Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, *Part 3*

Yeah same here jesse no GPU issues at all after 2 years usage and overclocked for 2 years

 

Slightly off topic.

If you had £2500 to spend on a new laptop what would you by ? It has to be non Dell so Alienware is out of the question as well.

Is any new technology around the corner ? I want to get my next purchase exactly right if i can as it would be a lot of money to spend if some new technology was on the horizon.

My preference upto now is for a rebranded Clevo which is a Comanche Sli with the Q9300 processor, which is the better processor, an i7 or the Q9300 as ive seen people speak highly of the i7 ?

The only drawback with the Clevo/Comanche Sli is it has no backlit keyboard, thats quite a biug thing for me as i use a dark room a lot.

Any input would be appreciated, i want it to be at least the spec in my sig or ideally better with the latest technology.

 

i7. Nothing sucks more than buying a new computer to try and keep up with the times only to be not one, but TWO tiers behind next-gen hardware. The i7 is the current standard.

I'm a long running fan of Clevo products, as they're the original laptop pioneers. Although I haven't been following the latest products, I can however attest that the backlit keyboard thing is just for show, not substance. I have one of these USB twisty lights, and it works GREAT if you truly need to see your computer in utter darkness. Cheap too.

 

Thanks Hank, so are you saying that i7 is the benchmark in a laptop and a Q9300 quad doesn`t perform to the same level as the i7 ?

If i7 is better would this be the way to go for someone who wants to buy a brand new laptop and would this be more future proof and a better buy than a Q9300 ?

Which is the best i7 processor in a laptop, their seems to be a few with different model numbers ?

Also what are the best graphics cards, ive seen the 280M`s listed but i also spotted some other ones that seemed to be more expensive in a laptop, can you recommend any systems to buy, lets say you had £2500 to spend on a laptop what would you buy from the current range thats available or is something else on the horizon thats worth waiting for ?

 

my gpus have never failed as well. the only fails were the refurbs given to me to solve another problem which is in no way related to the heat/faulty card problems.

id still stand my ground that ik8fangui does help 1730 owners without x9000 processors.



@stig

the i7s in the clevos are desktop i7s with the option to go for the i7 975 which is the best desktop processor out there so far. however its also really expensive. a i7 920 would prolly be good enough since you can oc it to around 3.5ghz no problem.

the drawback is that youll prolly get really low battery life and there is no sli option for the laptops with a desktop i7 in them because the i7s take too much power.

id wait for them to come out with the mobile i7s plus gtx 300m series or the ati 58xx mobility series for dx 11.


if you cant wait, get anything u feel comfortable with.

 

Quiet as a mouse.

 

Hi everyone, recently the video card on my m1730 fried and I am forced to send it in to get a refund since apparently a new video card is no where to be found. I'm fine with this considering I'll be getting all the money that I paid but I really need the files that are on the computer. I was wondering, is there anyway that I can extract the files to an external hard drive even though I can't see the start screen or anything else that I am doing. I believe that they only problem is the video card and nothing else has been harmed. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have the same problem. You say they are giving you a refund? My M1730 is only 5 months old. After 2 weeks I still don't know for sure what Dell is going to do. Have any ideas that I could use?

 

Have you tried plugging in an external monitor? It probably won't work as the external monitor is from the cards BUT it is worth trying as no 2 cards fail in the same way. It may just work and you won't know until you try.

The other obvious option is to remove the drive from the system and plug it into another laptop or buy an external HDD enclosure with USB plug and play slip in the your drive and then access the files that way.

 

I went through a few steps, I called the same day that I noticed the problem and called them asking for some help to know what the problem. After about an hour of trying different combos of "Fn+?" they determined that it was indeed my video card. They told that due to the very long back order they would be willing to give me a full refund on what I payed as long as I sent the laptop back. I suggest calling or talking to tech support over at the online chat so they can determine what the real problem is and hopefully you'll get just as lucky.

 

Yeah I tried an external monitor and no go. Would I simply just need to plug in the hard drive into the USB or is there a more complex order to getting to the files?

 

Please post this here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=426693

 

Easiest way to do this is either:

1. Pickup an external 2.5" drive enclosure and install the M1730 HDD into then connect the drive to another system

2. Install the M1730 drive into another laptop which supports dual HDDs and then transfer the files.

I'd go with option# 1. The external enclosure can come in handy after you are finished and they are fairly inexpensive - sub 15.00 USD.

 

Buy either an external HDD external enclosure or better still a something like this easy

It is very simple, remove the hard drives. dissassembly

Once it is connected to another computer you can then just open it like any other drive. Something to note is that if you are on Vista it is a good idea to disable User Account Control so that the files do not conflict with security privileges in the future.

PS it is a great idea to secure delete (multi pass erase) your HDD b4 you send them back to Dell.

 

If you have another computer then you can get a usb to sata adpater at Best Buy, Fry's, or Micro Center that you can use to retrieve your files. Simply remove the hard drives then you would attach the adpater to the hard drive and the usb end to your computer, then you would be able to access the hard drives this way. I use this method at work all the time. Good Luck!!

 

Ah thanks for the all the help, could you please repost the disassembly link, it appears it redirects me to the same forum. Once again thanks everyone for the help.

 

Oops

You only need step 7 Which is to remove the cover above the battery on the left. Once inside just undo the 4 screws and slip out and unplug.

 

Anyone tried Borderlands yet? I tweaked the game to run smooth as butter and with a SLI profile for it using Nhancer. Give it a try, here´s the link

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=430312

 

wow, it's been a while since iw as here lol. anyways.... just little issue with my m1730 and need some guidance

my laptops power come on but nothing.... i hear cd running power light is on but nothing on screen. i see hard drive light comes on for quick 2 sec but that's it. i thought it was the hard drive so i had a brand new sata hard drive in it but still. i was so frustrated i took a my laptop apart completely and made sure everything was pluged in and all. does anybody over here had this sorta problem? oh and rebooting with os cd did nothing.

i'm over here at kuwait army base with no means of entertainment, so i'm just not the same ever since my laptop brokedown, if anybody can give me a hand, i will love them long time

 

Video card is dead.

 

Are you going to toast again or are you saying thats it completely fried - it refuses to toast anymore?

 

It was a response to this ^, Batboy. Everything runs, but the screen is black = burnt out cards. Very, VERY rarely is it ever the screen itself is bad. My cards are fine...until they burn out next Wednesday when they're due of course.

 

just an update for your informations. I ordered a new battery for 101 british pounds. put that brick into my laptop. and guess what. the battery is not charging
If I remove the battery again. the latop shuts down.
What does that now mean ? do they need to replace the motherboard? I've got still some years of waranty.

cheers
tom

 

FYI, NVIDIA released new beta drivers 195.39, I am testing now for Win7:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_195.39_beta.html

 

Were you able to run the installer or did it throw an error?

 

Installer was no problem, just did the usual; uninstall, cleaner and install

 

Lucky you. The INF needs to be tweaked for use with the M17x. Even though NV states the 260M, 280M & 9400M G are supported devices it refuses to run. Figures. Thanks for the confirmation its ok with the 8800M GTX.

 

Well i know this has probably been talked about, i tried looking but to many pages.

I looking to upgrade to windows7 as some bag from france has been trying to hack my computer.

I know videodrivers with anything will always be a issue. But overall does everyone got there m1730's running better with 7 than vista? And home premium64bit gunna be good enough? or do i need professional?

 

I am runnung Windows 7 home premuim 64 bit on a M1730 and it does great. You can go on Microsoft web site and see what the differences are, it is not much. For me they did not make enough difference to upgrade.

 

Would the USB external enclosure work on a RAID system ?

 

Should my current raid-0 configuration be fine with 7?

Like will i have to do that over again?

 

just got done with online tech supprt person...
after about 40min of chat, the tech thinks it's mother board problem and they are sending a replacement to me.... i do think it is graphic card but the tech was so sure that it was the mother board lol so i will see.... cause of my location, it's gonna take about 10 days to get here

 

Well, when it turns out to be your graphics card, a new motherboard isn't going to do anything. Unless your motherboard is making beeps, it's not it.

 

Good point. It would make it more problematic. There may be a way around it but I don't know it.

 

If there is, I need to find out. I have a load of data i cant lose...

 

Halloween is over so all the MODs have resumed their corporeal existence.

 

What's up Batboy? Do you have some sort of cloak of darkness thing happening?

@Eleron

raid0 is for speed not data safety. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new there. LOL

Are you having issues now?

 

Off Topic!!

 

No, but who knows...I do have an external 1TB hdd but it`s full lol

 

Just get one of those desktop sata usb jobbies I linked a page or so ago. Much cheaper than buying usb HDD's.

That's a good'un! LOL No halloween here in Oz. Everyday is a trick or treat.

Now on a different note has anybody done any tweaking for Fallout 3? I was given it tonight and it looks ok, Oblivion with shooters. I ran it at high not maxxed and was constantly in the 40-60's. Has anyone else played this much?

 

Just to update for anyone else facing similar issues. I called up dell support and it turns out that the plug which connects the touch panel to the mb also connects the power to the mb, they told me its probably the mb that needs replacing. Anyhows, given this knowledge, I figured it could just as well be any other component connected to the mb causing the power to turn off. My first port of call was that physx card, as I read somewhere else that that had caused this problem. I took that out and tried the power - charging lights came on the side! Yay.

So now I have my laptop back again, sans one useless physx card - which I don't really use anyway .

 

Let us know how you get on.

 

OT: @m1730user: Great name for this thread! /OT

 

Has anyone owned a 1730 for over a year or two and NOT had a graphics card issue? Just wondering. I feel like the failure rate is close to 100%. Funnily enough, I was at a Halloween party the other night, and I overheard someone talking about exactly this problem.

 

I've had mine since April 2008 and the only problem that I have had is with having to replace the battery ;-) Then again, I DO have SLI 8700s...


Later - Mike

P.S. I really hope that I didn't just jinx myself - thanks for baiting me!!!

 

Hey everyone, I'm back with a few more questions after following the previous steps given to me. I bought the dock for my HDD and have it plugged into my home desktop but now that I am trying to open the docked HDD it is telling me that it needs to be formatted. I am really hoping that this doesn't that all my info is lost and never to be seen again. Is it because I am trying to get info out of a laptop HDD onto a desktop? Or is there another way to bypass the formatting by trying to convert it? Any help would again be greatly appreciated.

 

DON'T FORMAT!!

What software is trying to format it? - is it s'ware that came with the dock?

You should be able to refuse the format and just access the drive as d: etc.

 

I am simply trying to open for My Computer, windows is telling me to format it, if I deny then it just exits out. I got rocketfish sata enclosure kit which came with two disks. One is just a manual and the other is a Roxio BackOnTrack disk. Not sure if that helps.

 

@ bizarostomy What raid were the disks?

 

Errr, is there a way to check simply from the disks themselves because I can't remember off the top of my head. All I can tell you from what they says is one is a seaport, the ither is a hitachi. SATA 3gb/s 200gb cap. RPM 7200. Other data seems serial and product based. Let me know if you need that. I chose the cheaper option when I paid for the laptop and it was about 320-400gb total.