz is almost double what I had in my 1530. Boy I do hate wide screens though...

 

couldnt find the options, i wonder why, the graphics driver is from dell. maybe i need to look up for amd & ati driver.

 

wow. I did not realize there is NO:

Break
Scroll Lock
or
Pause

on the keyboard. It is impossible to use any of those keys anymore. What the heck!!! I've been robbed!!!!!!!

 

The 1340 doesn't have them either...

 

Has anyone tried fitting the new Western Digital 1TB drive in their XPS 1640 yet? My 320mb is nearly maxxed out at the moment and the laptop is running like a dog as a result. I know the 1/2 TB will fit...but I'm a space hungry monster.

 

Hello everyone, after reading almost 250pages..i decided to post..to tired to read for another few hundred pages..lol, i've been reading this thread even before i ordered a SXPS1640.

i've been using Studio XPS for more than 2 months now, so far, I can say, this is the best laptop by the value of money..and i love every single inch of it, no doubt! from the design itself to the performance of it..my friends and siblings "wowed" when they see the SXPS16..

I use this laptop mainly to play a lot of games,watch movies and sometime VPN to work, and so far, it has not dissappoint me,my frens and sibling also use this once in a while.

this is my spec..its a bit low bcoz this is the best of what i can afford..it cost me RM3599 (malaysian ringgit) and in dollars would be around USD$1439 average..computer hardwares in malaysia a quite expensive..

for example:
option to upgrade 256GB SSD is around RM1256 equals to around USD$500 dollars!

Below are my specs:

Dell Studio XPS 1640
Processors: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 2.40GHz 1066MHz FSB 3MB Cache
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium 32 bit SP1 Edition
Displays: 16" 720p WXGA (1366x768) WLED HD Display
Memory: 3GB (1x2GB/1x1GB) 1067MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Primary Storage: 250GB SATA (7200 RPM) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive
Optical Drives: Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with double layer write capability
Graphics Cards: 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670
Multimedia: Speakers and Built-in Microphone
Color: Black
Connectivity: 2.0MP WebCam
Wired: 10/100/1000 Ethernet controller
Wireless: Intel® WiFi Link 5100 (802.11a/g/n) Half Mini-card and Dell™ Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
Palm Rest: Standard Palmrest
Power Supply: 90 W Adapter 3 Pin
Battery: 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Additional: Integrated CREATIVE Sound Blaster® X-Fi MB Audio Software Solution
Warranty: 1-Year Limited Warranty By Dell

Maybe its my luck, I never get any system hangs, BSOD or any crash or what so ever, so that my i'm totally in love with it, Salute Dell.

These are the games i'm playing on it currently.

Assasin's Creed, Resident Evil 5, The Last Remnant, World of Warcraft WoTLK, Drakensang..all these games run flawlessly about the the heat issue, i dont find its that hot at all,though, it is quite warm on the left side of the palm rest (malaysian weather is very hot, around 30-30c during day)..i have yet to buy any laptop cooler, due to my limited budget, will get Zalman NC2000 soon..but if you not playing games at all, SXPS is not hot at all, i mean, at all..and silent as well. I've also disabled the touchpad bcoz i use a blue-lighted Razer DiamondBack mouse most of the time (fits with the blue-lighted AC adapter)

This might be funny, but every week, I will apply baby oil to my SXPS to keep the shine and smoothness, this will also reduce the fingerprint magnet on the black finish, try it!

 

Thank you Ryasket, what do you need help with?

 

I have answered most of my previoous quesitons.

But here is a tip for all:
We don't have scroll lock/pause, or BREAK anymore.

What to do?

go to start > run > type OSK and press enter. With this on screen keyboard you can press break, enable/disable scroll lock and press pause. Not ideal, but a workaround.

After wasting 1.5 hrs chatting online with Dell technical, they could not understand that "scroll lock" did NOT mean enabling/disabling the scroll feature of the mouse touchpad. I dont know if its the language barrier or what, but they could not help me in the slightest. i came up with the OSK workaround myself!


How about this one: Does anyone else suffer from random hangs of explorer in Vista? My taskbar will be inaccessible for about 20-30 seconds at a time. It pops up "windows explorer is unresponsive" and asks me to quit or wait. If I wait , it always comes back. SOO Frustrating. Anyone else?

 

-WINDOWS 7 32/64 BIT DELL WIRELESS 370 WORKING DRIVER!-
Not sure where to post this, but I have found a driver for the Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth card for the XPS 1640. (since dell is too lazy to give us one!) The link is here:

http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/getFile.asp?id=23452&dscr=Broadcom BRM2045 and BRM2046 Bluetooth Driver Version 6.2.1.500

It is a gateway driver, and actually says acer somewhere when loading, but when I ran the setup.exe file, it found my dell 370 device, and installed everything perfectly!

Once this is done, you can go to http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php and download the 3.5MB SetupBtwDownloadSE file, and it will find your BT driver and update it when needed.

 

I've used the Dell BT 370 Windows 7 x64 driver from Dell, here, and it works just fine too.

Not sure why they don't list this one under the Studio XPS 1640, but it works fine.

 

Thanks for the link, strange that it is not linked from the Dell XPS 1640 download page . But, one thing I did notice is that my link is a newer version. It would be interesting to see if you go to the broadcom page ( http://www.broadcom.com/support/bluetooth/update.php ) and run the update to see if it says you have the latest version? When I ran it with the .500 version, it told me I was up to date... Let me know!

 

I ran the Broadcom BT update utility (a couple of times), and each time it seems to stall on detecting BT hardware. Not sure why, but it gets about 20% through detecting and then at the bottom it shows a red circle with a white X in it and says my software cannot be upgraded and to contact my hardware vendor.

I'll try the driver at Gateway and see how that goes.

Personally, I wonder why Windows 7 doesn't even SEE the BT hardware? It's seems like an anomoly on various notebooks that after a clean Windows 7 installation, there aren't any devices in device manager missing drivers, but BT is nowhere to be found. It takes installing some software for it to finally be noticed. How odd...

I have found on my 1640 an interesting power saving behavior, and that is if I don't move my BT mouse for a few seconds, the BT LED on the front of my 1640 goes off. I assume the OS has powered off the BT to some extent, but as soon as I move my mouse, it comes back on. Interesting...

 

Yes, it is quite bothersome that Windows 7 didn't even SEE our bluetooth, even when you do a search! It makes me wonder what else it missed! I have the same behavior with the bt light on the front btw... wiggle mouse, solid light....

 

Hello,

I've tried to install the drivers, and use the Broadcom app..
But the setups say please turn on or plug in your bluetooth device.
The wireless switch isn't helping. How did you guys get yours working? The light on the front of the laptop isn't lit.

Thanks!

 

Check your BIOS and make sure that BT is enabled, and for starters, make sure the wireless switch settings in the BIOS are NOT controlling the BT hardware.

If you still don't get a BT LED on the front, double-check your hardware (remove the bottom panel) and check that you have the BT card installed in your 1640. I think if you check at Dell.com in the support/manuals section, you can find the service manual which shows you how to locate the BT card (in case you don't already know).

Or, check your Dell.com order and ensure yours came with it!

 

Yeam Um Does Anyone Know How To Overclock The Processor P8600, It Came On My Dell Studio Xps 1640

 

By the way, has anyone played GTA IV on the DELL STUDIO XPS 16, because it lags, and my processor is p8600 2.4 Ghz + 1GB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 Video Card, does anyone know how to overclock the processor or any solution on how to play GTA IV smoothly?

 

forget about playing GTA IV, it's the most hardware demanding game at time. You could probably make it playable if you run it at 1280x720 with every setting to lowest.

 

Just recently I've been having a problem with windows aero. When I log into my normal account it is disabled with vista basic instead and I don't even have the option to enable it again in the control panel. My admin account always has in enabled and when I log into it, it has all the flip3D stuff working fine. If I then log into my normal account then it starts with aero no problem.

This started happening a month or so ago. Also, is it normal for the hinge lights to be on when the system is turned off when charging the battery? I could swear it never did it before but I don't unplug my computer much so I can't remember well

 

Could part of ATi's drivers require admin access to load?

 

Yes. Try to disable UAC during that particular process.

 

I tried setting myself as an admin and disabling UAC but it still didn't fix the problem

 

Hey everyone, I'm having a huge issue here. I was trying to update to BIOS A11 but the installation crashed and I had to hard reset, so now my studio xps won't turn on! I'm trying to use phoenix crisis recovery to flash my BIOS back but I need the source files.
So I hope you can help me guys! I need you to use winflash ( http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1122/Winflash_2.0.1.2.html) to extract your BIOS and me the source files.

I'll appreciate any help you could give me i'm going nuts!

 

I have read that it IS possible to reinstall your system using the Win7 upgrade disc and do a complete install instead of an upgrade and it WILL get rid of the bloatware. i did it last night using the Win7 RC (haven't received the official upgrade yet from Dell) and I did a complete install with no problem. It took everything I had and put it into a windows.old folder on my C drive so i was able to migrate my files back where they were but I have to say that the pure Win7 OS is much better and without the Dell bloatware, the machine runs much faster.

 

Anyone else with weird sudden shutdowns? Just experienced my third one within two days...
Did a clean win7 install, updated all the drivers, A11.

 

Hey can anyone tell me what model their Intel 5300 network card is? Does anyone use a half height card or are they all full height?

 

I had a few unexplained shutdowns when I installed windows 7. Turns out I had windows 7 set to automatically reboot on a BSOD (I think this might be the default). I found some MEMORY.DMP files and used WinDBg to have a look at them. They all pointed to the ATI driver causing the BSODs. I therefore uninstalled the ATI driver (and the associated catalyst software) and let windows update choose a driver instead. I have not had a problem since.
YMMV of course...

 

Thanks for the ATI hint. But what do you mean by "YMMV"?

 

YMMV = your mileage may vary.

only BSOD i got so far was due to utorrent 2.0 beta, and yes i was surprised to see the computer reboot by itself too. got the last offcial ati drivers install (modded)

 

Sorry: -

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/your_mileage_may_vary

 

Did you install catalyst as well?

 

Ah hehe, that's good to know

 

My card reader has stopped working. I've tried it under XP, Win7, and Ubuntu Linux, all to no avail. Under Windows, the driver installs no problem. It simply does not see an SD card when I insert it. I have tried two different SD cards. It was simply working one day, then not the next.

Any ideas / help? I am contemplating calling Dell (I bought it in April), but dread having to go throught their scripted response before they agree to fix or replace it.

 

if you have never experienced Dell XPS support before, I would advise you not to worry.

Although there is a language / understanding barrier for very technical issues, most of the time they are very helpful and always fix the issue. There is a reason I have extended my warranty another 3 years

In fact, the only reason I have a 1640 now is because dell support replaced my 1530 because they could not solve a problem it was having.

I highly recommend starting with the Dell chat, letting them know all you have already done, and running through their troubleshooting. If you have at home support, they will send a guy out to fix it asap.

 

I agree. Dell's customer service sucks but their tech support is among the very best. I always resolve my problems by calling them and they are ALWAYS helpful and try their best to help me. Sometimes they even connect directly to my laptop and do the job wirelessly LOL. If they cannot, they would send someone out to physically replace stuffs....I have 2 yrs warranty+inhome service+complete care and will certainly extend 3 more years when my warranty is almost out. There's a good chance my 1640 would be out of production and I might get some new model for free hehehehe

 

Hey guys,

I just joined this forum so thought i'd introduce myself. I ordered a studio xps 1640 on 29th of last month. I ordered it with a P8700 processor, 500GB 7200 rpm hdd, 4gb ddr3 ram - rest being stock. I didn't go for the RGBLED screen since I'll mostly be using this machine for school.

I've been checking my order updates through the Dell order status webpage and its been in production since I ordered. Today, while going through some older posts on this thread, I found the number where you can check the exact stage the order is in, and it says my order is in the boxing stage. The system says that it'll ship by 10th so I'm pretty excited right now I'm moving up from a 2 year old hp 530 with windows xp, so both in terms of hardware and software (windows 7), its a big jump for me

Thanks,
Ad

 

Update: On the non-functioning card reader. After a relatively painless chat session with Dell, they will be coming on site to replace the motherboard. Hmm...Maybe I'll get an upgraded video card on the new MOBO!

 

You probably already know, or were told. But just to be sure.. don't forget to backup everytihng. A new Mobo means you need a new OS install also

 

No it doesn't new Hard drive = new OS install

 

I guess it depends on what hardware is on the MOBO. My guess is I will just need to update the drivers (for the video card, e.g.). In any case, I am prepared for either scenario: OS reinstall or driver update.

 

no need for an os install or driver install(except BIOS) everything will be there as long as your HDD is not changed even then dell puts the OS on it so you would only need drivers but since your HDD is staying the same you dont have to do anything ecxcept turn it on and update the bios if it's not the latest thats it