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

He chipped something? Simple solution. Write it up in his report (that he asks you to sign) and then call Dell up again, complain and have them send a different techie to fix the chipped part.

 

The replacement laptop should take 7-10 working days to be delivered according to the customer care rep. But the EDD is set for 29 April. I hope its earlier!

 

i also had the same problem ... i called the support and they have dispatched a new lcd. . just call them at their customer support instead of the tech support.... i called the tech support first and the tech guy said that the dust prob doesnt come under warranty , but then i called the customer care and they agreed to send a new lcd ...

 

Dell UK's return policy seems to only last for the first 7 days. Below is an excerpt from the Dell UK Terms and Conditions PDF which I received with an email confirmation of my order.

6.
Acceptance of Products on Delivery
6.1 Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, Customers may only reject Products for material non-conformity with the Products Description by providing
written notice to Dell within 7 days after delivery or otherwise customer shall be deemed to have accepted the Products.
6.2 Customer shall notify Dell promptly
a)
following delivery of any missing, incorrectly delivered, incorrect specification, or otherwise not as ordered Products or Products which are either
in damaged packaging or are visibly damaged; and
b)
following discovery of any non-visible damage or defect in Product supplied.
6.3 Where Products can be returned to Dell by Customer under the terms of this Agreement, it should either be returned to Dell or be made available for collection at a
time which is mutually convenient insofar as possible. Customers should act reasonably in complying with a request by Dell to collect Product at a particular time.

 

It's like dealing with arse holes.

 

yeah, they told me this same bull s h i t.
But my problem is more complicated, since I'm in Brazil right now and they don't sell this computer here.

I have 3 big dust particles right in the middle of the screen...
VERY disappointed.

 

there has to be a way to remove the protective glass from the lcd to clean underneath. too bad they dont publish this with the other assembly manuals on the website.

personally, id also like to figure out how to remove the speaker grills. i cannot find a way to keep them clean. those little holes keep filling with dust. i want to remove them to clean them or seal them up.

 

Have you tried a toothbrush and a vacuum cleaner... or maybe compressed air from a photography shop? That could do the trick.

 

i should mention my current dust solutions: to deal with the lcd dust, i have tapped the screen to migrate some of them to less intrusive positions, and for the speaker dust i use a black sharpie to make them blend in.

 

i used compressed air, a toothbrush, vacuum cleaner, water, rubbing alcohol, a needle (which did more damage than good by picking away at the black paint of the speaker grill), the most successful of any way using poster tak - its gummy and it got into some of the holes and sucked out the dust. i bet silly puddy would do something similar. but really, the sharpie is way easier.

ive found that like black cars, black computers are the worst to keep clean.

 

OCD much?

The more you mess with it the more you are liable to really break something or damage it. I learned long ago that if it's not broke don't fix it.
I can understand dust on the screen being like a dead pixel though, that might mess with me if it's significant.

The best thing you can do about the dust is learn to ignore it, but since that probably won't work.

Here's the service manual...
Speakers grills...
You will need to remove the "Palm Rest", "keyboard", then speaker covers with "speakers".
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl16/en/sm/index.htm

You may be able to figure out how to remove the protective glass after removing the "Display Assembly".

Doesn't look worth it to me. I care about dust and looks as much as I care about the look of the tread under my sneaker, but some people actually do care about tread colors too.

 

massive ocd

yeah the speaker grills are way too many screws to get off. i was reconnecting my backlit keyboard cable that had been put on half-on by the dell techs, and it was 23 screws. its not worth it for the grill covers. the display assembly i definitely see being an issue in the future. ive had my sxps 16 for about 2.5 months now. the dust didnt start to show up until 1.5 in. at first it was small, insignificant dust. now im noticing more intrusive dust particles.

intrusive as in right in the line of site at screen center, and one down on the bottom right next to the down arrow on the scroll bar. on white web pages its like a dalmatian appears.

but tapping makes some of them fall to the bottom of the screen, i really believe static electricity is what keeps them suspended in the first place. i think by the time i have so many that i need to do something, hopefully someone out there will have posted the instructions, or ill just call dell whiles its under warranty

 

Ahh, I thought it shipped stuck inside the panel. The fact that it collects in there over time is not good news. That would bug me too.

I wonder if there is a way to attract the dust by static and pull them aside. You know like rub a balloon on fabric, then sweep it past the LCD. Static is no friend to electronics but seeing that the LCD builds up it's own, maybe a makeshift static magnet with a small charge may work without harming anything.

Or maybe there is away I am unaware of to neutralize the static field and then tap the dust out.

 

Ive learned to live with the fingerprints and dust in the speaker grills; and, so far i havent had a dust issue with the LCD. Before i had the crasy idea of using fine sandpaper to sand the finish of the palmrest and lid.. but, im not going to bother.

Although, if i start getting enough dust in the LCD, then i can see myself taking it apart and cleaning it.

 

thats my thought as well. im wondering if there is a way to attrack the dust from opposite side of the glass. something like that game where you use the magnet to put a moustache on the guys face.

 

It would be best to find a way to keep dust from entering. There has to be a way to seal it, maybe with good quality clear tape cut to size or something non-permanent.
The edge to edge thing is kind of silly to me, but since apple fans love it then it must be good...good for dust.

 

Its not noticable. But also the two peices beside the battery the vent over and the part on the right don't fit proper now. and clicks. That really bothers me but ohwell.

 

Hmmm.. just had a thought: if the front glass panel isnt important to the structure of the LCD lid-thing.. then, is it possible to just remove it altogether and have the LCD panel bare. It would remove alot of the glare due to the front panel itself.

Right now, it looks like Dell took the OEM panel and put glass over it. Another approach is to take a diamond glass cutter and cut out the front panel!!?!

 

Actually, Dell covered the LCD with a piece of plastic. The display itself is actually matte. So Dell covers an excellent looking, low glare, matte display with a cheap piece of plastic that scratches easily and allows dust in. The Macbook, Macbook Pro, and Adamo all have optical glass sealed to the display lid so no dust.

 

A peice of glass also increases the weight dramaticly but i did have the idea of ripping off the plastic and putting my own glass on it

 

Someone please start the glass/plastic cover removal experiment and let us know how it turns out and how it looks.

 

I would love to see that.

 

anyone with big balls?

 

It looks like crap. If you remove the plastic cover you have nothing covering the antennas and LCD frame. If you had the proper tools and patience you could cut a hole in the cover which would essentially make it into a traditional display bezel. It would be hard to do this and make it look good.

 

I did a search on this thread for 'TV' and didn't find anything. Anyone using their built in TV card?

I have been battling with mine since I received my S-XPS16. In South Africa, we have trial digital signals floating about (DTT broadcast testing for the soccer world cup), can't pickup a thing from where I am at?!

Is there only 1 kind of TV tuner that ships with this laptop? DVB-T correct? or hybrid DVB-T/analogue?

Could it be that the antenna that ships with the laptop is too small to receive anything?

Using WMC to try to receive some TV, about to try VLC in desperation now.

 

I thought the RGBLED edge to edge cover was clear glass. A lot of reviews said it's edge to edge glass. Oh well.

 

That's probably why it isn't offered in the US at all. We are going all digital in several weeks. I imagine the tuner is analog but don't know for sure.

 

Its hard to tell, unless you operate on it and remove it... although, it does seem to attract a lot of dust and fibres (ie. like acetate). In any case, it doesnt matter to me because im going to take care of it either way.

 

Hi, I have a question concerning the drivers... I received my Studio XPS 16 yesterday and I've been trying to play Team Fortress 2 and CS: Source since then but apparently, it doesn't want to work, CS Source won't even load and Team Fortress will close before I even get to the main menu... So I've downloaded all the drivers from Dell, I thought this was mostly because of a graphic card driver but I don't know, doesn't seem like it fixed anything, I've tried to get the driver from ATI twice but that won't work either so I ran out of solutions for now... I'm new to dell and laptops so I don't know, are you all getting your latest drivers from Dell ? Is there something that I should know about them ? There isn't really a Studio XPS fanbase site to my knowledge so I don't know where else to get my info..

So yeah, thanks in advance, I like the studio xps so far but part of why I bought it is to play some basic games like these so I'd like to be able to fix it

 

I had to reformat to get source based games to run without crashing to the desktop. I don't know what was causing it, but a fresh format fixed it.

 

I received my laptop today (the exchange for the one that was damaged by the tech replacing the keyboard). I presume it's the harddrive but there is a clicking sound that resembles a watch (I hope the ticking is not a bomb! ha j/k). It is annoying. My first laptop did not make this same sound - do yours make this click sound constantly? thanks!

 

Hmm thanks for the advice, I just did that, downloaded all the drivers from Dell and so far it still doesn't work.. I didn't do any windows update yet but I don't think it's gonna change anything because I downloaded them all before I chose to reformat and it wasn't working either... Weird...

 

is it dell wireless card 1515 a 3 antenna one?

 

Are you running through Steam? I would run all the Windows updates. I usually do that before I do any driver installs. I haven't had one issue since I reformatted. Like I said before, I'm running Windows 7 now and it works fine on it.

 

Well problem fixed I guess lol, at the end of the 49 updates it said there was one that couldn't be installed so I thought, bah, it's probably some useless update... Well I was wrong, it was Microsoft Framework 3.5 so once I did install it, it started working just fine.. lol, stupid me, I know!

Thanks for your help N20D5OH

 

NP, congrats.

 

Although this link refers to the 1340, I am concerned with the screen discoloration they found after just two days of use. They are claiming it is due to the vent being partially blocked on the left and forcing the hot air upwards.

Has anyone else noticed any screen discoloration?

I am expecting my 1640 in a couple of weeks, and it seems I am reading more negative than positive things about it now. Earlier I thought it was the other way around. I hate to have the feeling of regretting this purchase before it even arrives!

 

No problems here. Just wait until you get it, I think you're going to like it. It's a machine right out of the box.

 

Don't worry about it. I have had mine for over 2 months now and it is working like a beast should. I don't know what they mean by discoloration of the screen however, I have noticed some backlight bleeding on the sides of the screen which has gone progressively worse over time. It is mainy evident on full brightness but I always use it on 0 brightness to save my retinas for the future. I am not concerned because Dell will cover that under the warranty.

 

Ive have mine for about a month here: no discolouration at all.. i dont even know why heat would affect the actual LCD panel since it is placed behind a plexi-glass sheet.

Also, the 1080p has NO screen bleeding that i can see; the LCD panel sits very tight in its housing. (although, my screen is on 100% all the time).

 

I just got mine, and I don't notice any discoloration

 

K i got a question for people with the 9 cell. How long does it last on balanced. lowest brightness. Keyboard full. I get 2:45 and sometimes 3 hours using that with dell battery doubler enabled. Surprisingly it actually does inscrease battery llife

 

does anyone know how difficult it is to replace the cd/dvd/bluray drive on this laptop and what the compatibility is with sizes if i were to buy a drive separately later on? i really want this laptop and i'm getting tired of waiting, but i want to make sure that i can replace the slot drive for a blu ray burner in the future. any thoughts/comments would help. thanks.

 

I have had my S16XPS for arund 2 months. Its a beaut! Even though I have had issues (battery stopped charging) Dell support actually did fix it the next working day. They sent a guy around - replaced my mobo and all fixed. Yes you read right! Replaced my motherboard!

 

I just nabbed one by calling the dell outlet. Got it for 1089 shipped.

Its a T9400 (2.53ghz), 4gb DDR3, 1920x1080p Screen, Blu Ray, 512mb 3670 Video Card, 500gb 7200rpm, Vista Ultimate 64bit.

Now do all the models have the backlight keyboards??

 

Yep, it's standard.

 

Thanks, so did I get a good deal?? Also should I run Windows 7 on it??

 

Yeah, I paid 350 more for mine without the RGDLED screen and a slower processor.

Windows 7 is great, I don't even have a Vista partition anymore. As soon as it comes out, I'm buying it.

 

Thanks, the only games I would play on this are WOW, COD4, UT2004/UT3, and CS. Should this laptop run well??

 

The only things I've played on it are CS, which runs incredible, and GTA San Andreas. I run San Andreas at the highest possible settings in widescreen and it's flawless. The GPU isn't going to be running the hardcore graphic intensive games, but it's good enough.