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

Yeah, that'll cut badly. You are vaccinated for tetanus, right?

 

Tetanus shot would more for a dirty nail. The case of a M1730 should be pretty clean (relatively), same as a cutting yourself with a kitchen knife - no need for a tetanus shot.

 

YEah but the last batch of XPS's had a severe outbreak of herpes. So, don't be too cautious.

 

Haha, nice ref - a reoccurring pain in the b^alls!

 

Last game I`ve tried is Prototype...but for some reason it doesnt feel very smooth...

I probably am due a format soon...

 

Same here eleron. Some webpages simply stutter too much, and it gets worse the longer I keep this installation of XP intact. Mostly java and flash based things just get corrupted.

Of course, I'm lazy as heck, so I'll use the opporunity to install W7 and XP Pro x64 finally.

 

Dude, it was a bad joke. Case and point: Didn't work. But, on the medical subject of cutting - one could always use a shot if they're not vaccinated. In this day and age. . . heh. Well, I'm paranoid.

Anyway, Prototype was mostly a driver-disaster. The newer drivers run the correct SLi profile, so the game does well. I actually run it with a single card, yet again. Edit: Although it is one of those heavily populated sandbox-style a.k.a. free-roam games, so might be a bit stressful on the C.P.U.

 

Quick question, anyone using the DVI out to external monitor? Using SLI mode causes some noise interference to the sound output from the speaker. Especially noticeable when the game is taxing the GPUs.

 

Well, as planned, my GPU's failed mid-day yesterday (Wednesday), and my oven also does not work. So, I'm now typing from a machine with an 8700 in it and I want to kill myself

I'm going over to my friend's house tomorrow (it's 5 AM - why am I on so late/early??) to use his oven haha. I also took the heat sinks off finally. Took a lot of prying, as the heat pads/thermal solutions had stuck to the copper plates quite well, which is the original reason the FIRST time I toasted my cards I just left the whole heat sink apparatus on in the oven.

Anyway, I cleaned off the residual thermal compound on the contact points with a cue tip and rubbing alcohol, but didn't apply any AS5 or anything else. In the past I didn't notice a significant difference with the arctic silver. I also tried looking on the board itself to see if maybe I could spot the actual spot where the solder had disconnected (hence the oven toasting procedure), but I realized there were so many intricate connections, this was not even possible. And even if I did find the area (I saw some areas that could be iffy, but what do I know? I'm not an engineer), what would I do? My soldering iron isn't made for small precise soldering like this, and who knows what grade of solder I would have to use to make sure the circuit's current would flow properly. These are the things I did wit my free time tonight when I realized my oven wouldn't work and I couldn't save my cards for an 11th time

 

Man, Dell's even screwed up your oven.

Anyway, maybe when you 'bake' the card this time, perhaps your should apply the AS5, just for testing purposes. Maybe the solution will help your cards last a bit longer. You know, each time you toast the cards with the heat sink and paste on, the paste becomes useless.

 

Does anyone else have a crap of a time connecting the stupid dvi-hdmi cable to their tv's?

It was working not to long ago....now i cant get it to send the signal. It sees the tv, but never switches over.

 

Just used it recently for a party and it worked great. I used several resolutions with Sli and also used the HD settings in the NV control panel to pump out 1080i.

 

I've been enjoying Dragon Age Origins while out of town on my 1730 with 9800GT SLI and it plays great.

When I ducked out to desktop, 1920x1200 with high graphics details, I saw 77 celsius. I'm glad to have a stable functioning 1730. I really enjoy this laptop; my only issue is lack of HDMI but I can deal with that.

My speaker grills have lost their paint. I think this should be covered under warranty. I tried once when I had my 8800GT replaced and the tech said he couldn't do that but between my Completecare and my warranty, someone should.

 

I recently switched from Vista 32-bit to Win 7 64-bit.

In my device manager it shows that my Physx PCI adapter isn't installed because there are no drivers installed.

I have the most current nVidia drivers for the 8800M damily installed.

When I install the Physx updated drivers it says it installs just fine but the Physx adapter is still showing up and not working because of no drivers.

Any ideas?

 

Remove PhysX drivers.

Install version 8.09.04 first.

Then download the current drivers and update.

It will now show up in Device Manager.

 

Thanks that worked!

What about the Soundblaster Audigy Enhanced MB driver? Doesn't seem to work either. The error code tells me that I don't have any audio drivers installed.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there has been no update for this app/driver. Dell chose not to update it for Vista 64 and I would not hold your breath for a W7 update.

Just run with the Sigmatel Audio driver or the default W7 audio driver.

 

Thanks, that is what I have been reading in the forums.

I am also looking for an X9000 CPU to replace my T9300. I have checked the intel website and this is what I think I should be looking for.....

Intel® Core™2 Extreme Mobile Processor
sSpec Number: SLAQJ
CPU Speed: 2.80 GHz
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Bus/Core Ratio: 14
L2 Cache Size: 6mb
L2 Cache Speed: 2.8 GHz
Manufacturing Technology: 45 nm
Core Stepping: M0
Thermal Design Power: 44w
Thermal Specification: 105

I checked eBay and these are the X9000 CPU's I keep seeing.....

Item specifics
CPU Socket Type: Socket P
CPU Speed: 2.8 GHz
Model Number: X9000 Q174 C0 QS
Socket Type: Socket 478

Is this the same cpu or is it different?

What socket and chipset is the M1730?

 

Wow. I cut it REALLLLLY close today. I went over to my buddy's house to use his oven, and he had the oven going at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for a few minutes before I got there (guess he assumed he'd warm it up for me, but didn't ask how warm..), and I turned the dial down to 385 F (the temp I use to toast) and after about 5-6 minutes I threw the card in there without thinking, that maybe, I should open the door and let the air out so it gets down to 385 rather than 400's. Well, this of course didn't enter into my mind until after I took the card out, and I noticed the black shrink wrap on the top of the card was still bubbling from being so hot. I melted the plastic on the side of the card where the inputs are too. I was sweating bullets - did I finally kill my card in the oven?!!

Well, I took it home, and started screwing the screws in, and one of the screws that holds the palmwrest to the card board wouldn't go in right - I had melted the metal chassis for the screw hole! Now I was worried I just ruined a half-good card. Well, I turned it on and voila - the card is working just like before. I thought for sure I had finally baked my card to hell.

But anyways - lesson learned today: don't experiment with higher temps. Don't experiment with longer time. 385 Fahrenheit preheated for five minutes, then in on a timer for 10 minutes. Open the door, for twenty minutes so it cools down gradually, then take it out to cool down at room temperature for another twenty minutes.

The shrink wrap covering the circuitry on the top of the card (if you've disassembled your laptop, you know what I'm talking about) is now hugging the circuits/transistors very tightly now, like a bicyclist with underarmour on that's too tight around his package. It just doesn't look like right

 

QUICK QUESTION:

I have a Dell m1730 - and I have had it for the last 5 months.

It just died - the screen is flashing BLUE GREEN YELLOW etc... seems my 8800's died.

I called Dell - they are taking the system back. And refunding me the full purchase price.

My question:

When I got the system from Dell, I personally upgraded the single 160GB HDD to dual, RAID 1 HDD's....320GB each HDD. It has Dell's Vista Ultimate on it. I will be removing those RAID 1 HDD's and re-inserting the original single HDD before returning.

I have a new Alienware system that I have not opened or used. It came with two 320GB HDD's in RAID 1. It has Dell's Vista Home Premium.

Do you think I can remove the original RAID HDD's from the alienware, insert my other RAID 1 HDD's and run the system with Vista Ulitmate?

My real problem is this: I have data (work files) on my m1730 that I need to get off - and without a working video card, I cannot do that.

So, i was wondering if I replace my alienware HDD's with the m1730 HDD's...

Any ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks!

 

Yes. You can. Download GPU drivers though to the drive so that the AW will move quicker when going through file screens to back them up. You understand the drivers for the 1730 are not the same for the Alienware. Actually, now that I think about it, the GPU driver might work for the 280's too. What GPU and what driver are you running?

 

I had this happen for a long time with Vista. There is a known bug with some versions of the nvidia Vista drivers. It's even in the errata for Vista 64 nvidia drivers. Grab some newer ones.

 

Is this directed to me?

I am not looking to install my GPU's from my m1730 into my m17x Alienware. Those GPU's failed and that is the problem.

I was looking to take the 2 HDD's from my m1730 and install them into my new, unopened and unused m17x Alienware -

Will this work?

And I am looking for a video on how to swap out the HDD's on the m17x Alienware... have you guys seen any?

 

What nvidia program should i have installed to change my GPU settings?

I jsut finished installing 64bit7, and wanna turn the cards back up.

 

I use the 6.05 NVIDIA system tools and just install the the performance tools.

 

Intel's RAID controllers have been backwards compatible for many years, so as long as your new system has an Intel controller too (even a newer one), it should recognize the RAID array.

However, if you try to boot up Windows in a system with different chipset/hardware it will be a mess as Windows tries to sort things out, and it could BSOD/hang on startup as well as possibly scramble the system files, making it unbootable.

You are far better off booting up from a third drive (even a USB key) and then copying your files, so the original system data is undamaged.

If you must boot up with those disks, try safe mode.

But if you want to upgrade to Ultimate and have a good working system, I suggest you reformat after you back up your data, and not simply stick in the disks and hope for the best.

 

Thanks for the help.

I guess basically - this is where I stand...

I have about 1GB of data (work files) on my m1730.

I need to get those off.

But, I cannot boot it up - every time I try I get a BLUE GREEN YELLOW flashing screen... my video cards (8800m's) are toast.

So, how do I get those files? I cannot just remove the HDD as it is not just one - BUT 2 HDD's I had it set up as RAID (Not the mirror RAID but striped).

Any ideas how to get this data off my HDD's in my dying m1730?

These dual SLI 8800's are not 2 separate cards that I can remove are they? Meaning - can I remove ONE and LEAVE ONE and find the one that might be working - or, is this dual set up really ONE housing and there is no way to separate them? Just an idea I was thinking about.

Dell doesnt even have a cheap, workable m1730 video card to send me so I can install it and then boot, copy, etc....

Ugh!

 

Stick them in any other computer with an Intel RAID controller and boot off that computer's regular drive, then copy.

Or make a USB key bootable (get a DOS image for it then use an NTFS driver) and use that to copy over the files.

 

@keysh

Start reading from about page 45ish or search for Bizarostormy, they had the the same problem.

 

I appreciate the replies and your patience as I try to understand this.

I think a hard drive enclosure, etc would work fine - EXCEPT I did a RAID set up between my 2 drives and it is a striped RAID... not the mirrored...

So, how would I get 2 HDD's to still be in RAID and readable on another computer?

(Perhaps I am not understanding the RAID issue well - but, it was my understanding that with 2 HDD's setup as I did, the 2 drives acted as ONE big drive... and data is spread across both drives...)

With that in mind, I am not sure how to get the info off...

I did remove them from the old m1730 - I placed both of them inside my new m17x Alienware - and when it booted I went into the RAID setup and changed it from Mirrored to Striped... but it said no O/S was present.

I am just confused. I am sorry... and if anyone would like to help me understand more it would be appreciated.

It seems the poster back on page 46 or so had this problem - but it was not with a RAID setup - just a single HDD from a laptop - and that I could handle just fine....

But the data being spread across BOTH HDD's does confuse me.

 

It was not off a single HDD, it was indeed RAID 0. I figured the info on those cards wasn't worth the money. Something you can look into are 2 slotted enclosures that will allow you to dock 2 RAID 0 HDDs and if you follow a lnik that Slammin posted not too long ago then you just may be able to reconstruct the bits of information. Best of luck.

 

Keysh, the point of my post was that you should download the appropriate drivers for your AW GPU's to your XPS's harddrives, so that when you stick those drives into the AW (because it has working GPU's, so you can see the stuff on the screen), it will load the GPU's and you can use it more smoothly than if the computer was running without drivers. However, halfway through my writing, I realized that recent drivers probably work for the 9800's and the 260/280's.

The point is really that the process of doing ANYTHING with the harddrives in an unfamiliar system is that the drive doesn't have drivers for the graphics card, which power the graphics <-- everything will lag and be time-consuming, especially scrolling.

So, you're running a RAID-0 setup, and want to stick it on a new computer. You can't change it to mirrored from striped without wiping the drive's data. Striped is one big drive with two drives, so you were right.

Try booting and doing everything normally, without changing the RAID array.

 

The M17x uses an NVIDIA Based RAID solution since it has an NVIDIA Chipset. I would not swap in the drives - damage to the array is the most likely end result in which case you will lose your data. Sorry.

 

As I said, you need a computer with the same RAID controller (Intel ICH8 or later). A motherboard with an Intel chipset will have this, and they are quite common. Just hook both drives up, and it will recognize the array. (Yes, the data is spread across both drives and yes, both must be hooked up no matter what.)

If I'm reading you correctly and you put those drives in a computer with a non-Intel controller, and then you reconfigured the array in the BIOS, you just hosed all of your data.

 

@ keysh

Raid 1 is mirrored which as the name suggests is a duplicate copy of your drives. Raid 0 is stripe, so bits and pieces of data from the same file juggled betweeen the 2 drives to speed up r/w's.

Raid 1 is for data security Raid 0 is for speed. Either way you should always backup your drives and the external hdd is the easiest cheapest option to allow you to backup to multiple drives. If your backup is stored with your computer it is NOT backed up. If the room burns down you've lost the lot. Backups should be stored away from your normal work space.

Back in that discussion I had a link to This google search

I haven't had to recover raid 0 but it seems like IT IS possible.

 

It's the same socket, and fully compatible with the M1730. Quite a few M1730 users here on this forum have used such chips as X9000 upgrades. Even I will be getting one of these very soon.

And Mr. Hankaaron,
Even the best chefs burn their dishes every once in a while.

Sorry. . . that was a serious note on your part. It can be dangerous because you could've melted the actual connection socket of the cards, which would mean dead GPU.

 

Thanks for the help everyone.

I just couldnt remem which RAID name to call my setup - but it is RAID 0.

So, in essence, I am stuck for now.

I have no comp other than this new alienware machine to use - and data that is PERFECTLY fine - but on 2 HDD"s that were RAID 0 on my m1730 that just had the GPU"s die on me.

I cannot boot that m1730 at all....

I did not erase or reformat the data on the RAID 0 HDD's when I installed them into my Alienware -

Here is what I did:

I removed BOTH HDD's from my new alienware - RAID 1.

I installed the HDD"s from my m1730 into the Alienware - RAID 0.

I booted and got the message "No O/S found"

I booted into the RAID Config screen - it saw both drives - was set to "Mirrored" so I changed it to "Striped" thinking that might work since they are RAID 0 drives. But a confirmation message appeared before I exited this RAID Bios and warned me data may be lost - so, I cancelled that and didn't not proceed (I didnt want to lose my data).

Seems that the RAID controller for this Alienware may not be an nVidia controller and there in lies the problem I suppose.

It was not as simple as 'pop 2 drives out of the alienware and pop in 2 drives from my m1730"

I will research the option of some sort of external RAID 0 access option.

I dont know what else to do.

Thank you all!

 

So I assume the Alienware machine doesn't have the right controller.

I did installed the 2 HDD"s from my m1730 into the Alienware but it didn't work.

Ideas?

(And I didnt erase all the data b/c I saw the warning message when I changed from 'mirrored' to 'striped' and exited without actually changing the settings... )

 

Keysh2oboy,
That's exactly what they've all said, and Nm88 has detailed in his post. Alienware has a different chipset while the M1730 has an Intel chipset. You'll need to consider other external options.

 

Kade I am also thinking of getting me an X9000 CPU. I think it would boost performance quite a bit of my XPS M1730.

 

Thanks Kade!

 

No problem, kMaN.

Magnus,
I am amped about getting the X9000, which will be very soon as the deal has been finalised. Should have it sometime next week, and the good bit about this C.P.U.; it's already been used and tested at maximum speed.

Things I am looking forward to, all of which involve overclocking:
- Fans on full-blast.
- Better G.P.U. health.
- Perks of the overclocked C.P.U.
- Alleviate some of that bottle-neck on the G.P.U.
- More stable performance on the C.P.U. intensive games like GTA IV and Cryostasis.
- Using Magnus' configurations for games.

Ernstig's rig humiliated my machine with Cryostasis, and the only difference-maker was that he was running the an X9000, and the higher he clocked the thing, the smoother his game got. Hell, his GPUs weren't even overlcocked while mine were at 600/1500 (Core/Shader). Of course, majority of the games aren't so ground-down to C.P.U. math, but it helps. Even PhysX benefits from a high clocked processor.

 

Im going to be getting one in the next 6 months x9000 that is, playing the left4dead 2 demo both cores reached 100%

 

Kade, what is the chipset and socket of the mobo that is in the M1730?

 

You're using the same socket as the one advertised with these X9000s.

Our chipset is Intel 965.

And Drxfeelgood, I am shocked that L4D demo did that much of a number on your machine. Which C2D are you using? T7700 or T8300? I would advise something at least in the range of a T9300.

 

Is there a guide out there for swapping CPU's in the M1730?

Do you think that the 9800M GTX SLI give that much better performance vs. the 8800M GTX SLI?

 

Yes, there are plenty of guides on how to swap processors. I believe SomeFormOfHuman posted something a few pages back.

As for the 9800m GTX vs. 8800m GTX.

That's an old conversation, and something I was going to say to Magnus anyway. I believe he could reach the top-tier in benchmarks as an M1730 user, just by getting an x9000.

People have a lot of opinions on the 9800m GTX vs. 8800m GTX debate, but the facts only support one side of this debate.

Yes, the 9800m is very slightly better, and by that, I literally mean 19-to-20 difference. Now tests and non-synthetic benchmarks show just that very result. Two of our highest scorers who have managed to tame a game like Crysis, are Ernstig and Hikkooo. One of them has the dual 8800m and the other has the 9800m, and they're actually neck and neck. Do you know what they do have in common? X9000s running overclocked.

Over the 8800m GTX, a 9800m GTX will get you, maybe an extra frame or two, in real world gaming. Fact is both cards are majorly bottle-necked by the limited CPU speed in these notebooks. Even a mere 8800m GTS with a solid desktop-grade CPU solution would make games fly. So in short, you will see virtually no difference between the two.

To put it simply:
- If there is a game that is unplayable or barely playable with the 8800m GTX SLi. You will get no difference or improvement by swapping out for the 9800m GTX SLi. You have a -much better- chance of improving this by optimising your system and upgrading CPU.

My friend's got a Toshiba Qosimo X305. It used to have an X9100 (now I think he's upgraded to the QX9300) and with dual 9800m GTS (SLi) - a lower VGA vonfig. That machine scored better than and owned virtually any M1730 performance rig that I have read about in any of these threads. Intensive DX10 games like World in Conflict and Crysis had much smoother results with higher 'minimum frame rates'. You get the idea.

Also a note: 1GB of DDR3 Vram can only be properly utilised with a 512-bit bandwidth, which currently no laptop video card offers.

 

Do you knwo of any CPU swapping guides for the M1730?

 

Go to the following link (BatBoy's blog):
http://xpsm1730.blogspot.com/

Download the 'service manual', and run the application. It'll give you a step-by-step guide on how to disassemble and reassemble all parts, including CPU.

 

Thank you very much!