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

If you ask me, NONE of the RAM upgrade options for the 1640 are worth it. Stick with the 4GB default and you'll be fine. The 4GB will be running in dual channel mode. If you really feel the need for 8gb of RAM, save yourself some money and upgrade it yourself by buying more RAM from Newegg or something.

 

Last I looked, I don't think you save anything in this case, I could be wrong though.

 

The reason its so expensive (above 4GB) is that they have to have at least one 4GB module.. which is crasy expensive.

 

So if I ordered one with only 4 gig's mine would not be upgradeable to 8 because I only have one module? Forgive my ignorance.

 

Let me ask you this Clemix: What are you going to be doing with your SXPS 1640?

 

No, you'd be able to upgrade to 8GB...If you order with 4gb, It'll come with 2x2GB modules installed. If you want 8GB, you'd just have to buy 2x4GB modules and replace the 2x2GB that would currently be in your system.

 

im going to do a lot of intensive video editing.

 

Did you think about maybe upgrading the processor and going with the 256GB SSD drive? I would guess that 4GB of ram would be sufficient for video editing.

 

For example.. the config would be:

4GB: 2 module @ 2GB
5GB: 1 module @ 4GB and 1 module @ 1Gb
6GB: 1 module @ 4GB and 1 module @ 2Gb ... and so on

.. its that single 4GB module that is really expensive.

 

T9400 is the best i could get here at Dell Canada.. I wish i could get the 2.8

128 or 256 would still not be enough anyway... all my video files will be off an external hd.

just getting the SSD to reduce heat, faster bootup, and a little bit of energy saving.

do you think it will be too late to change it back to 4 then? i thought i would need that 2 extra to ease up the video rendering process.

 

Gotcha. So basically I'd have 4 gigs of unusable RAM sitting here. Thanks.

 

i guess it is better to get the 4gb and upgrade it to 8gb myself instead? but where can i buy 8gb ddr 3 rams?!?

 

Don't panic if you don't see better CPU in lapptop configurator. There is not everything you can buy to you lappy. Try to call Dell support. They can offer you anything they are actually selling in any country.

 

Strange indeed. According to Dell:
Feature add:
1. Update battery LED behavior for battery only in S3 with low capacity.

I get this when trying:

 

I was about to ask the same thing. I see plenty of 2 x 2GB stuff for sale, but not any of the 1 x 4GB or 2 x 4GB.

*I found some now. The cheapest I've found is around $600 for the two sticks of 4GB DDR3. Ouch!

 

Better than the $800 that Dell charges for 8GB...but yea, still absurdly expensive!

 

dell canada only charges $500CAN for it?

 

I totally agree. For the vast majority of people 4GB is going to be fine anyway. I've got 4GB, and even with 20 programs open (including 4 threads for Folding @ Home), plus Vista caching stuff, etc., I only use 50% of my RAM. Switching to 6GB would give me WORSE performance.

If RAM ever drops a ton though I might upgrade to 8GB.

Pretty much anywhere, but do you need it?

 

I'm a car guy, so I subscribe to the "There is no such thing as too much horsepower" rule of thumb.

I think I have plenty for what I do, I just thought if it were cheap enough, I'd swoop some up. I can think of a whole lot more I can do with $600.

 

How so Wolfpup ?

I'm not sure how going from 4 gb of ram to 6 gb would give you worse performance, can you explain a bit ?

I'm thinking of buying a new laptop with 6 gb of ram, so I'm very curious about your post. I don't understand it

 

im trying to downgrade back to 4gb.. but the guy is saying if i do that.. i will not get the complete protection care for free and i would essentially only gonna get a 491 saving instead of 550. arg..now im lost.

 

Cancel your order and redo it.. it will add a few extra days/weeks to your order, but, you get what you want in the end.

 

hey guys just wanted to tell you that i'm going to record some vids of my XPS 16, mainly using fraps or something since i haven't seen any gameplay vids of a Radeon HD 3670 yet but probably some ones using a video camera as well, and i'll post them here later!

 

Guys, I need your help.

I really like the Studio XPS 16 but never thought I would actually buy one due to the price. But I got lucky today: I received a nice coupon. So here I am wondering which config I should get.

Can you guys please tell me which is the absolutely best config (most powerful, but also with less risk of defect, bugs or annoyances) for this laptop?

Thanks much!

 

hey guys, I read some posts about the softwares that are not included in the packaging, such as facial recognition and powerdvd. I know that you guys have been able to request for those softwares to sent. But when I asked the rep, he completely refused the request. Can you guys tell me which department did you guys contact?

I'm so upset about dell's customer service, that guy didn't answer my question on the disc, but instead he told me that he wanted to see if I still kept the recovery partition, and then he went on blaming that I need to sweep clean the hard drive.

 

whats up guys, just got off the phone with dell ordering my sxps

ended up with
T9550 proc.
bluray
1080p screen
4gb ram.
500gb hd.

guess its finally time to retire my old inspiron 9200 lol.

estimated ship date is 3/10 with delivery for 3/11.

 

With 6GB you'll only be in single channel mode-you'll have half the memory bandwidth you would have with 4GB or 8GB. I'm not sure off hand exactly how much that will hurt performance with this RAM and this CPU, but you can probably count on something like 10-20%+ worse performance with 6GB than with 4 or 8GB. If all you're doing with it is browsing the web or whatever it wouldn't matter...but then if all you're doing with it is browsing the web, you don't need 4GB, let alone 6.

Personally I just would never, ever spend money on something that's actually going to hurt my performance.

Thing is, it'll probably get a whole lot cheaper. It's already fallen probably a couple hundred, and it'll just keep going down. A year from now it may be drastically cheaper.

 

..........

 

I was able to get them to send me PowerDVD for free after arguing with them because they wanted me to pay $69 for a 3 day old pc. I'm trying to find the webcam software and fast access. To get PowerDVD I called the North American tech support line and told them off the bat I wasn't paying to upgrade but they needed to tell the non english speaking tech support that I didn't need to pay for the disk, and they did.

How were you even able to chat? Everytime I try it tells me our Laptops aren't supported in chat.

 

I was able to chat, but who knows, Dell's site shifts around so much...

 

for the 1000000000000000000000000000th time the facial software and webcam software can be found on dells site if you read thru the thread ull see the links...i posted them and so did various other people!

 

you have look at the bottom line on dell's website, there you can find the product support. On the right hand side is the chat option. I find it's much quicker than going through all the phone selections.

 

I just went for their $1199 spec that went up on the Canada site today..

P8600, 4GB DDR3, 256GB SSD, 1080p, Intel 5100, no BD.. all came to about $2150 with taxes and all. Shipping March 12. They seem to have improved their turnaround time (i canceled my first sxps16 order).

 

sorry wolf i dont mean to be rude but are there any articles I can read up on about this?

 

I'd try Anandtech, though you'd probably have to look really far back, as dual channel mode was introduced back in 2003 in mainstream systems, so there haven't been many articles about it recently.

I think the i845 was Intel's last chipset that was single channel, and that was from 2002ish. You wouldn't want to cripple your hardware like that!

 

Forgive me, I don't think I started posting until page 190. I'll look through the other 190.

 

i just thought it is better to have 6 gb to handle my video rendering.

 

Isnt video rendering mostly processor intensive? Why not get a cheapo desktop with Core 2 Quad or i7 that would burn though your renders in no time.

 

the reason i need this is because im gonna travel a lot for 3 months and i need to use this for work.

but a quad core laptop is way out of my budget......

 

Toshiba's got one that's fairly cheap-HP maybe too?

What program are you going to use to handle video?

Even if it really does need more than 4GB, you're still going to be majorly crippling your CPU (NOT a good thing for video encoding!) if you go with 6GB.

 

Are you still getting the error?

Is it worth upgrading (downgrading considering its A02) to this bios?

 

I tried twice. Same result. No need to keep trying

 

Before i call Dell repair...... On my XPS16, the front most headphone jack seems dead. There's no sound heard in my headphones when using this jack. When plugging in the jack into this port, nothing happens in the windows playback device either:



The other headphone output is fine.

Shouldn't this port work right out of the box?

 

I received my Studio XPS 16 this Saturday. After drooling it for an hour I straight away formatted it and install Windows Vista and all the other drivers. Facial Recognition was not there so I still have to install it. Called up Dell and they are sending the DVDs by next week.

Only problem I am facing is due to the fact that I cannot enable Hibernation . I have installed all the drivers that came on the DVD (yet not updated the drivers from Dell Support Site) but still the Hibernation feature in not to be found anywhere. Any thoughts on this?

Other than that the system is working perfectly alright. No crashes or BSOD yet.

- Harsh

 

Look in your 1640 box. There should be a white postcard that gives you the website address to download the software. You have to be on the 1640 to log in to the site. It has the facial recognition software. I think the webcam software is there but I'm not positive.

 

HOLD THE PHONE!!!

I hope either the mobility 4830 or the mobility 4860 ATI chips announced today goes inside the XPS 16 instead of the 4670!!

http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd4800/4860_index.html

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12338&Itemid=1

Go ATI!

THIS is what I've been waiting for! Meanwhile nVidia still renames their existing chips...

It surpasses the mobility 4850! and all on only a 128bit bus!



goodbye 9600gt in supposed "performance" laptops!!!

 

Thank you for being helpful.

I actually had tried that but it didn't work, I then realized this morning it's because I was trying to access it through Chrome. Thank you again for at least explaining it, it was a lot easier then me reading back through 190 pages of a thread.

 

Nice! If that goes in this week I will be upset though, I would have loved to have had that instead. :/

 

Yes, it should work out of the box.

Anyway, my 1640 has just been "repaired" earlier. I reported the interference noise I am getting from headphones plugged to either jack. So a Dell technician came and replaced the motherboard. After the "repair", the interference noise is still there, and I then I found out that the rightmost headphone jack is broken. (It incorrectly reports that a headphone is connected even though none is plugged to it, so the laptop speakers are permanently disabled as a result). The technician is returning tomorrow to "solve" the issue.

 

I wouldn't install this. It looks to me like someone made a mistake... and a big one at that. The numbers never go backwards on an update. It is possible that this is a previous bios that was just added to the site. Sometimes a new release will have a bug and you have to install a previous version.