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

I think I should clarify what I stated earlier. I have personally left that school-of-thought because it largely doesn't fit my gaming approach, for the time being. It is very much a reason and point of contention that both mediums - PC and consoles - can be used to fullfil two different needs. However, the truths are certainly there, you yourself brought one up. . .

[Ref. to the bold-part of your post] If *that* is not a cold-hard truth, then I am seriously at a loss. It's almost a resounding reason from pillar-to-post in every console vs. PC., debate, and one that wins major points for consoles. And there is a reason for this: Because it is true. It stings PC gamers, but they have to admit to this fact. I do. Any day a PS3 or an XBOX 360, especially for my taste in games, would be a much cheaper and hassle-free alternative.

I already mentioned this in my last post, because despite knowing these facts, I still have my shallow reasons for staying on the PC platform as opposed to the other. As of the moment, I--for my personal taste in games--have no use for the PS3 beyond its list of exclusives and console-exclusives, and even they look bland. The pure multi-platform/PC ports are better performers on the PC, and after playing them on the PC, I can't even look at their console counterparts.

Don't get me wrong, you are right in saying what you are saying; the above reason already means that the consoles and the PCs are indeed for two different purposes.

You, of course, benefit from the ease of use as I once did when I used to game on the consoles. I wouldn't say I know how you feel simply to meet you half-way in the debate, because I hardly PC gamed up until 2007. The majority of my 'toys' are pure consoles, and for good reason. I have always hated software mishaps on PC, and still hate that side to the story. Hell, if the gaming quality goes the way it is going, I might actually sell the M1730 and reserve my gaming on the consoles, once again.

However, during my experience with PC gaming on decent hardware, I still maintain, truth-uncontested, that the consoles do not match visuals with the PC. Perhaps that is the reason why my taste in video games is going bad; the PC has tampered with my ability to properly appreciate the console experience.

I digress, sorry. Point is that these are truths:

- Consoles are -very- userfriendly and far cheaper to manage without 99% of the hassles of software and hardware that plague PC gamers. In this day of multiplatform gaming, this becomes even more important. This is a truth.

- The same growing list of multiplatform-titles also seems to be captured best on PC hardware, and that experience can sometimes really overtake the console-rendition by miles. This too, is a truth.

- You are right though, they can be, and are, two machines/mediums that can accomplish two entirely different goals. I didn't mean to infer that this thinking is in someway invalid, but rather, I was expressing my reasons for no longer subscribing to such thinking myself. Sorry.

 

No console can match the raw power of the M1730, GRID maxed out with 2x AA.

These screens don't do it justice though.

 

Not sure if you still need it, but recently i found some proper drivers, rather then some random method that only works half the time which i had previously.

http://www.motioninjoy.com/download

Just make sure you read the instructions because theres two parts to the install (or three if you want bluetooth).

 

You know that GRID can look much better without the yellow bloom filter on? I had tweaked the game before removing that and replacing with another filter and the game looked awesome.

 

Thanks mate, will try them now.

 

Please can you explain what you did, are you talking about motion blur?

 

No, he's talking about the visual filter or that 'tinge' that you see at the moment. I am interested in learning a bit more about this 'modification', Magnus; I assume it looks more photorealistic?

 

Yes the colors are more vibrant, not the yellow look like it has as standard. Scroll to the bottom of this thread, there is pics of Grid with tweaked settings

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=370146&page=12

 

Have you got the time to tell us about those tweaks mag, as those screenshots look great. How do I get the graphics to look so clean.

 

Yes try this first and replace it with the correct folders.

 

anyone interested in blue or gray wings? i could kick down one or the other if anyone is interested at all

 

thread died... i am shipping my 1730 back with the blue, so if someone wants the gray, lmk

 

And if someone needs an extra battery to power up those beautiful wings, let me know!!!!

(sweet plug right? sorry... )

 

Hmm.... it has been pretty quiet around here, hasn't it?

To be honest, I'm using my Thinkpads nearly exclusively now, but if I want to game my M1730's still running strong and pretty cool. I'm overall pretty happy with it even though I'm using my tiny X61s for about 90% of my computing needs now.

 

Couple of questions.

My M1730 is running BIOS version A02 and in reading through this thread today I see that it's a little out of date, apparently A06 is much better? I downloaded the BIOS file but unfortunately my battery is dead (has been for a while) and the system won't let me update the BIOS without a working battery.....unless somebody knows a way around that?

The other small issue I have is that my "Fn" key doesn't work. Anyone have an idea how to fix that?

Cheers,
Julian

 

Stupid question, but, have you considered getting the battery replaced? Are you under warranty?

 

NEVER - we will never let the XPS M1730 or, as it will always be known to me and others... 'THE BEAST' die out.

------

BTW, @Hank & Woodstock, sorry guys but please create a post in the MarketPlace for your M1730 items. You can then link to it in your signature. Thanks

 

Hi all

I want to replace my power supply with a smaller/lighter one. Has anyone found a good replacement?

 

Stick with the OEM PSU. If you go aftermarket, you tend to have issues. Same with aftermarket batteries.

 

10 months has passed for my system.... So far so good. Soon reaching the 1 year mark - then I'll be out of warranty.

 

I had considered it when the battery first died but then I found out Dell wanted AUD$300 for a replacement. I never run it off the battery so I didn't worry about it. I'm not going to pay $300 just so I can upgrade the BIOS.

Thats why I thought I'd ask if anyone knew of another way to get the newer BIOS onto it.

Julian

 

Extend it! Not too expensive for 2years extra.

 

So I take it you're no longer under warranty or never were?

If you want, I could buy you the battery, as it's no longer $300 AUD; it would be $168 AUD for me to buy from Dell. Or, if you find some other cheaper retailer on eBay or something, can help you out there.

I helped out a fellow 1730 owner on here earlier this year because geeks.com I think it was wouldn't ship to the UK.

 

Hi all, been reading this forum for some time and finally registered. Great source for "beast" owners. I am currently having problems w/ my XPS m1730 @ my video card and Dell says they must replace my system...any suggestions as to what would be fair... I really want another gaming laptop and don't want to be stuck w/ their studio line. thoughts....

 

Yea, I'll jump right on this q!

You need to find the separate thread about how people are getting m17x's for their M1730. Which is only fair the studio line of laptops aren't as good as M1730. So if you find that thread you should see how to make your arguement and get the m17x. Don't stop at anything less than a m17x, as its the only fair outcome for you.

 

Thanks Hankaaron, I'd take you up on that offer but I'm in Israel at the moment and not going to be back in oz till mid next year.

I actually bought it from Graysonline where Dell clear out there machines. This one was a warranty return (it has a crack in the corner of the chassis) so no warranty was available. I've had it about 15 months and it's been fantastic.

No ideas on the non functioning "Fn" key or bios?

Cheers,
Julian

 

My M1730 experienced more issues and it's the 4th return that they've been close to having to do... they're sending me a Dell Studio XPS 16 instead. Lame.

 

i was going to give them away?

 

So I replaced both my 160GB Hitachi drives yesterday. One of them was dying and constantly made my system freeze up at random.
A good thing that the Micron RAID bios displays the serial number and tells me what disk had errors so I had to throw away.
The one that still works found a home in my PlayStation 3, almost trippling it's original capacity.

They have been replaced by 2 Samsung Spinpoints having 500GB of capacity each.
It may sound weird, but the huge size of my M1730 feels a little more justified now that it has much more storage capacity heheh.

Got one question though.
I have it setup in RAID-0 just like my previous setup and it was striped at 128K. I did the same for my 1 TB setup as this was recommended.
Is this the most optimal setting or do you guys recommend a smaller/larger block size?

 

Hello, guys!

Can someone tell me which LCD is the best? Samsung, Sharp or LG?

Thank you.

 

My bad guys - apologies.

 

PM'ed you.

 

how do you tell what screen you have?

 

Under Device Manager, you can see the Model: SEC is Samsung

 

I didn't like the over saturated colours on the original LG screen I had for my 1730 as it hurts my eyes, and didn't like the colour calibration for photo-editing, so I had it swapped with a Samsung SEC 3155 model from my Inspiron 1720. Yes, they're both compatible.

The Samsung 5433 version of the M1730 wasn't colour accurate in my tests, I find the SEC 3155 (from the Inspiron 1720) has a more true-to-life tone of colours.

 

The LG is the brightest, but colors are way off and oversaturated. The Samsung (the one I have) is reasonably good brightness with a little band of light bleed at the bottom, but the colors are very accurate. I can't remember exactly what the consensus was on the Sharp, but I don't think it was very well received.

If you look back at thread #1 there was a discussion of this for weeks, with measurements, photo comparisons, and so on.

 

Leave it at 128K unless you have a good reason to change it due to your file usage pattern.

In a typical setup it's not going to make a big difference anyway.

 

nm88, I have an old PM from zfactor (remember him? oldschool..) that says he favored the Sharp over the others, despite being one of the dimmer screens. He agreed the LG had the bright/washed out colors. You said you liked the Sammy?

 

@hankaaron57,

I have also seen the Sharp screen too, and I find it has a mild tint of yellow over the other screens, and yes slightly dimmer. The sky wasn't really accurate sky blue, but rather greenish due to the very mild yellow tint.

The saturation is the same as the Samsung.

The only bad thing I can think about Samsung screens is, there is a very mild bleed at the top, but that can be solved if you look at the correct angle of the screen, 120 degree angle as how you view for most laptops.

Overall Samsung has the most accurate for colour.

 

Yes, I like it because it has the most accurate colors. Here is the link to the CIE diagram I got from HCFR (without any calibration) and posted here over a year ago: the white point is almost exactly 6500K, red and green are spot on, and blue is only a little bit off. You can actually do casual, non-critical photo and video editing on the Samsung without calibration, which is more than I can say for some desktop LCDs.

Looking at my old post, the brightness I measured on the Samsung is 208 nits in the center, whereas Anandtech measured the LG at over 250 nits. So while the Samsung is a fairly bright display, the LG is considerably brighter and will do better in direct sunlight.

There was an old set of photographs posted here, now gone, that directly compared the two, and viewing angles on the LG were also better.

So there are pluses and minuses to each, but I feel the Samsung is the most well rounded and definitely the most accurate.

 

Thank you!

Guys, one more question:

I wanna upgrade my CPU in future (T9300 installed atm) and I wanna install one from the Extreme series (X7900 or X9000) and overclock it.
But here I read about noise:

Is that true? Can someone comment this? Maybe my upgrade just unnecessary coz i really like my extremely quiet system...

 

It's not loud by my standards, but that's subjective.

Here's the real reason WHY I favour the noise: System stays very cool, and helps the GPU.

 

Thanks for your reply!

But that is true? Fans locks at max RPM when overclock mode on? Any BIOS settings/software to fix this?

 

Don't overclock beyond 3.0 GHz and they won't run at max. Outside of that, no, there is no way.

 

Yes. "Noise" is subjective to the user. But in time, you'll thank the "noise", for keeping your GPUs alive.

Call me crazy, but I LOVE the noise. When you press the power button and hear the fans start to roar, your confidence arise - as you know you've tons of raw SLI power to rock n' roll without any overheating worries.

 

Kade, same as you do. I keep mine at 3.4Ghz all the time for the same reason after 2 1/2 years with zero problems so far (me knocks on wood!!! LOL!! ), that was my reason for getting mine with the X9000 cpu in the first place, and yes the niose is subjective to the user and it does not bother me at all as I personally don't think it's loud at all, but others do think it is very loud. One thing I have yet to figure out is how to get Windows 7 to default to the high performance power scheme????

 

+1 Get the 9000 and OC

 

If you only have a single GPU, you can use i8kfangui to control the fans and force them to low speed.

But otherwise, all fans are going to be on high always at 3.2 or 3.4, and don't count on this changing any time soon, or at all.

And yes, it's fairly noisy; the GPU fans especially are small and run at a high speed, so they have the signature high pitched hair dryer sound to them. The CPU fan is lower pitch and somewhat less annoying, but still quite loud at full speed.

 

Thanks, guys!

And the last question:

About CPU upgrade: X7900 (4 MB L2, 2.8 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 65 nm) or X9000 (6 MB L2, 2.8 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 45 nm)?

The last one twice as expensive (~500$ vs. ~250$). Should i take X9000 or X7900 will be good enough? Is there any difference in noise? Between 45 nm and 65 nm, I mean.

 

As far as pure clocks go, you get the same, but the greater front-side-bus does help, regardless of what people say. There's a silly, mainstream promotion that one gets a '10% benefit' from the X9000's FSB. However, this is misleading. In some cases, you won't see a difference, in others, you will see a decent difference thanks to more execution sets and the greater bus.

None of these differences can be pin-pointed or quantified in numbers or percentages. Silly stuff, really.