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

Hmmm hate to be the bearer of bad news but no backup means no data.......

It would appear to me that you had the drives set for raid 0, which is for better performance not data security. What it means is that the system writes your information over both drives so that the system read/writes much faster as it can access both drives simultaneously. As the data is written in bits and pieces spread over the 2 drives there is no way to retreive data from raid 0 HDD's. Think of a word file that has some of the header on one drive the footer on the other, etc etc. One of the drives will have the key for where it all is and how it all fits together.

Alternately raid 1 is set so that the system writes all the information to read/write from just one drive so it runs slower waiting for the drive to spin up and retreive the data. As it is using just 1 hdd it is not dependant on the other HDD, the key and the matrix load manager.

So as before i think the data is lost - I could be wrong (hope i am) but don't think so..........

I suggest you post it in hardware forum and see if there is an expert who can help.

BUT

All is not lost in that now you have the usb enclosure you can get a cheap drive and DO BACKUPS!!!


EDIT:

Check this out. Did a google and it was 1st in the list. I don't know it, haven't used it. I think you must need another enclosure so that it can access both drives at once. Free raid o recovery s'ware

 

Ah damn, well live and learn I guess. All I have really lost is a few school files, music, and games that can easily be re downloaded from various sources. Well I really appreciate all the information, saved me a lot of trouble Now that I bought an external HD I can back up back up back up Once again thanks

 

See my edit it may be doable.

 

Any news on the 195.39 driver Gadget? Two Thumbs Up or NV Epic Failure?

 

So far only been able to test it with CODWaW, COD4 and Batman Arkham Asylum Demo. All are running really well not a single NV driver crash. 3DMark06 and 3DVantage are erroring on my system after my win7 upgrade so once it get that sorted I will run those. Also going to run Frycry2 and Crysis BM later today.

The one thing I noticed is an activity bar selection has been added for PhysX. Tested it the Batman Demo and it works just like the Sli activity bar.

Right now these are a keeper for me haven't found any reason to revert back.

 

Wonderful to hear. This driver is having issues in the AW realm - botched INF (both stock and modded). Temps are ok?

What error message are you getting with 06 and Vantage?

 

This error could be related to the new driver. I haven't run either 3D BM since win 7 upgrade.
That' a shame on the AW, the release notes clearly states for 260m 280m and 9400m hybrid along with many others.

 

My M1730 suffered a fall today. It was in my Spire backpack. The backpack slipped off my shoulder and hit the concrete floor in my garage. Took the laptop out when I got to work and there was a big chunk of the case broken off if the front right of the laptop.

Luckily (I Hope), I have CompleteCare. Dell wants me to send the laptop back for them to test and evaluate. I suspect it will only be the case that needs to be replaced. If it costs too much they will replace. I guess I am getting my money's worth on my extended warranties. 2 power supplies and 1 GPU replacement.

Anyone dealt with Dell and CompleteCare on drops?

 

I haven't had any problems since buying in March 2008.

 

Mine have been overclocked the entire time. Never had a issue since i bought it over a year ago.

 

Take LOTS of photos of the laptop running and not running. Video even if possible - have it run some programs on video and such. This is just in case the laptop comes back damaged further and Dell says it's abuse. Better to be safe than sorry!

 

It happens if the hdd was part of a raid setup, so for us that have raid setups we cannot simply take one of the drives out and put them in a usb enclosure as it will not work and it is normal for Windows to try and format a hard drive that was part of a raid setup.

 

Tech support called me today to see how I was getting on after having my GPU and LCD replaced last month and my LCD (again) and keyboard the week after.

I said things seemed to be running fine but the machine was still running incredibly hot, even after I have updated the BIOS which apparently fixes the heat issue.

After speaking with his superviser, the tech guy said he was booking an engineer to replace the GPU (again) and also the MB.

Not really sure why DELL find this necessary but that's what the tech guy wants to do in order to resolve the heat issue.

I was told that there is still a backlog on GPU's so it could be another 8 weeks.

Should I let them do this even though I have just had the GPU replaced and things 'seem' to be ok apart from the heat?

Cheers

 

These things do get hot, especially with 3D gaming and SLI.. can you quantify the heat with a utility like HWMonitor? They may be wasting their time and you may be better off with the GPU you currently have as far as reliability ...

 

Yeah that's exactly what I am thinking Twinpeaks.

Here are some screen shots from SpeedFan. I have literally just booted up and the first and only thing I have done on the machine is log onto this website.





What do you think?

 

Pac follow the link in my sig. It is normal behaviour 55-75c while idleing. : (

 

Thanks Slammin'

Perhaps I won't let Dell touch it for the time being. But then I think if I decline to have it looked at then they will point the finger at me if it does happen to fail in the coming weeks/months.

Why can't I just have a reliable machine.

 

My 8800 was replaced with 9800 in early August and the machine has been stable and reliable. The only thing I've done today is watch CNN and come here. I did watch a little brief video or two on CNN. Mine are at 68 celsius. I wouldn't worry about it.

They won't point the finger at you later. They're not that organized to see that you refused service.

If it's not broke don't fix it. Until it breaks.

 

My Dell/Hell experience is finally over now as ive had a refund from the re-seller, no more frustrating calls to indian call centres, no more Dell engineers failing to turn up when they were supposed too, no more managers failing to call back when they said they would, no more being left high and dry with a warranty that wasn`t worth the paper its written on.

I feel like ive escaped from Alcatraz, freedom

 

The Stig,
Congratulations, my friend. Good to hear!

Anyway, I wanted to ask SomeFormOfHuman about those stubs on his machine. I'll PM him about that, but I'll also work out this driver issue I've had. I just don't know how Magnus gets Resident Evil 5 to fly with drivers as old as 180.84.

 

Note: I apologise for the double-post.

I used to run the game fully maxed, with one GPU, and it was fine - never dipped or stuttered below 35. I even overclocked the single GPU in the last days, and it was smooth sailing. F.Y.I.: My settings were 'ultra', with maximum 1920x1200p resolution; no anti-aliasing because it was max-res, and 2 samples for aniso.

Fallout 3 is an amazing game, certainly a fresh title amongst what appears to be a long list of boring ports for the PC. I have my eyes on the game of the year edition.

 

Sorry Kade I have promised you the older 180.84 drivers for Vista. Well here they are Most my games fly on these drivers along with updated chipset

http://www.easy-share.com/1908335015/XTreme-G 180.84 Vista 64bit.zip

 

Thanks, Magnus.

Dude, I am sorry for the bother, but what about 32-bit version? Heh.

Also, which intel chipset update should I use?

 

Ah damn thought you were on the 64 bit version. Yeah I have to find the 32bit Vista version, since the only 32 bit I have is for Win XP.

 

The chipset version is according to my device manager 8.3.1.1005

 

Yeah, I got the right chipset as well. We're updated to the level of BatBoy's blog.

 

Ultra huh. I'll give it a try. Haven't had a lot of time yet so I'll try and make some tonight.

Yep it is GOTY. Also agreed - it is a bit of a change amongst the rabble. The VATS aiming system is pretty entertaining.

I was also given the World of Goo, which is a fantastic game reminded me of Portal. Very very enjoyable. Highly recomended if your after something different

 

Indeed. You've made the wise move by going for G.O.T.Y. edition because you get all the additional content and missions packs free of charge, and I've heard some mighty raves about the Broken Steel pack. Well done on the purchase, dude.

Appreciate the recommendation.

 

Hi Guys, any windows 7 upgrade options from Dell from Vista Ultimate, just wondering on costs and if Dell can be coaxed into doing it free, my system is outside the normal free upgrade window they offer, are not a load of keys floating around with all these system replacments/upgrades, let me know how much Dell charge and if anyone has managed to get it free because of problems with Vista.

 

You won't get an upgrade.

Let me just quote the technical department and customer relations team on this one, "We do not support Windows 7 on this laptop." Recently, one of them even added, "We do not support dual operating systems on this system."

Now whether this is accurate or factual is up for debate, but I am just telling you of the protocol at Dell. If you call them and tell them about hardware problems, and somehow, you mention that you have a two operating systems or Windows 7. they will immediately declare that your 'problem' is O.S.-related and that you should format the system and reinstall the Dell software.

I've run Windows 7 on the XPS, and the beta ran fine for a 'beta', but Dell have chosen not to support this system and I don't foresee them supporting this system in the future. Even if you pay them, they won't give you the option.

 

So much for Fallout 3, my card just died...........

 

I also got the "we don't support dual booting" when I had called with an issue on my Old and Busted. So from then on, I just lied and said I only had one os. Not like they could tell anyways.

 

Man, that is so unsettling to hear. I thought you were amongst the few--with a replacement G.P.U.--who wasn't doing half as bad as the others.


Anyway, my condolences, and if you don't mind my asking, what exactly happened?

As for Lord Zath's suggestion. Yeah, probably best to just fib about not having dual O.S. The technical team are not very keen on common sense, because they're trained basically to follow a script. You'd think that if you could duplicate the exact same error in two different operating system environments, it would strengthen the argument for that error being explicitly hardware-based. However, Dell have their protocol, so one can't expect to reason with them on the subject of Windows 7 and dual-O.S.

Point was that Windows 7 is just not supported with XPS M1730, so getting a copy from Dell for an M1730 system, free or paid, is just not going to happen.

 

@ Kade SFA!

That's the biggest joke of all.

When i put the new cards in in Aug I did some benchies and played a bit of FEAR Perseus mandate. Since then i've been on the road or too busy. I just installed Fall out 3 had 2 hours on it over 2 days. Today i was doing some housekeeping and noticed the Win Expeerience hadn't been set since the last clean install so I figured I'd give it a run so I've got a benchmark profile for the system, pointless I know but anyway, it ran for 3secs and then BSOD. I was able to get 1 card running but now not even one card. i now have a "business" machine. I can't even watch TV on it. Actually my business machine will even be able to watch tv as it has discrete graphics. So I therefore have a highly specialised word processor.......

 

WELCOME TO MY WORLD!!!

I've got an 8700 lying in the replacement box Dell sent me months ago, but everytime my card(s) fail, I just toast up the 8800's again because I'd rather endure an hour of fixing than have to deal with the sheer terror of the 8700. Speaking of which my cards are running nice and smooth, but they are however due to fail tomorrow. We shall see.

By the way, the last quote I heard about replacement cards being in stock was January 10, 2010, so better get on the M17x bus Slammin..

 

I thought after all your hooohaaaing you got a replacement M17x authorized?

 

Yeah, funny thing about that - I haven't heard back from Dell since I was "authorized". I called Escalations last week and haven't gotten a response in a week. I was supposed to get a call Wednesday going over specs - no dice.

IN any event, that would still take a month or 5 weeks to make once specs are finalized. In the mean time I use my xps quite a bit.

 

Sorry to hear, Slammin'. That's exactly what happened with my replacements. I still have to say, the original cards on my machine were top-notch. The replacements always artifacted and made a funny but faint chirpy noise, almost like as though I could hear the 'vram' doing its work; didn't sound right by any stretch of imagination.

Anyway, heh, guys. . . we're digressing. Let's move this one into the replacements thread.

Y'know, we need to keep the vibe in this abode as positive as possible. Lawl. Magnus and Eleron! Post something cool!

I'll post something for the time being:

The new Wolfenstein demo is tight! Good stuff! I like how they're still modifying older engines to produce some pleasing visuals.

 

Yea, I like that demo myself here are some screens with everything max'd:

 

Nice!

The old engine's come a long way.

I actually ran the demo with a single gpu, albeit overclocked. Everything maximum; stayed just a little under 60 on average, but hovered between minimums of 45 and maximums of 60. This simply demonstrates just how much power these GPUs still have!

I'd like to get a hold of an X9000, and I think I'll be set for a while.

 

Any of you guys wanna upgrade your RAM to 8GB??

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=430989

 

I have been using windows 7 for about two weeks, works awesome no problems at all so far.has anyone played borderlands on their beast yet?i have been playing for about a week great game if anyone was wondering.

 

Borderlands will fly at max on the beast.

 

Ah ifti, would have been nice if your first post after such a long time wasn't to sell something!

 

lol, sorry.
As I dont have a M1730 any more, I feel kinda outta place here!

Im back to a plain old Inspiron 1545 - a max spec Inspiron, but still an Inspiron nonetheless!

 

i have been playing it a bit, my fubar 8700's suck though, so it is only fun on my desktop if you can believe that. it was pretty fun at first, but now it is just a grind...

 

what video drive should i use for the most overall stablitity with windows7, i should have my disks coming in a day or two.

Also just added on another 2 years warranty, with accidental damage. Figured if one card burns out...the warranty is cheaper than the cards themself.

 

My kids are playing it on a Toshiba X205-9349 and the other on a Sony FZ180E and it plays smooth on both laptops and max resolutions and both are running Windows 7 too.

 

I am not surprised at all, Jesse. I remember your posts and benches from the good ol' X205 threads. It was a good machine.

As for Windows 7 - is anyone surprised? It is a good O.S., but Dell are stuck with policy.

 

Here's a pic of my laptop damage after a drop. It has gone back to Dell under CompleteCare. Hopefully there wont be any problems with them fixing it. I even managed to cut my hand on the sharp edges.