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

could i use this in my favor and reconfig my new laptop? I would want an SSD and blue ray. ;-)

 

I called to find out the status of my order, because it's been in production for three days. It's still in the build status, and my estimated shipping date is 4/13.

In the grand scheme of things...well, I'm impatient. Hell, I think I'll even be gone on the 13th!

I ordered it on the 22nd...has it taken nearly a month for people to get theirs? My EDD started as the 20th, and has moved up to the 13th, so really, this is shallow complaining I'm doing. But I keep reading about people getting theirs after 7-10 days. I'm hoping that good fortune shines on me, too.

So, I guess the question is...how long should I wait before I become resigned to the fact that it's just gonna take awhile, and I should chill?

 

Mines been in "production" since I ordered it on the 19th....EDD date has not changed and is april 1st. I'm impatient too...i want it NOW

Order was placed in Denmark.

 

Worse case you'll have to send it to depot for ~2 weeks I think. Since I was withing 21 days, I refused to send it to depot and told them I'd just return it if they didn't send me a new one. I got a new machine in 5 days.

 

tomorrow is my 21st day ;-)
will definately call when i get home this evening.

 

Yes, but you need to find something wrong with it, or they could charge you the restocking fee.

 

I have one, the following message:

The AC power adapter type cannot be determined. Your system will operate slower and the battery will not charge. Please connect a Dell 90W AC adapter or higher for best system operation.

My computer wont charge while plugged in.

 

You should definitely go for the 256 GB SSD if you have the chance. I one in mind and its awesomes.

Actually, im wondering if im ever going to fill it up; my current laptop has 32GB and the one before 100GB.. i didnt even fill the 100GB halfway even after 2 yrs of use.

 

Now I am using CPUGenie, and it has an ACPI P-State Viewer page. I am seeing the following:




I have P8600 CPU on my 1640, and it's supposed to only have 25W as its thermal design power, right? So why is CPUGenie is displaying it as 35W? Also, P8600 only runs up to 2400MHz, yet there's a 9.5x multiplier and 2533MHz frequency on that ACPI table. Which got it wrong? CPUGenie or the A06 BIOS?

(Hmmm... could it also be the reason why I'm having higher temps since upgrading to A06 from A05? Because of the higher thermal design power set here?)

 

So i tried to download the new ATi driver from the dell support website last night, followed the directions as shown on the website. The installer didn't automaticall run as shown so i ran the "setup" program from the file that opened up from the cmd prompt. An installer ran, finished, and i restarted but neither the catalyst center nor driver info show that it was updated. Where did i go wrong?

 

^^ same thing happened with me. The bloody device manager doesn't show jack . It's all the same. It's like no update took place

 

it my HDD gets warm easily now and left palm rest is uncomfortable..all this after the BIOS update..****!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well, I just ordered mine a couple of days ago, hoping to later upgrade the video card when the M 4860 is available. Bummer. The new 4860 actually has equal or less wattage than the 3670 due to its 40nm process with 2.5 the speed, so power shouldn't be an issue.
Ordered 3/20 and ship date is 4/22. Why so long ??? Maybe they are updating to the M 4860 and that's what I'll end up with (wishfull thinking)

 

Hey how high are the temps on idle and loads for the CPU & GPU on the XPS 16? Apparently the heat is in the YMMV category >.>

 

PLEASE ADVISE ASAP

so just spoke with dell tech regarding my AC power adapter problem...they updated the Bios and the problem still there. no AC adapter detected battery cant charge.

They gave me the option to replace the mother board and AC adapter or send it back since today is day 20th of ownership.

what should i do? send it back!?

I send it back i would like to add a 256 ssd upgrade...what you guys think..please advise

 

Do SSDs have cluster sizes like magnetic drives?

 

well no one advised me so i went ahead and call dell customer care and i am doing a replacement exchange...i am getting my same original settings on a new laptop. dont have to pay no shipping for the defected laptop nor shipping for the new one.

 

I got my SXPS 16 today! (I'm in the US) It is Awesome. My specs are in sig. The whole laptop is so responsive. Programs come up instantly (SSD perhaps). The screen looks drop dead awesome. The reds on the RGB are amazing and not weird/radioactive like some people have reported. It is amazing!!! I love the backlit keyboard and touch buttons. The touch buttons are so responsive... all you have to do is barely touch them. I love the look and feel of the lappy and the sound from the speakers. I'll try to post some pictures and a more in depth 'review' of it.
I would buy this again!

The only thing I've noticed not-so-good is the left hinge. It's off set from the sreen by a tiny amount. I only noticed this when my head was turned in at an awkard position to remove the protective plastic. Very minimal detail.

 

i find that when im doing extensive typing on this laptop the left side (left plam) feels uncomfortable. does anybody else experience this and if so. what do you reckon i can do about it.

 

Meanwhile my palmrests stay nice and cool even under prolonged load (and I am pumping lots of data using SQL Desktop connecting to Teradata).

I suspect (as stated in my laptop review thread) that my choosing the SSD option is resulting in better temps everywhere, as eliminating the heat bloom from the HDD is probably helping overall airflow as well as the I/O speed reducing the work the CPU is doing (albeit only by a little).

 

I had this issue too and I've heard at least one other owner mention the same thing. I had my screen replaced (due to another issue) and the new one is fine. My hinge issue was really nothing but the Dell rep literally insisted that it should be fixed. And so it was

 

Good thinking and I think you are right.

If I recall correctly, with A05 my fan kicked in at 31 deg.cels. With A06 it hits 39 deg.cels. before it starts.

I actually think the new 31-39 deg.cels. temp-cycle is better compared to the A05, where the fan was ON almost all of the time.

 

Read up on the "undervolt" thing. It works wonders on most laptops, especially the high clocked ones.

 

hjorte: in your sig you say "VID 1.0375 volts". Does that mean you undervolted your video card as well? If so, I'd be glad to know more about how that works. For my laptop the video card is clearly the biggest contributor to heat, and since I don't do any gaming, it's useless heat. So if it's possible, might as well underclock and undervolt the GPU, if that's possible.

 

@masap87:

No, the undervolting happens on the CPU only as far as I can tell. Try it and you'll see if it helps on your laptop. I bet it will.

 

Does anybody know what building status 5300 means? unfortunately DELL DK does not provide an automatic number like the US, so i'm stuck with "In production" on the website...which it said for now 7 days and still going strong

I was told that when it hits 5700 it was ready to ship...but they couldn't elaborate on when that was going to happen, it seemed like they didn't have much more to go on beside the webpage themselves...

 

Yup. I agree. I havent had any of the heat issues reported early on. Although, the only gaming i do is Dr. Mario on a NES emulator.

[Edit] I have the 256SSD option(!)

 

well an alternative for those without a SSD would be a zalman cooling pad! I have a 320gig 7200rpm HDD with no heat problems at all. My zalman cooler NC2000 from Amazon keeps my lappy cool and instyle!

 

Protective plastic? What protective plastic? Are you talking about the thin sheet of foam placed between the screen and keyboard?

 

hi
i had xps 1710 which kinda broke down recently. now i am thinking to go for sony fw or dell studio xps 16 with almost similar kinda configuration. which one should i go?
pls reply..

 

I had to make the same decision recently. I went for the SXPS16 because:

- 256GB SSD at a reasonable upgrade price
- 1080p RGBLED (although, the dual lamp CCFL on the 1080p FW is very good)
- updated components (DDR3, eSATA, Displayport, powered USB, etc)

.. my config came out cheaper as well. Also, the top of the line FW comes with bluray whether you want it or not; you would have to CTO if you wanted a top spec system without bluray (like me).

 

i am going to have blu ray.. so will that make any difference..
the service with dell in excellent.. but i am not sure about sony

 

On mine too, there was a small protective, self-adhesive piece of plastic on both hinges. On the top surface on the hinges.

 

You can underclock the GPU.

Power Options > Advanced > ATI .... > Maximum battery life

Alternatively,

Catalyst Control Center > Enable Powerplay > Maximum battery life

 

Hi! I am hoping someone here can help me. Does anyone have contact information for Dell Head Office / Executive Office? I had next day on site warranty but the so called certified dell tech who came to do a simple repair a few days ago, did not know what the hell he was doing and instead damaged my brand new (just over a month old) laptop. I am furious! Actually, I am beyond furious as the days go by and I continue to spend hours on the phone w/ Dell and getting nowhere and the run around. If anyone can assist me with telephone number, or e-mail or fax - if you don't want to post it publicly please send me a private message. It would be greatly appreciated.

 

Oh. I thought he was referring to a protective plastic for the screen. Mine didn't come with one for the screen so I thought maybe I got a refurb or something. But yeah, for the hinges mine has them too.

 

About how much battery life does that net you?

 

Anyone know the read/write speeds of the 128GB and 256GB Solid State Drive?

 

It took me from 1h 42m to 2h 43m

 

I'm still working on undervolting my system, but so far it seems to be doing nicely.

 

How does that affect graphics? Do you switch when you want to play a game? I'm new to this undervolting thing, obviously.

 

It gets really hot when gaming. My husband didn't like it at all and refused to use it. I think the front of the laptop is too narrow to allow enough airflow to cool it down. I'm wondering if the SSD would solve the problem.

Any gamers have the SSD? How warm is the palmrest and touchpad with it?

 

From what he's talking about, seems he's underclocking, not undervolting. Underclocking basically turns the GPU's clocks down(as the name suggests lol ) so the GPU performs less than its maximum potential, but in exchange, it draws less power.

Think of it this way, it's like an adjustable light which you can tune the brightness. Underclocking a GPU would be the equivalent to reducing the brightness on that light. You get less "performance', but you save on energy

So as for how it affects graphics, you will see reduced performance, that much is certain. How much will depend on how low you underclock. I wouldn't suggest trying a game on an underclocked GPU as it will probably perform poorly compared to its original clocks, but laying a game would defeat the purpose of underclocking anyways(since you'd lost major battery life for a game >.>)

A few users ahve confirmed that picking the SSD option lowers the notebook's overall temperatures since of course there is no HDD spinning so less heat form that part and the SSD takes up less space than a regular HDD so there's more room for air flow.

 

I haven't played any intensive games on it yet, but I have used orthos etc. I don't have anything to compare it to, but the touch pad and left palm rest seem warm, but not hot. I'm still in the process of undervolting so it'll be interesting to see how it is after words.

EDIT: What are the TZ00, TZ01, and TZ02 the temp of? I'm getting (for max) 85c, 59c, and 63c respectively.

 

Yes it does. You should notice a drop in FPS when you underclock your GPU.

 

I can't play a 3D game or watch a high def movie without it stuttering like crazy if I turn on Maximize Battery.

 

Friends iam new to notebookreview...i just got my studioxps16 and have some doubts as i dont much about laps(am a medicos)... I want to remove the recovery partition and increase the number of drives...what should i do? I dont know whether this has been explained before in this forum them please provide the link as there are a lot of posts...

 

I'm not going to rant, but having spent a few days with this machine, I'm somewhat concerned. Connecting to wifi took 2 hours between my machine initially not allowing me to turn the wireless on and then vista not allowing me to connect to my own network. Two nights ago it was unable to run pandora, a facebook chat window and aim chat window at the same time, stuttering and lagging severely. I attributed it to several updates having been applied without the computer being restarted. A restart appeared to improve performance. Last night I installed the new bios, audio and video drivers, as well as a few windows updates and when it restarted, I got the whole "your ac adapter isnt a dell ". Upon restarting I did not receive this message again. I was under the impression that when I spend 2 grand on a laptop, these kinds of bugs aren't a part of the equation. I'm no apple fanboy by any stretch, but if I get one more absurd error/bug, this sucker is going back for a macbook pro faster than you can say XPoS.

 

If you have such negative feelings towards Dell/PCs.. why on Earth would you buy one in the first place? I would return your unit right away and pick up that MBP.. because, it sounds like you will always have these feelings against PCs which will never go away until you own a Mac.

Btw, ive had mine for a week and its been purring like a kitten.

 

I rolled back my system after the vid driver update took away Catalyst Control Center. They say that they are still working on that compatability issue. I didn't see a big deal for the update anyway unless you use the hdmi port a lot. Anyway, I want to know what peoples experience has been if they updated to the A06 bios. The site says it just improves cd eject performance. I thought some mentioned video card performance improvement too but again I don't see that listed on Dell site.