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

It's a kind of downgrade, you are getting better CPU and BRdrive but you should get at least a 260 GTX sli or even 280GTX sli.
Maybe you should deal for that sli, and as DDT5 said it is refurbished for sure, but thats a risk you have even in a M17 R2.
Someone who had replaced would help more for sure.

 

Anyone know if there's an updated chipset driver for the beast? The one on the Dell site is from 2007....

 

Just get the latest chipset software utility from intel website in zip format.
Extract it, make a shortcut to setup.exe.
Then go into the shortcut proprieties and add -overall at the end of the path.
It should look setup.exe -overall.

 

Here is a link for the latest chipset driver.

 

Can any ardent gamer give me the set up for graphics card playing crysis 2 and yes it will play I'm at central station at the moment but iv got a starry night happening freeze-up and then tiny little stars. Maybe iv got the card set up wrong.

Dell XPS M1730
T9300 Processor
4GB 667Mhz Ram
2x320GB HDD's
Nvidia 8800GTX Graphics 1024MB (2x 512mb sli)
Truelife Screen, 1920x1200
Ageia 128Mb Physics card

 

My 8800's have bitten the dust for the second time. System locks up when the Nvidia driver loads in Windows or Linux. Dell says they are sending out a replacement 8800. I made them verify that they had 8800's are better in stock and the tech assured me they did. I will believe it when I see it. What is the magic number for replacement parts before they replace the entire system?

 

Pralix: xm888 is part no. Of 8800m gtx, while kv650 is for 9800m gtx.
I dont remember the 8700m gt part no, it should have the number "3" in the code, while 9800m gt should be the same part no of 8800m gtx. I may be wrong on this last one thought.

About Crysis 2, i wonder wheres magnus72. I saw him posting a video on youtube, but i didnt heard hik in a while, im curious to know what settings hes using as its really smooth.

 

So my adventure with the beast has come to an end.
After the repaste, temp dropped considerably, only to find that probably my mobo and gpus are about to die soon.
Im not getting anymore frequent lockups but sli isnt working as it should, performance wise its comparable to an intel igp.
Both cards get stuck at 99% usage with 100mb vram usage, with 5fps lol.

So this beast will go straight to ebay right now.
It was fun while it lasted, i hope i helped many and made happy some others.

Everyone have fun and keep the beast myth alive
Zero's out!

 

Just a quick, really quick update.
Seems that the problem is cpu-related, but i dont exclude mobo as i said.
This because im NOT able to keep 3,8ghz STABLE.
Even at high voltages like 1,48 prime95 fails in 50 seconds, so definitely something is wrong with my ES x9000.

After a year of humble service is slowly dyeing lol. So now i have two choiches: stick to 3,6ghz stable (i just ran prime95 with 15 cycles at 1,45, it didnt happened anything, plus i gamed a bit of crysis 2 and TDU2 on both XP and 7, all good, no lockups) or selling the machine.

I saw x9000 OEM over ebay for 200$ which is a bargain but i really need to think over it. Spending more money to keep the beast running...or wait till it slowly dies.

Also i didnt noticed differences between 3,6 and 3,8. Framerate wise is the same, also it seems that its more stable.
I had to revert to 267.59 on XP as 270.26 desktops messed up everything, while on 7 it does fine.

Well, for now, farewell friends

 

Well, Kingpin,
I'm really sorry to hear of your problems and even more so that you might leave us; you have been my very patient teacher here for 'tweaks' and I think others will say your advice has always been excellent. Of course, I had always hoped you would (finally) publish your 'tweaker's guide' but I could understand why you feel less like doing it now. Who knows, if you publish and add a donate button, you might get enough to fix the beast....! Worth thinking about.

Cheers, Andy

 

Hi Andy,
Dont worry im not planning to discontinue the guide, i will publish it anyway.
Its just delayed a bit due to work, but it will be there.
Well as long as i can keep 3,6ghz im fine with it...

 

Kingpin, firstly sorry to hear about your machine going bad, I was just wondering how you got test drive unlimited 2 to play so smoothly. It's lagging like crazy on my xps with all settings on low @ 1920x1200. I did notice however that after turning everything up to high, the lag got no worse, so maybe my cpu is bottlenecking this game too. I have the T9300 @ 2.5GHz and 8800MGTX sli. I have ordered an X9000, reckon that will make this game playable or did you do something else? Thanks.

 

Yo, thanks.
Well the game is cpu bound no doubt, but im using a custom sli profile.
So actually im running the game at 1200p, all very high with 2xAA and 2xMsaa transparency forced in the driver.
Im getting stable 35fps, sometimes better than it, with usage around 80%.
if youre interested ill be happy to post my profile, youll need latest drivers plus nvidia inspector to import it.
Mind you on xp im using desktop 267.59 with a modded inf, so far best drivers ive tested.

 

I am here Kingpin

Well I dropped the speed to 3.6GHz too, actually the framerate difference is neglible between 3.6 and 3.8GHz meanwhile the temps is lower.

As for Crysis 2 I have locked the framerate to 30 fps, this makes it much smoother since there is barely no drops at all in framerate.

Also using a custom config setting of the Xbox 360´s config made the game run really good meanwhile forcing Very High settings in video options

Sorry to hear about your XPS, if you are planning to sell it will you sell it as a whole or as parts? You know I am interested in 9800m GTX GPU´s

 

Yo Mag thanks for your input and for your thoughts.
Right now althought i dropped to 3,6 im able to do more than 35fps in extreme with no tweaks on both xp and 7 surprisingly, maybe its due to the latest tweaks i did on both oses.
As i said i didnt had any drops in framerate, maybe i wasnt stable at 3.8 to begin with, who knows.
And yes until it dies ill take your offer in consideration.

 

Time's like this I miss my desktop, 4.2GHz i7 950... that wouldn't have had a problem running this lol! Hopefully the x9000 will make the game playable then when it arrives. That's some pretty decent settings you got it running at, although I guess those 9800M GTX's make quite a big difference too. Yeah that'd be great if you could post it please, I've got the latest drivers and nvidia inspector installed too. Thanks.

 

Speaking of failures - one of my RAM sticks just died on me - unexpectedly. I'm now running on a single 4GB stick. Let me know if anyone is willing to part take and sell me a 4GB module?

Thanks.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/wan...574424-wtb-g-skill-1x4gb-ddr2-667-urgent.html

 

Some, you must be the lukyest beast owner i ever seen.
Not only your cpu does 4ghz, but also youre running those gtxs at those clocks?!
Thats insane,im not even stable past 620/1550/900.
And then i look at my xps now that it cant reach 3,8ghz anymore, and i feel sad.

 

Thanks Kingpin, apparently I don't think I'm the luckiest beast owner too - cos' I have downlocked em' to 590/1500/885 now. With those insane speeds in my sig, they ain't running stable on Crysis 2 and some other older FPS games; I got lockups, many driver recoveries, despite very low temps maxing in the mid 60s and many driver versions tried both from LV2G and Nvidia. I think it's a sign that I should start to slow things down.

Also, my RAM just got bricked recently and unexpectedly. Suddenly things don't seem as they are.

My X9000 is still running at 3.8 stable.

 

So heres the requested TDU2 profile, works good.
Some screens:




And as a bonus ive included my Assassins Creed Brotherhood SLI Profile as well. It adds Ambient Occlusion as well, and performance is on console framerate-par.

 

Thanks for that, guna give it a try now.

 

No worries, hope it does ok.
Anyway althought im crippled @ 3,6ghz, i just made some experiments with a small oc bump on my gpus. 620/1550/900. Seems stable.
Heres some screenshot galore because im in the mood of it lol:

Crysis 2: Extreme 1920x1200 No Tweaks/Vanilla:



AC Brotherhood: Fully Maxed out, custom Sli Profile, 2xAA, SSAO



NFS 2010: Custom sli profile. 2xAA+2xSSA on Transparencies.

 

Managed to cram a 3rd HDD into my M1730. Bought an 80GB Intel G3 + a modular caddy. Unfortunately hardware RAID doesn't work because the M1730 cannot recognise the SSD as a boot drive from the modular caddy.

The workaround is to have the original M1730 caddy to house one SSD and one mechanical HDD. The modular caddy will have to house the 2nd mechanical HDD.

Only software RAID is the solution if you plan to have RAID on the other two mechanical disks. The performance difference is a negligible in my tests.

 

Nice screenshots, especially Crysis 2. Test Drive is still running terribly on my xps, I've dropped it down to 1440x900, everything set to low and it still lags like crazy, that x9000 needs to hurry up and arrive lol.

 

As i said tdu2 is indeed cpu bound, but also there are a few tweaks you can try.
First oc your cards if you didnt did it already.8800gtx is stable at 650/1600/950.
Second if youre under Xp,you need desktop 267.59 with a modded inf.
If youre under 7,then latest 270.61 whql are fine.

 

I did buy the dvd-slot-caddy and get rid of dvd drive a while ago. I bought 2x240 SSDs which I put in the M1730 in raid 0 configuration and then bought a regular 1TB hdd for the caddy as a data/backup drive... the interface in the dvd slot was only ide anyway so this was the best solution I could do and now I have over 1.4TB of internal total storage and the performance of the SDDs and overall boost to the system that I got from this upgrade was totaly worth it!

 

Good work guys, amazing space for data there, and blazing fast access...


And this thing never cease to amaze me.

So i had time to spare (yeah one of these evenings).

I grabbed 268.03 over L2VG for XP with a modded inf.
EDITED the inf to make our 9800m GTX into a GTX260m. The installer finds both cards (no whql, so it asks for confirmation) and it says "GTX 260m".

So i lol'd, it was actually working, i miss those times of drivers hack like i used to do on my FX3700m... ANYWAY!

So Crysis 2 runs better, maybe with 4-6 fps more in Extreme with no tweaks @ 1200p.

TDU2 seems stable at the same framerate, maybe a lil more stable around 36fps all the time (with the custom sli profile).

ACB seems the same performance as well, a lil better min fps and a bit higher max fps thought.

But the real surprise comes from SHIFT 2 Unleashed. Ive patched the game to 1.01, which supposedly adds SLI...and guess what, it does lol.

Rename the exe to AFR-FriendlyD3D.exe, just that. Then go max out every possible option in the video settings menu and watch a heavy game like SHIFT 2 running at an amazing 41fps with 15 cars on track with MAXED details.

And 3dmark06....consider im running at a crippled 3,6 ghz. I got 15,446. If only i could get my 3,8ghz back im pretty sure im able to break my personal record of 16,640...

Bottom line: 268.03 are FAST, stable (620/1550/900), SLI scales marvelously, plus they're updated, a bit more than my previous 267.59.

PS: i did a few runs with Crysis 1 benchmark tool under XP with Mag profile, oh well, 42.3 fps of average, being 56 (!!!) the max....coool!

 

That's weird how something like that can actually make a difference in games! Nice work! Is the 260m based on the same chip as the 9800m GTX or is it different? Also on a similar topic, flashing my 8800's to 9800m GT's, it didn't work last time I tried, I just got a black screen after flashing the second card (first card flashed fine), any idea what I could have been doing wrong or why that would have happened? Now I have experienced blind flashing I'm willing to give this another try.

 

Mhm, nope, i dont have a clue.
Have you used my guide for flashing? Because in my guide i linked the correct files for it. I converted my old 8800m GTX to 9800 without any troubles.

You need, however, to flash each card once. Flash the first, reboot, flash the second.

this is the link of my guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...0m-gtx-sli-9800m-gt-sli-bios-succesfully.html

 

Yeah I used your guide and the files you linked to and rebooted for each card. It's weird that the first card would flash fine and the second wouldnt. I remember it came up with an error message when trying to flash the second gpu, something like "Board ID Mismatch" if I remember correctly, which I bypassed by adding "-4" and "-6" into the command aswel. I'll probably just try again, is it possible that some 8800's are different to other's which could mean my 8800s just won't accept the 9800 bios? Thanks for your help.

EDIT: So it comes up with this message when you try to flash the second card:

"WARNING: Firmware image Board ID (9017) does not match adapter Board ID (9016).

ERROR: Board ID Mismatch"

I wonder if I change the board ID in the new BIOS to match mine using nbitor, if thatd solve this issue

 

I had that problem as well, but i forced the flash as well. Board Mismatch its a normal error, in the end the cards are different in reality. So you should be able to force flash it.

 

Hmm very strange, would changing the board ID on the new bios fix this issue do you reckon?

Yo again, I finally flashed it successfully. Here's the peoblem and how to sort it:

Basically I tried flashing again and it resulted in the same problem (black screen). I then tried to flash it back, so reflashed the second card with the 8800M GTX BIOS and as was the problem last time this happened, this would not sort the problem. Only after reflashing the first card back to an 8800 would the problem be resolved. It seems that for some reason that code "NVFLASH -i=1 -5 2.rom" is not flashing the second card, but actually the primary card again which must be what caused the black screen. What you need to type is "nvflash -4 -5 -i1 2.rom" (the -4 may not be required but I did it anyway) and then it flashes the BIOS successfully onto the second card. I dont wana sound like I'm saying your guide was wrong kingpin, its actually been really helpful to me and I appreciate your help, may have just been my cards being weird or me not quite typing it right haha, but hey, its sorted now. Cheers for all your help and time to try out these 9800's .

 

I just checked and the commands i used are ok, what version of nvflash are you using tho? Because its known that nvflash changes commands almoat every 2 releases, so i had to get an older version to get my cards flashed. Recent versions had some bugs like reverse commands and broken ones.
Anyway good work there im happy to see you sorted it out, at least my guide served as a base for your flashing ill add your findings to the beast guide

 

I just checked it and I was using 5.100, so that's older than the version you used! Well that explains why the command didn't work haha! I'm such an idiot at times lol, can't believe I didn't notice something like that. You're guide was actually really helpful thanks, used it all the way.

 

Kingpinzero,

I've used my X9000 at 3.6 only when gaming, otherwise I keep it at locked 2.5 for movies and such, max temp is around 68C.

Now, the GPUs on the other hand... at stock, even with full fan blast, reach 73C in Portal 2 (awesome game btw) so I`m thinking there's room for downvolting in the future...

Anywho, sorry to hear that about your CPU, but for me, 3.6 is plenty speed for just about any game at this point, so I say that if you can keep it at that, should be great

In the meantime, I`m planning to get Crysis 2, anybody got a good profile?
Also, what driver are you guys on? still on 265.9q here

Also, did you use to have a Sager, Kingpin?

 

Crysis 2 is fine with standard profile, also on XP im using 268.03, check my post above.
They're great, so far much more better than quadros, plus they're new with updated sli and stuff etc etc.

And yes, i used to have an NP8660, which i still have. clevo M860TU with an X9100 @ 3,6 and a Quadro FX3700 (gtx280m).
You have to see this little 15" beast, it still kicks .

 

I had a 5791 myself, a long time ago, and kinda miss that beast. Was one of the most solid laptops I`ve had... also, cool with the fan on demand speed

So 268.03, will do, thanks

 

My X9000 arrived today and simply overclocking it to 3.2GHz in the BIOS seems to have made quite a big difference in games already, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit was lagging quite badly, its now almost got no lag at all, so I reckon if I overclock up to 3.6GHz then hopefully I will be sorted. How did you guys get 3.6? Throttlestop? What voltages do you use? Thanks

 

Thats great to hear mate
Well it depends on what x9000 you got. I got a q174 ES so it needs a bit of voltage to run proprely at 3.6.
And yes im using Throttlestop like anyone. Bump the voltage to v1.45 and raise multiplier to 18, it should give 3,6ghz.

Go into bios and be sure to disable EIST.
In TS be sure to check the two "Clocks" option in the left side of the screen, both 100%.

then get Prime95, do Stress Testing->Small FFT and leave it running for at least 15 cycles. If it does end without any problems (no worker stopped error), then most likely you're stable at that frequency and voltage.

If you want, try to further lower the voltage from 1,45 and keep doing 15-20 cycles until you reach an error on one of the cores (worker error).
Thats the lowest you can go.

 

Thanks a lot for you help again lol, thats some really useful information there! I'm guna give this a try tomorrow now as it's getting late and I got work tomorrow, but will update on how it goes. When overclocking with TS, is it a good idea to enable 3.2GHz in the BIOS first to get the increased fan speed? Also changing the CPU, Dell didn't make it quick and easy on the M1730, can't believe I had to remove practically everything from the laptop to do it!

 

I say bump the speed under bios to 3,4ghz and be happy with it, then go for TS under Windows.
Reason is that 3,4 bumps the voltage to 1,47, thats a good threshold.

 

Ahh right cheers, will do, that fan speed is very annoying for just normal usage lol, downclocked back to 2.8 for just general usage now, but will obviously clock it back up for games.

 

Btw, there is a new version of Prime95 available.
According to the information on the site, it is supposed to run fatser on modern CPUs. I personally didn't notice that.
However, it does seem to push CPU more, compared to the previous version. With previous version under stress my CPU temps never went above 83 degrees. New version pushed temps over 90 degrees, which let to the throttling of the CPU.

Btw, did anyone try to clock X9000 at 3.0Ghz, and then OC it? So that the fans would not be on full blast constantly.

 

I made different profiles with and without full fan blast.
You can keep 3ghz at a very low voltage and leave the A11 bios do the cooling based on his heat limit.

Also dont forget that theres a trick for the full fans.
Keep your 3,4 in bios but boot the laptop without AC plugged in. That will make the lappy runs without full fans althought you have 3,4ghz in bios.

When in windows connect the ac and youre done. No need to switch back to 2.8 everytime in bios with this trick.

Also to make things better do the trick but create a custom TS profile for a desired speed, in this case 3ghz.

Better you run prime95 at 3,0ghz to find the lowest stable voltage as well to keep things cooler.
But as anyone knows the full fan blast feature helps the xps to not brick either gpus or cpus, running without fans at full keeps the beast in reasonable thermal limits (85c on oced gpus) but theres always a chanche that this contributes to a future hardware failure.

 

hey people

just a simple question im wondering ifi can still have video card plugged and still use the laptop, obviously with the cards disabled using safe mode or bios?????

cheers

 

I dont understand the question mate.

Do you have one of the cards broken?
If that so, you dont need to boot insafe mode nor to disable them.
Just boot the laptop using the media button, located near the power button (its smaller). It should boot with only one card, the working one.

If you got your cards pulled out the most likely your laptop will not boot and it will end in an hardware failure error.

 

Basically answered it mate thanks

Yeah the card only had one working sent it away for repair and said they cant fix it, i just still want the laptop useable even if its not for playing games until i decide whether to fix it or not

I still had a black screen with nothing on screen when i put a working gpu in so tryed ram in another laptop and isnt that so has to be motherboard which i can get a hold of

Lights were on the side so its not power brick something on the motherboard must be damaged i think as the diagnostics flashed up either memory problem or board problem

just ruling things out

cheers ill rep you now

 

I do this all the time since the noise is not acceptable for normal use.. I have X7900 oced to 3.0 (or run at 2.8 not sure atm) and then I run ThrottleStop
in windows with 4 profiles setup default profile is at 3.0Ghz with 1.2Ghz when idle, then I have 2 more profiles for 3.2 and 3.4Ghz with again 1.2Ghz when idle when I need the extra power or run a game and the last profile I use is for when I go AFK and its running on 1.2Ghz with 0.8Ghz when idle. All these profiles run flawlesly without the fans going full blast!

I do switch on fans in bios from time to time.. when I go play something that requires all the power you can squeze from it, but this is quite rarely nowadays as I don't game much these days and stuff like portal 2 doesnt really need any overclocking at all

 

Well it finally happened. I went to turn my 1730 on this evening and it just sat there and beeped at me.

After a frustrating call to Dell support (Please hear me, the display is BLANK. No backlight, no display, no Dell logo. The same as it was the first 5 times you had me turn it on...) they've decided I need so many parts that they escalated me to supervisor approval.

He said it would take 2-3 days for that approval process. So much for next business day onsite support...

Anyone know what they're running for 1730 repairs now a days? I understand she's gettin a bit long in the tooth but I was sorta still expecting decent support.

 

I haven't received decent support since I've owned the xps m1730. I've had to fight tooth and nail for every little component and on site support. Dell seems to default to depot service even if you have on site warranty.

I call Dell only as a last resort after I've done all the troubleshooting work and know exactly what's wrong.

I remember when I owned the first xps machine and I had a problem I got excellent support. Back then it was native english speakers from the USA.
They'd actually listen if you had information regarding the problem.

Now it seems they want you to run every test reinstall the OS over and over. Reinstalling the OS is just their answer to everything as a complete knee-jerk reaction. They ignore you, for what reason I have no idea. It's like they're daft and don't understand issues such as computer doesn't boot. How can you remote into a computer that doesn't boot up?

Good luck on your next day support.