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

Just curious, does anybody else have problems with game resolution scaling? (using sli 9800 gt) I've only noticed this problem when using win 7 64 bit. And no matter what driver version I'm using, nvidia insists on having "no scaling" on even if I select the other options. The moment I hit apply, it just reverts back to no scaling. So what does that mean? When I play games such as starcraft, the 640x480 res is a tiny box on my screen, rather than stretching it out so that it uses the whole estate.

Anybody else have similar problems or a fix?

 

hi guys, been a while from i posted here so some catching up to do, my system is running great (touch wood) no issues or problems 8800's runing good. I am currently running the 85.20 drivers for video and was thinking of installing the official nvidia drivers 186.81, I must say I am reluctant because everything is runing well, are these drivers ok ? anyone have issues with them after install

thanks in advance

 

From memory the 185.* drivers were good performance but ran hot. I've benn on 190.40 since it came out, haven't had a reason to go searching for something else.

 

i second this i've been running 190.40 for a while have no problems.

 

Are you guys able to scale up low resolutions to full screen using 190.40 in games?

 

I have a XPS M1730 that can't be repaired and Dell is doing me the same way. Mine is only 5 months old and Dell is wanting to replace it with a lesser model. I was on hold for over 50 mins and then cut off. In total I spent over 3hours on the phone and still nothing. I tried to get the replacement stopped and they would not do that. I have owned Dell for over 20 years and I can't beleive how I was treated.

I am new at this and any help would be appreciated.

 

Unfortunately you've got some (a lot ) of reading ahead of you. This thread (owners lounge part 2 &3) would be a good start and the linked thread is important and were to post for problems etc. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=426693&page=8

 

For you M1730 owners, Dell posted v186.64 for the M17x today. This is a Vista x64/Win7 x64 driver. In addition to the M17x GPUs, the following cards are supported:

NVIDIA_DEV.0409.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT"
NVIDIA_DEV.0409.02 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT "
NVIDIA_DEV.060B.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT"
NVIDIA_DEV.060C.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX"
NVIDIA_DEV.0617.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX"

So, this should work fine for you folks. If you are interested, you can grab it HERE. Also note, this installer includes the current version of PhysX.

Sorry, no 32-bit driver. Enjoy testing.

 

didnt work with my system?went to open nvida control panel to turn on sli on it said cannot open control panel for previous version?

 

Never accept a downgrade only a equal or better replacement

 

Did you do a clean install of the driver?

1. Uninstall via Control Panel (Programs & Features CP)
2. Prompt to reboot - accept and reboot into Safe Mode (F8)
3. Run DriverSweeper and select NVIDIA DISPLAY only. Remove any left overs. Exit DriverSweeper and...
4. Run CCleaner's Registry Module - clean any leftovers. Once done...
5. Reboot normally.
6. Run the installer once you are back at the desktop.

 

one of my cards is idling 10c hotter then the other but idles low and on max temps is low.
30mins in bionic comander. i think it's reading it wrong though?

 

To those who are having issues with their 1730 and are fighting for a replacement you can get a M17x many of us have, also go here instead

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=426693

that is all

 

REMINDER - Please Note

 

Is there a reason my keyboard's backlight on my recently received M1730 doesn't work? Isn't that standard? I clean installed Win 7. Quickset installed and FN + -> key pops up the little icon on the bottom-right side of the screen, but no backlight despite toggling it a million times.

 

Maybe the keyboard light cable is unplugged. Care to disassemble to beast?
There are a few guides here on the forums...

 

No thanks, I'll just wait for a tech to come.

 

WTH? now its at 240. How many idiots are there out there ?

 

Checking the keyboard is very quick and easy to do:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/xpsm1730/en/sm/keyboard.htm#wp1179891

 

Plan on getting a Logitech G9 mouse in the next day here, locally in Dublin @ €80. Any reason why I shouldn't do that? Better mouse/price about?

 

72 - see my gaming mouse thread. Surprisingly a long read now, but worth it. I've got one, and several people on there do too. Prices have halfed, and honestly you could get one probably $40 cheaper in the states if someone bought it for you/shipped to you (in fact, I could, I already bought someone a Blue ray drive who couldn't get it in the UK) since the G9x came out.

Similar to how stores want to get rid of the old stock because new gen. hardware is out, that's exactly what's happening with the G9. Thankfully, the G9x has higher DPI now, but that's really overkill. Never has there been a riper time to buy a G9.

 

As for this post, that's exactly what happened with my keyboard last month. And then last week, I don't know if anyone remembers, but my O, L, and . buttons went out. Alt, Ctrl, Fn didn't work either. So, I told Dell to replace my keyboard/palm rest (in case it was in the plug in the palm rest), and here I am! Typing on a nice, new soft keyboard. The difference between a worn keyboard and a fresh one monumental and ohhh-so nice on the finger tips.

But yes, I checked the power cord for the keyboard and the main plug several times, but the buttons simply wouldn't respond, and the back light hadn't worked for at least 6 weeks' time. Thankfully I don't have any screws in so dissasembling it [while it was on, mind you] was quite easy, since I'm used to taking apart the system to retoast my graphics cards back to health so many times. Speaking of which, my cards are set to die tomorrow if I did my calculations correctly, so let's see if I can make it an even TEN burnings back to health! Coincidentally, I'm also supposed to hear back from Escalations tomorrow night from my friendly rep as to what specs they're considering for my M17x replacement.

 

I personally play WoW, and I've heard that the steelseries wow mouse really sucks.

I'm currently using the logitech mx revolution, and it is worth every penny. Best mouse I've ever used, plus it has a lot of buttons, and looks sleek, also very ergonomic. I recommend it to everyone looking for a good mouse that wants something more than your bare bones 2 button/wheel mouse.

 

As everyone is talking about Mice, the mouse i use is the Roccat Kone and i love it.

I had it near enough from release day but there was initial issues with the scroll wheel being too weak, and sure enough over 6 months i had broken 3 of them in the exact same way.

However, Roccat released a V2 version with an improved scroll wheel and after i broke the 3rd one, i got sent the new improved version and its been perfect, i havnt heard of any V2s breaking either, which is nice to know as i love the mouse.




ANYWAY

The real reason i came back here was to ask a question!

I pre-ordered Windows 7 Home Premium and i got it on launch day, installed into onto my M1730 and all was well. However!

I cannot get my WEI (Windows experience index) to complete. It takes about 5 mins "rating" and then it comes up with this message.

I have got the latest Nvidia drivers, and as far as im aware, everything is up to date.

Specs are as follows;

T9300 2.5Ghz CPU
Dual 9800GT's
6GB Ram

I searched around online and it seems that most people with the problem have ancient old computers or graphics cards that need throwing in the bin, but as you can see, my M1730 is more than up for the job...

While im here, Changing the OS doesnt void the warrenty does it?

Thanks in advance!

 

Changing your OS will not void your warranty... dont worry about it. Dell will not support issues under W7, but it wont void your hardware warranty.

 

Same thing happened to me.

An engineer came out to replace the GPU and the LCD. Shortly after he had gone I noticed the keyboard lights were not working. (I posted on here at the time) After another call to DELL and more diagnostics an engineer was booked once more. This time to replace the keyboard and the LCD (again)

Things seem to be working fine at the moment, although last week I booted up and my cards were disabled (again) The message I was given in device manager was something to do with not enough systme memory??? I found that to be odd. Anyhow a reboot sorted that out but it did concern me enough to call DELL and let them know.

I was advised to install the latest drivers (again) and support would call me back the next day to see how I got on. Well before I downloaded the drivers I did an upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. I then followed Batboys great advice on how to do a clean install of Nvidia drivers, using Driver Sweep and CCCleaner. Things seem to be running much better now.

The DELL support guy did call me back and asked how trhings were going. I told him that I had upgraded the OS and the drivers and things were looking good. He told me that the M1730 had compatibility issues with Windows 7! He said all other models M1530 etc were fine but the 1730 had issues.

Has anybody experienced any problems since upgrading? I cant say that I have and the cynic in me thinks DELL may be using this as an excuse for hardware faults and failures?

 

I'm not sure I understand your post. The backlight to the keyboard was indeed fixed with the installation of the new keyboard?

Touch wood, I've had no problems with the graphics cards. I received this as a replacement and was getting stuttering while max and minimizing OS windows, but an install of 186.82 drivers solved that.

Fortunately I'm not a gamer so I don't think I'll be stressing these GPUs much. I've been laughed at by my entire family and friends at the look of this computer though, especially after turning the lights down low, putting on some random rap tune and tricking out the lights to follow Winamp.

 

My RAID 0 M1730 did not come out of standby once, and then it wouldn't boot. I had to do a diskrepair after booting with the Windows 7 Ultimate dvd. Everything worked fine after a few hours of grinding away.

I also had BootSkin VISTA running on this laptop from Stardock. On my desktop, I could not upgrade to Windows 7 with Bootskin Vista. It told me to uninstall it first. I'm not sure how that slipped by the upgrade wizard on the laptop. I think it may have been part of my problem; after uninstalling Bootskin Vista I have torture tested standby mode etc on my 1730 with no trouble.

I understand the PhysX board can be tricky to get working. I'm not sure if mine is working or not, to be honest. Not sure how to check.

 

I managed to get a 9800GTX system (I was one of the first with it!) I can honestly say my op temps go up to a max of 90c when I am playing Farcry 2, and they idle around 70c when using it for web browsing/standard computer use. I did use artic silver 5 on the heat sinks though. Had my system for 6 months now with no real issues (except my s and w keys are worn - too many games !!! )

Dont know what Dell are going to do if my 9800 GTX's fail as they cant replace them with 8800GTX's so that should be interesting

 

If that happens then they'll be forced to upgrade you, at least if you stick to your rights and don't accept a downgrade. It's what they're eventually doing with everyone else, even if some of us are having a harder time than others.

 

The PhysX card is a waste, i would just take it out if I were you.

 

Seems a tad high, the max i`ve seen was 86C , and that was when my system was full with dust !
Nowadays, it wont go over 78-80C, but it`s been more than 4 months since my last cleanup and i did have a lot of dust where i used it ....

 

Those are some high temps blazer. I would be a bit concerned. Be sure (if you haven't already) to elevate the back of the laptop to provide a bit more unrestricted air flow.

 

If I have the XPS M1730, what should I look for when shopping for a second harddrive? Just any current market laptop hdd?

 

Hi guys,

So, I'm having this issue, when I play games, where there is a black frame around the game. The game is not running in windowed mode, but still has a black from around it. I normally play games at 1280 x 800. With this black frame thing going on, I have to play in native resolution in order to get rid of it. Obviously, the settings from 1280 x 800 and up reduce the black frame until native resolution is reached. Here are the game tests that I ran:

L4D 2 = Black Frame
FarCry 2 = Black Frame
S.T.A.L.K.E.R = Black Frame
Fallout 3 = Black Frame
Unreal Tournament 3 = Black Frame

L4D = Good
Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition = Good
Team Fortress 2 = Good
Bioshock (Non-STEAM) = Good
Chronicles of Riddick (both games - Non-STEAM) = Good

I initially found this from playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R and thought that it was a game specific issue. Now I'm starting to think that this is a driver issue. Any thoughts? I'm gonna check this thread, and one that I'm gonna post on another site, in the morning. I will probably uninstall and reinstall drivers tomorrow and see what happens. Have any of you seen this before and/or have a solution? I've got an m1730 w/ SLI 8700s running 190.40 drivers under Windows 7 64 Bit. Any help/information will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance - Mike

 

Its elevated on a notebook stand. The temps are fine as the laptop is on all day every day. They did reach 100 before the AS5 was applied, dont forget these are 9800GTX's so they do run a bit hotter than the 8800's I have seen similar temps from other 9800GTX users. 90 is the highest it has been ie it hit that but didnt stay up there.

 

And.... SOLVED! This is pretty stupid - I shoulda checked this first. There was a scaling option within the NVidia Control Panel that needed to be changed. So once I got that right, I was able to go to 1280 x 800 and all of those games now work right - and play MUCH smoother. Oh well, maybe somebody else will have this problem and be able to solve it from my ramblings.


Later - Mike

 

Hi guys, I was wondering if anyone here can help me identify the problem with my m1730.

The story:

I bought the xps about 1.5 years ago refurbished, it's out of warranty now. I just turned on the laptop from cold, did a bit of web browsing and suddenly the screen went black, the laptop had turned off. Checking the power supply, I noticed the light had gone out on that too. I thought, don't tell me my power supply has gone. I disconnected the power supply from the laptop and plugged it back into the mains, the light comes on on the power supply, when I plug it into the laptop the light on the power supply goes off - laptop doesn't start. don't tell me my motherboard or something is fried.

I started to read up on forums about similar problems. Turns out these were common problems. It seemed like it could be one of a few things - perhaps the chip dell puts in the power supply/laptop to prevent other third party ones being used had fried, or maybe my motherboard, or gpu, or physx card.

Armed with the service manual, I opened my laptop and began removing component by component to discover what went wrong. Turns out, that when I don't have the touch panel connected, the power supply doesn't turn off when plugged in. However, nothing happens when I try to turn it on. The power button is on the keyboard, which has a bit at the bottom which seems to plug into the touch panel - does anyone know if these are related?

Worse case, my motherboard is fried, but I'm hoping I can just replace my panel and keyboard. Advice greatly appreciated!

 

As expected, my computer BSOD'ed tonight at 1 AM. This makes ten times for toasting my cards back to health.

I wonder if I should auction my cards off when I get rid of the 1730?? And donate the money. Pretty epic pieces of silicone they are. They should be pretty valuable, no? The cards that refuse to stay dead could be the headline for the auction..

 

You need to shadowbox frame that card and hang it on the wall.

10 times... unreal. For #11 you really need to post a video of the process. Would love to see it up on youtube.

 

He's probably such a pro at it that you won't be able to catch it on video

 

Ye can you post a vid of that actually - that would be cool! Like all typical cooking shows - "here's one I prepared early!".

On a different note purchased the G9 there yesterday. Lovely bit of kit. I probably over paid slightly for it at €80. But what harm, I wanted it quick so had to pay a slight premium. Feels good in the hand, apparently, there's a bedding in period and it feels perfect after that. The on-the-fly DPI adjustment is something I thought I'd never need, but is good aswell as fun to play with. As are the colours that I matched to my M1730's LED colour scheme!

 

Ha ha tenth time you have bad luck mate I must say. But you are a pro at baking GPU´s now. Though strange my old go 7800GTX is still going strong from the first time I baked it

 

I bought 2 Western Digital Scorpios 320/7200, they should be pretty cheap now.
Set them up in RAID 0 and they`re flying.

 

While I haven't bothered with RAID - I say hat's off on the Western Digital purchase Eleron. I love those drives and will never go back to Seagate.

 

Yea, I posted the HDTune results somewhere , I think around 115MB/s average(max around 150) , as opposed to 70MB/s , single drive...

 

Are the Western Digital HD's loud in general use? I really like the current HD's that came with the M1730 - as they're nearly silent. (not sure what they are - I'll check at next reboot)

 

The 320MB 7200 RPM Seagate I had with my M1730 was loud in comparison. Clickity as well. The WD's - quiet.

 

mine came with 2 seagates 200 gbs 7200rpm but i never heard a sound. no clicks or drive spinning sounds.

my current dual 500gbs had clickings though

 

Wow!!! I feel lucky not having any gpu issues at all with all the recent gpu issues a lot of you guys are having and my laptop is already 2 1/2 years old already, but I contribute that to the fact that I run my x9000 cpu at 3.4Ghz to keep the fans on all the time to keep the temps between 43c and 70c on both gpus and the cpu too cause I keep it under volted too.