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

Put it this way. With RAID 0 the data is written simultaneously on both drives, making write speed almost twice as fast, and minor read speed increase. You get all the space available from the 2 drives, but in case of 1 failure, all data is lost, regardless of the other functional drive.

In RAID 1 both drives have the SAME data written on then, sort of like a backup, meaning that read time is twice as fast, if not more, and in case of a failure, data is not lost as long as one functioning drive remains. The available disk space is only half of the total, or the amount of space a single drive from the 2, identical, offers.

Magnus is MIA, I was willing to try his theory to flash the cards...

 

Are you sure about that?

If the read speed on the plater is the rate limiting factor having two read simultaneously of the same data will be the same overall data transmission.

EDIT: Huh, just reading about it now. Maybe it is indeed faster. Didn't realise that he heads are independent on position on the platters.

 

Question for all you Dell Customers:

I've had my Dell XPS M1730 for a little under 2 years now. I bought it with SLI 8800's.

I just recently got it returned to the repair depot through my warranty to fix the motherboard issue (not charging battery, running extremely sluggish.)

I've had the motherboard replaced already about a year ago. This is the second time.

I just got the laptop back from Dell after about a month or if being in the depot. They say on the repair slip that they "repaired" the following:
AC Adaptor/Cord
Fan
LCD Panel
MLB
OS Restore
Video Card

I now have sLI 8700 in my Laptop. The Dell support line is down now, but I plan on calling Dell tomorrow and begin the questions about why was my video card replaced with my knowledge, why was I downgraded, what can be done about it.

Do any of you have any suggestions with dealing with Dell, or ideas about what to ask?

Thanks!

 

If I were you I would give them a very short leash. Dell has routinely denied warranty service in my personal experience and in dealing with clients as well. Currently I'm supplying my state attorney general continuing evidence of this fraud.

In my case I have an at home warranty that is essentially invalidated by dell and the only service they will render is at their depot. If I wanted depot service I would have paid substantially less for that option over the full length of the warranty. Additionally Dell has lied to me, other members of this forum and clients as well. So they have a history of this type of behavior.

Whatever you do, document every call, the time, who you spoke with, etc. Retain all emails and if you can record your conversations.

In your case, you caught them trying to force downgrade your graphics cards. Other Dell customers, especially xps m1730 have experienced this as well.

Be polite but tenacious. A month at their depot, and to have your laptop returned with a forced downgrade?

Do you have an at home warranty? Did they try to tell you that the repair work could only be done at a depot? Do you have a next business day warranty?

If you read, you'll see that some people on these forums got upgraded machines and others were denied lawful service under warranty.

I'm almost a year into my struggle with Dell. They have a history of delay, deny and trying to wait out the warranty period. In my case I've lost a year of lawful warranty service. I shouldn't have to put up with continual blue screens, disappearing graphics cards, forced shut downs/restarts. Yet I don't want to send my machine into a depot where they have a history of damaging machines and pulling these types of downgrades or substitute replacement cards that are even worse in terms of behavior. Who knows, they could simply keep my laptop for months leaving me with no machine as they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy.

My attorney general suggested I take them to small claims court, I may do just that. Hopefully you won't experience the same level of deceit.

 

Why did you return it to depot? If you had next business day @ home service you could've refused to.

Don't waste your time on this with regular support.

Just go with unresolved issues, and demand a replacement system.

https://support.dell.com/support/to...care/outstanding_issues?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=gen

 

Yup, pretty sure. Ok, not sure about the figures, but they`re roughly in that area. I, myself have been using RAID 0 since the beginning and it`s nice to see even games of 10-20 Gb install fast, whereas in RAID 1 I`ve seen games load stellar fast...

 

I dropped two Seagate Momentus XT second-gen hybrid drives w/RAID 0 in my beast. It flat-out flies when handling frequently-used files (such as Windows system files).

 

I didn't know you could RAID the momentus XT's. I thought I read somewhere RAID isn't supported. Did that change now?

 

It's not supported. You have to tweak the firmware with HDDSCAN and disable APM. Then they work great.

HDDScan – free HDD test utility with USB flash and RAID support

 

Wow, and just checked the price on`em. Reeally affordable.

 

Allright, so by Monday I`ll find out what the deal is with my GPU exchange, since while 1 is still working, I can`t afford to let them take it for service.

 

Yeap, and come back with a 8700 GPU in it.

 

Would there be any reason to distrust the Windows Task Manager estimate of core load? Because at 3.4 GHz and a reported 100% load I'm getting a maximum temperature of 61C and an average of 46C. That seems far too low if the load is actually maxed.

Also, would anyone happen to know what the primary limiting factor would be when playing SC2 on this laptop? I'm trying to see how close to Ultra I can get.

 

Task manager is accurate when reporting CPU load. Not sure about your temps, I'll let others comment on that.

SC2 is very CPU intensive so running at 3.4 seems like a good idea, you could try to overclock the GPUs but that won't get you very far in my opinion.
Please post your video settings, I am interested to see how well it performs.
Cheers!

 

I ran 3Dmark, here're the results with the CPU clocked at 3.4 GHz and the GPUs at core 750 MHz, shaders 1500 MHz, and memory at 960 MHz:
3DMark Score 11287
SM 2.0 Score 5174
SM 3.0 Score 4680
CPU Score 3063
OS Windows 7
CPU Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor X9000
CPU Speed 3490 MHz
GPU NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT
Memory 4096 MB

------
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It seems low to me?

 

That's just about any score with an 8700M GT SLI and overclocked. If it's an 8800M or 9800M, that's considered low especially with an X9000 @ 3.4GHz...

 

Well, I've told them that since 1 card still works, I`m not letting go of the thing, I need it for work, so they should send me a replacement 8800M GTX or 9800M GTX, either way is fine for me.
Thought the 98M GTX is a better choice

 

Yeah, it's an 8700M GT SLI.

 

The the results are pretty much in the ballpark.

 

I am more KIA than MIA eleron Well I can post my GPU bios´s today for you.

 

Ok, cool. I`ll get on it, although I am thinking better about letting them replace it first...

 

Finally I found an X9000 on Ebay from Ireland for 300 Euro He has two of them, pretty cheap indeed. Hopefully I have it next week

 

300 E? Dang, it was 500$ some time ago, now it`s more?

 

I bought one for 200 dollars but it was an ES sample.

 

Mine is OEM, however only 2884 swedish kronor I planned to upgrade my desktop to an Core I7 since that CPU costs as much as this X9000. But to hell with the desktop I love my XPS M1730 more and want to squeeze out the last drop of it performance wise

Eleron it costs less than before, at least with this guy http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270633881029

Maybe you should grab one now. It´s from Slovaika so the shipping is damn cheap to Sweden.

 

Yea, well, I might get into some financial issues pretty soon, so I`m letting the X9000 slide for now...

At least until I can clear out the whole 2nd GPU issue I`ve been having.

 

Called Dell today about one of my GPUs failing. Tech is coming with a replacement tomorrow. I also asked cs rep what GPU is it going to be. He said it will be MX888, which is 8800M GTX if I remember correctly. Was kind of hoping for 9800M GTX...hope the rep was wrong .
I also tried to get them to replace my CPU, as I cannot get it to be stable @3.2 or 3.4 GHz. Was told by the rep that even though extreme CPUs can be OCed without voiding the warranty, they are not covered under the warranty to work correctly when OCed. Which means if my CPU works fine at stock clocks (which it does), my case is not covered under the warranty. I was then transfered to a supervisor, who told me the same thing.
Wondering if this is true though. I'm quite upset about it, as I cannot set fans on full blast now. And palm rest gets hot while gameplay when fans work @ stock speeds.

 

They will always put in orders for the original parts. The parts department is the one who will change it if there is no more XM888's.

Keep checking your service call status, and it will tell you what you are getting.

When I had to get GPU replaced on M1730, first one was 9800, then a field tech broke something, and had to replace the GPU again, which ended up 8800's.

 

I envy you guys, in the US. Replacements get there much faster.
Like, in my case, it take 2-3 weeks for the verdict to come out, and another 2 weeks to get the parts from the US.
Which really blows.

 

I am actually in Ireland. I was actually surprised that it took so little. Was expecting at least a week of waiting.

 

I found this deal of a lifetime that someone here might be interested in. Im tempted myself even though I already have the 1730.

FS: Dell XPS M1730 Gaming SLI Laptop, X9000, 2 x 9800GTX, PhysX, Loaded and more. - [H]ard|Forum

If I had the extra cash I would jump on this.

 

WOW! This is a great deal. Sounds almost too good to be true.

 

I'm guessing Dell has some depos somewhere in England then...

Holy cow... I`m thinking about getting it

 

DDT5, looks like the thread is fine. Could have been due to the issues from yesterday. Forum and site seem to be performing without issue.

BTW, Greetings all! Hope everything is fine on the 1730 front! The Beast FTW!

 

Yes it is very tempting. It has better specs than mine at a lower price and now he dropped it to $999!!!!!
If only I had some extra cash

 

Don't know where to post this, but have a odd question if anyone can answer.
I'm looking for a replacement to the black mat that covers the
backside of the circuit boards in the 1730, and can't find the right material anywhere. If anyone has open there's before, it's the black rubber like material that is glued to the board. Anyone know what this is called and where to get it ? thanks

 

Hmm...that's weird. I still can't view the last page of this thread. Tried using a couple of different browsers and VMs. hopefully the issue will resolve itself. Viewing the forum through a proxy server now.

Anyway, on another note, tech came today to replace my GPU. It was 8800M GTX . Well, so far after a couple of hours of playing POP The Forgotten Sands, they hold up good. Temps are lower than what I used to get with previous cards. Just hope now that they won't fail within a few months. Could it be by any chance that they are issuing 9800M GTX replacements in the US only?

 

try clearing your browser's cookies and temp files. See if that resolves it. Also try this link:
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/...ell-xps-m1730-owners-lounge-part-3-a-309.html

 

Guys, I have a question.

I currently have my 2 hdd laptops in RAID 0, but the info on it is sensitive and I`m legaly bound to not allow anyone else to see parts of it.

So I was wondering if I can remove my 2 hdds as they are, put in my original HDD, and after I get the laptop back from the service, to put them back as initially placed, and not destroy the RAID array?

Or do I need a backup? That would a 450 GB pain

 

I've no idea if you could do that, but if it's that important why don't you have it backed up already?

 

Not 100% sure if this is answer you are looking for, but my RAID 0 HD's been taken out by a field tech, then put back in, and works just fine.

 

Cause I don`t have 450 GB free on my external HDD

That sounds about right. Did he completely take them out? and put them back in the same order, no issues?

I can`t take the change unless I`m 100% sure about this...

 

I'm not sure if there was any order, but I saw it taken out, and were laid on a table. Everything was put back together by him, and everything seems like it's working ok, alteast I don't see any difference I can think of...

A software I have installed with limited license key usage cost me 5k, so you aren't alone worrying about such things btw.

The bulge on the power button is another issue though x). I can't waste more time with the issue at the moment so I'm going to wait a awhile for this to get fixed.

 

Hmm.
Sounds about right...

 

Hmm I have installed my X9000 CPU now. However I want it to overclock higher than 3.4 GHz in Throttlestop. I have set the overclock to 3Ghz in the bios and in Throttlestop I am using the 17x multiplier, but with that multiplier the speed is 3.4Ghz. Maybe I am using an too old version of throttlestop. Shouldn´t the multiple be able to go higher than 17?

 

Hi everyone.
Just turned back from holiday.

When you just take out the HDD caddy and leave the HDD's in the right position of the caddy, there will be no problem when you put it back in.
I have a second caddy with also 2 HDD's in RAID0, so I can swap them easily. One I use for my normal usage in life like gaming and the 2nd caddy just for testing or screwing my configuration.

 

Did you try right-click in the menu to unlock higher multipliers?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/489140-how-unlock-core-2-extreme-multiplier-windows.html#post6320167

 

Damn you are right, thanks ernstig. Running at 4Ghz now, will bench and see temps and see if it´s stable?

If I applied AS5 today to the CPU? Can I stress test or should I take it easy to let the compound burn in?

 

4GHz was a little extreme, however at 3.8GHz I got a 3D Mark 06 score of 16586

 

Magnus72 you got a nice CPU there, I think you should update your signature. Take good care of it.