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

Can you upgrade the 3670 ?

 

Does anyone know anything about the new 64GB SSD option on the Canadian 1640.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/...&OC=NSX16_F_1E

320GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive [Included in Price]
64GB Solid State Drive [add $350 or $9/month1]
128GB Solid State Drive [add $200 or $5/month1]
256GB Solid State Drive [add $350 or $9/month1]
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive [add $50 or $1/month1]

Its the same price as the 256! Either its a typo or one SLC insanely fast SSD.

 

right now all ssd are a waste of money, but please everyone buy them. that way the prices will drop by 3rd quarter and i can get one for windows 7 ;-)

 

Heres one more idea,this is a user made driver for the dell wireless driver
http://designedbydave.ca/files/DRIVER.rar
what you would do,is go to:

Control Panel -> hardware and sound -> device adapters -> Network Controllers -> Dell Wireless 1397 Wlan Mini Card -> Properties -> Driver -> Update Driver -> Browse to "directory where you already had "my" driver files extracted" and select "bcmwl6"

 

That driver won't work since I have a Dell 1515 wireless adapter

 

They're talking about some professional audio tool. It's nothing to do with games or movies. The lack of driver support for the GPU would be the biggest issue there.

Nope.

 

did you try it or are you just assuming it wont?

because theres a long list of adapters its supposed to work for

 

Do you have a link with the driver's detail?

 

there was a long list of all the dell compatible cards,im pretty sure yours was there,it wont hurt,what do you have to loose anyway lol.Because this was made by someone who had the same problems with their new dell studio laptop.and there are reports of people resolving the issues in different ways,this was one of them

 

hi guys, is the graphical processor used in sxps 16 better then the one used in studio 15 . I mean the 3670 of sxps 16 when put up against the 4570 used in Studio 15?
also tell what VRAM are these using DDR2,DDR3 or GDDR3?
and is DDR3 going to hav a significant impact in Graphical performance?

 

thanks gsxmusic and thanks to all...

From as I am understanding, this notebook is problematic for music. I hope that a solution is found. Otherwise I will have to take a
CLevo m860tu, than it uses it to a boy cn line6 toneport and it does not have problems.

 

First, be aware that ATi does not support their mobile GPUs, so you have to resort to third party hacks which may cause various issues.

The 4570 appears to have about 2/3 the execution hardware of the 3670, so it's worse. The 3670 (ignoring driver issues) with DDR3 is close to (in synthetic benchmarks slightly better than) a Geforce 9600GT with DDR2, and worse than one with DDR3.

 

I forgot to mention, that 4570 only has half the memory bandwidth of the 3670, so again, it really is a big downgrade. I wouldn't want either one though.

 

why would i ever need third party hacks?

 

Trying out my Studio XPS 1640 for the first time today!!!

It's ***ing amazing (stupid censor bit anti-climatic ). I love it. It's an absolute beauty, I love the blacklit keyboard.

So far it's been on for like 4 or 5 hours, just downloading the Empires: Total War demo and installing various software and so far it's only gotten a little warm, nothing bordering unbearable or anything. Then again it's only a 5400rpm hdd, I'll get back to you when I've played the demo.

Also, I didn't receive the Facial Recognition softwarediscs or Blu-Ray discs. The again I don't much care about the Facial Recognition stuff, or the Blu-Ray since I won't be buying Blu-Ray discs. But if the issue does become an annoyance is it possible just to download the software without the discs?

Also, this is worrisome. I selected 4 gigs of RAM but selected the 32-bit Home Premium Vista. I just ran dxdiag and it says I onlyhave 3 gigs of RAM but I was wondering if it's just showing that 3 gigs of RAM are in use (since 32-bit only runs on 3 gigs) and that I've got an extra gig dormant?

 

Congrats on your new computer! She is a beauty

There should be a card in the box with the website address to download the software. Check and see if you can log on to it. There have been some issues with it but I'm hopeful that they will get it working.

Dxdiag is showing you how much of your ram the system can use. Not how much is installed so don't worry! Go to Start menu - right click Computer and select Properties. You can see how much ram is installed and some other info about your system. You can also get there from Control Panel - System.

 

Ahhh perfect, there it is - 4.00 Gigs

And I'll go looking for the card now.

Also, so far the only problem I have with the whole system is that every little hair LOVES to just sit on the screen. It's not a biggy, and then screen is absolutely stunning but there you go.

And after 6 - 7 hours now of constant use it still has gotten warm to the point that it's uncomfortable. And while the screen does partially cover the vent it doesn't seem to have any particular effect. The area around the screen doesn't even get that warm.

 

Mine is in the boxing stage. Should ship out Monday...so, I should have it Wednesday I suppose since I live in the Nashville area.

Looking forward to it

 

Jesus, when i ordered my XPS630 a while ago, i forgot i ordered it. Eventually i had a big box for me in my bedroom and was surprised, later to find out my desktop actually had arrived....lol

 

That's what I'd like to know too.

Would it be to enable certain features, or maybe without it the card will be inefficient?

 

I just received my 1640 and it is....AMAZING
my specs are P8700, 4GB ram, ATI, 1080 RGBLED, 320GB hdd...
so far, here is what I see:
The good: pretty responsive, great keyboards (so far the best I've ever typed on), fast, great screen (makes my m1210 look like a junk), nice LED blacklit, quite good speakers(I cant figure why people can't stand it, this is just perfect to me, I can't find a flaw), nice design

The bad: this thing runs HOT! (I couldn't leave it on my lap for long, but I think a laptop cooler would cure this)...

Other thoughts: I do not understand why I can't run a vista score. Actually, I could run it, but then when its done, it doesnt show any score...weird. So far the system is great, just what I have expected but it runs pretty hot. Again, the screen (RGBLED) is simple AMAZING, I do not regret paying for it at all.

 

*sigh* Finally....Congrat's to you!

That's great that your enjoying it thus far, and I would assume..the wait was well worth it, now????


Cin

 

For the specs in my signature, I got the following scores:

Processor: 5.4
Memory: 5.9
Graphics: 5.9
Gaming Graphics: 5.4
Primary Hard Disk: 5.8

 

Cin, Thanks for the encouragement. Indeed, I have waited very long for this system (26 days to receive it), but the quality doesnt disappoint me. Again, the speakers are GREAT, its sound is clear, loud, and nice....Still don't know why a lot of people are complaining about it though. Anyways, as I have mentioned, the system runs HOT. however, when I place a little cooler pad underneath (I used the one for a 12-inch laptop) and surprisingly, the system cools down and stays like that.

compwiz0620, thanks for the numbers...I still can't figure out why my system is not giving me numbers...It let me run a test though...I think my numbers will just be like yours

 

So Did you run Xp on the 1640 ?

 

Why would I need thirdparty hacks? What do these hacks enable?

 

I don't mean to quote myself but I really need help on this one. Any idea how I can fix this, anyone? Thanks

 

Does the 1080p really make that much of a difference for movies etc.? Is it really worth it over the 720p?

 

Try enabling it from the Device Manager if you haven't already done so. Otherwise try deleting the driver and rebooting. Out of curiosity what's Fn + F2 supposed to do? I'm pretty sure it doesn't do anything.

By the way guys I just finished playing a bit of Dead Space, all settings on high with max resolution (1920x1080) and was really smooth! It did start getting hot but it wasn't uncomfortable...

 

I haven't seen the 720p but the movies look amazing on the 1080p (except for the reds that pop out a bit too much but I don't really mind it)

 

What I'm meant is ATi doesn't support their mobile GPUs. You have to resort to third party hacks to install drivers.

I would just pick the resolution you want to use at the Windows desktop. For me, the higher resolution screen would be unusable, an the 'lower' resolution one was near perfect. It's just personal preference, but I wouldn't select it based on movies, given that Blu Rays are going to look excellent either way.

 

Thanks wolf! Please ignore my PM lol.

 

Does anyone have this systems ATI 3670 working fine on windows 7 x64?

 

lol well aint that something,mine is suppose to follow,that same pattern.lets see who really gets the laptop delivered.Statistics and chances say,only one of us will get it that day on time lol

 

What with the lack of videos on youtube for this laptop when so many people own one?

 

why do you want anymore dorky video of people unboxing their 1640 with one hand, or clumsily shifting around pointing to features better described by the adverts. id like to think the main reason is 1640 owners are too classy for youtube, i mean do you really want a video like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXwKlxy_LJI about the 1640

 

Ok, life cannot continue to be good forever, can it?

Finally my first real issue with the machine comes up. Today, in the afternoon the laptop suddenly stops charging. The blue light on the charger starts blinking and plugged in and when pulled out continues to blink but in with not as much intensity. As in the difference between its maximum and minimum brightness is greatly reduced, as compared to when plugged in. After searching for answers online I finally submit to the problem and call up Dell India. Am getting either a new mobo, new charger or both day after tomorrow. I will definitely talk to the support guy who comes over about the heating issues and volume balancing issue, although I seriously doubt he would know crap about it.

Also, yesterday I was trying to install the new 9.2 catalyst drivers/program that has been released a couple of days back. But something very weird happened. I removed the previous drivers and program and even registry entries and installed the new software. And guess what, nothing happened! The graphics remained crappy, and there was no catalyst software anywhere to be seen except on the "Add/Remove Programs" list. Finally, I gave in to the Windows Update that begged me to download some very old driver for the 3670 and the graphics became fine but the software was no where to be seen. I did the following things, please point out where I was wrong:

1. Uninstalled the catalyst install manager, i.e. the driver and software
2. Rebooted
3. Deleted all files from the program files/windows folder which seemed to be associated with ATI.
4. Deleted the registry entries pertaining to ATI.
5. Installed the 9.2 catalyst
6. Started wondering what a big idiot i might be.

Please help, although I dont think I will be able to try out any solutions till my charging problem gets sorted out.

 

Has anyone posted (or found one) their color profile for the SEC5448 1080p RGB-LED Screen? I remember this topic came up quite a few pages ago. Thanks!

 

Where did you get these Catalyst 9.2 drivers? From ATI website? I thought they don't offer downloads for Mobility Radeon 3670. The Mobility Radeon driver downloads available from ATI's website are those for X???/X???? series or 9???? series.

EDIT: I read the Catalyst 9.2 release notes. It does NOT support laptop graphic card drivers.

 

Oh, my bad then. Very bad. I was so happy to see a new release...

 

Does the RGB led screen make the gpu work harder since it has more pixels to control?

 

I just finished playing the Empires: Total War demo on my SXPS 1640 and it was great. I played the naval battles on 1920x1080 with everything on High except Shaders which was medium, and it played extremely smoothly.

The water detail was amazing and the ships looked brilliant. I did the land battles as well, and while it was quite choppy in the beginning (since there's so much more that has to be rendered in the land battles -soldiers' faces, more detailed uniforms, grass, houses, trees etc. etc.) all I had to do was zoom out a bit and it was fine again.

Nor did it heat up to the point where it was uncomfortable.

Battery life isn't that great though. Max I can get out of it with bluetooth/wifi off, screen brightness nerfed and only running Steam and Opera (not gaming ofc) is 2 hours and 45 minutes.

My parents new XPS 1530 can get upwards of 4.5 hours

Also, I got a 6-cell battery AND a separate 9-cell battery. Is that usual? My parents only got one 9-cell battery.

 

I've been hearing about how terrible the reds and blacks are on the 1080p screen. Maybe a color profile could correct them somewhat?

 

The M1530 was like that at the beginning, too. After a while they will become separate options (if it follows the path of the 1530).

 

It's not true. As an average person (not a photographer who spends all day scrutinizing colours and whatnot) I find the screen to be absolutely beautiful. Honestly, 20/10, I can't possibly praise it enough. Playing E:TW on it was a treat.

Oh and thanks Aaron

 

there's nothing you can do about the blacks but you can tone down the reds a bit. You'll never have a completely 100% calibrated monitor but to be honest if you're not planning on doing some professional color corrections to photos or videos then that won't matter.

The reds do pop out a bit in Blu-rays but it really doesn't bother me at all. I'll be posting some pictures later on this week so that people can see the difference.

 

Not quite sure what you mean. The higher resolution LCD makes it work harder in the sense that it's a higher resolution-or rather you'd hit it's limits even easier, but the RGB instead of white lighting doesn't affect that.

 

I completely agree with you, although I am a photographer but I do all of my editing on my desktop so I could care less whether or not the colors are perfectly calibrated on this screen

 

Thanks. [I meant in terms of pixels]

Is the RGB led screen any thicker than the Wled?

 

Are there ATI drivers for W7 x64? I just want to make sure this system will work ok with windows 7. Since that's all I'll be running on it.