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

Oh well actually it doesnt feel so cool being italian..not in this specified time of our history. Politcs went haywire, life is a mess, salaries are so loooooooow, general abuse on the workers from the principals (that bend the laws, because our law system is FLAWED), and stuff like this.
Anyway....no wait...Comunque....

Dopo 11 anni il tuo italiano suona ancora perfetto, quindi complimenti Dimmi, il tuo xps ne veniva dall'italia così come la CPU che hai intenzione di prendere?

btw i quite did the opposite, i was born in NYC, moved in italy when i was 16, spent my life here. My parents are italian, but they were in USA due to my dad job, so ive grown up as a mixture of both cultures...and languages.
Althought its hard to keep up with english and im sure that most of you noticed it, it sux. Its full of wrong verbs and grammar horrors, beside all the other things.

 

actually i like going in the opposite direction.
Granted, Crysis 1 was a great game, made for pc gamers from the ground up.
But hell, lets be honest, its too much overrated.
The game offered a sandbox style gameplay that was appealing for a short time, because i always found boring wandering around the jungle for an objective.
The story wasnt that great, yes its an homage to alot of scifi adventures and movies, but the big area felt sometimes disconnected from the whole plot.

I always found myself wandering from checkpoints to saved games losing track of my story progress, thus interest.
What im sayin is that i found more compelling and fun games such bioshock and singularity, where the area and sandboxing was non existent, but at least they did the job to tie you into the plot to further motivate the player to finish the game.
Hell, ive finished Crysis 1 after 4 years of his release, and all i can say is MEH. The game sucks under alot of perspectives, lets be honest.
Plus i never liked the Jungle background, probably because i dont like jungles in general. Somewhat felt wrong or out of place, imho.

Crysis 2 seems a welcome addition. Killzone or not, what console shooters offer is a deep storyline with a decent gameplay and alot of eyecandy, which is important if you consider how well these things blend together.
Its all up to the succesful mixture of things. There are titles that are atrocious in alot of ways, like Blacksite, others not.
Sandboxing FPS requires time, patience and efforts. Sometimes they fail miserably as Crysis did.
And being one of the most excessive power hungry title, alot of users were cut out from enjoying the game at his full blast.
And that is one of the reasons to drop interest in it. Hell, look now, ive got this Sandy Bridge desktop with a GTX570 and im still struggling to reach 50fps without AA. This is hilarious if you consider that we're in 2011, almost 5 years from the first release.

Warhead did better and ran far better than anything else, but still i cant accept the fact that latest technology cant get the game to run right. Still it needs a sli or crossfire setup to play it proprely which is, i repeat, hilarious.

Crytek has been such a drama queen in these years. Im convinced that the leak had teached them some things. They need to step down from their olympus and begin to work on something enjoyable for everyone, instead of b!tch!ng about graphic engines and stuff.

 

Oooh. Now Magnus is going to rage! Lawl. Kidding.

KingPinZero, you'd be interested to know that we're both actually saying the exact same thing but from two very different angles.

When I say that it would be unfair to compare, I am talking about technical features. For example, weaker textures and restricted environment. However, at the smae time time, we have a game that doesn't tax hardware or exclude gamers with a moderate but non-hardcore rig. This is why I get fed-up of people whinging about wanting DX11. Some of the best looking games are NOT DX11 -- let's start with that side of the debate.

Now these points that I bring up don't have to be a bad thing -- Crysis 2 is more of a streamlined shooter than its predecessor, but that is also the reason why it manages to look flahsier than the first without even requiring excessive hardware. I think people are being too harsh, and judging it unfairly against console-counterparts and the original Crysis. It's a curse and Crytek doomed themselves to this by shifting gears because console-fans will argue that, "This is the same as Killzone and Uncharted!" Meanwhile, PC gamers will pan it as a shameful comrpomise to the status quo of gaming -- giving in to the console trends. Yes, Crysis 2 does seem like a desperate Killzone tribute from where I stand, but it's got good standing -- it is doing all those very things that Killzone is doing, and better. This game isn't going to make our rigs bleed, but it will compete with console titles in its own right.

All these aforementioned elements are in fact, merits that are absent in the original Crysis.

 

Hey guys - I am a total noob, and I apologize if this has been covered repeatedly. I am having trouble navigating the owners' lounge(s) to find the best possible answer. I have googled until my eyeballs are bleeding and I figure this is my best shot for possibly finding answers.

A little history/frustration. I went all in on an M1710 in 2006. Dropped wayy too much money, thinking it would truly be a beast. Well, it pretty much fried itself (memory) within a year. Dell sent me an M1730 (Vista with an 8700m) as a replacement. At the time, I was loving it. I thought this was a free major upgrade. It turns out that I was getting lower FPS on this machine than my M1710 for many of my favorite games. Oh well.

Flash forward till now. My machine worked ~ok for about a year, then started to slow towards a crawl. I mean ok as in it was a functional laptop that played games with medium to high settings, definitely no beast. But it slowly started to drop FPS from there. In games that previously had 30-60 FPS, they now had 10-20. Also, my CPU usage even in idle time started to hover between 50-100%. It would hit 100% for a while if *any* program was launched. I cleaned my registry, ran malwarebytes, ran antivirus scans, disabled all unnecessary startup programs and services, and still nothing. I defragged my hard drive and my registry, and made sure to have ample empty space on the hard drive. I ran full dell diagnostics with no other problem than the battery (shouldn't affect AC power performance).

Thinking that this giant slug's problem was the result of too many programs or some hidden malware, I wiped the hard drive to do a fresh OS install. What's more, assuming that Vista was too resource heavy on this "beast," I did a fresh install of Windows XP (wanted to do this before I bought Windows 7, just to see if this computer has any future in my life). I wiped everything, AND took a step back to Windows XP. Low FPS still and extremely high CPU usage still plagues me. Ran scans again, nothing. Ran diagnostics again. Nothing. Hardly any programs installed. My main game right now is League of Legends, and on relatively low settings, I'm getting around 10-20 FPS.

I have told this lengthy story hoping that someone out there can help me. Again, I will be the first to admit that I'm a noob. This community has been awesome to all M1730 owners and I'm hoping for any general or specific advice. I have updated to the latest NVIDIA drivers.

Any advice or tweaks I can make to boost performance? Anyone know what could be causing the issues? I realize that the 8700m isn't exactly diesel, but it should at least be better than a low grade laptop.

Thank you so much for any advice

 

I see. Well, I mean, I could get rid of it early, if you'd rather deal NBR. Issue is that Nick got this CPU almost two-years-ago, and then I got it from him in 2009. Naturally, whatever warranty those CPU guys offered is gone. Although I have never had one problem with this CPU. Maybe I should offer my own 6-month return-to-base warranty? Lawl.

I would advise going for the company as you can make the most of that deal, Eleron. I mean, even if I beat their deal by about $20.00, I think it's not worth the lack of support. I'd help you out and all and share any information on the ideal thermal compound etc., but at the end of the day, I'm just one guy and not some proper retailer.

 

Nah no rage here Kade

Crysis is more a sandbox game and Crysis 2 is more of a linear shooter to accomodate console players.

I agree with the debate DX10 and DX11 vs DX9. Take for example Bad Company 2 and with my trained eyes when it comes to graphics I have a very hard time to see the difference except maybe somewhat smoother shadows in DX11.

DX10 was a huge flop, only game that really used it was Just Cause 2 that actually runs very good too. I am quite resistant to DX11 too since DX9 will still be the API that 98% of the games run on since 360 uses DX9 API, well maybe DX9,5 API. Now PS3 uses an Open GL variant instead, however unless the consoles switch over to DX10 and DX11 we won´t see many games using DX11 either.

Most DX10 games just added a few DX10 effects instead of writing the game from ground up in DX10 API like Just Cause 2 did. Metro is another example of addon DX10 and DX11 effects.

DX11 is supposed to be faster than DX9, but so far I haven´t seen it, same thing they said about DX10, but I haven´t seen it

And as usual the PS3 version of Crysis 2 had to stand back against it counterpart 360 version. I have a friend who works for a game magazine that have tested both versions side by side. Now I actually like my PS3 better than my 360, however when seeing horrors in games like Red Dead Redemption where the 360 version looked 2x times better it´s just sad to hear that another game Crysis 2 looks inferior on the PS3.

When they really utilize the PS3 we see games like Killzone and Uncharted that looks really good.

I agree with what you said Kingpin, Crysis 2 is just a beta for now and it might look even better when it´s released of course.

The good thing though is that the XPS M1730 will keep up for another while since games is specifically written for consoles first, so this is a good thing that graphics have stagnated somewhat.

 

Grazie
No, il mio XPS e stato comprato qui, Joako e il venditore, e lo ringranzio tanto per questa cosa. La CPU sera la sola cosa italiana in mio XPS...

Definitely lost my grammar skills and some vocabulary along the way... but the baseline is still there.

Fair enough, and I appreciate your input.

 

eleron you asked for my Crysis 2 SLI profile right? I think when the full game goes retail SLI support will be even better. Since now I can´t get the SLI bits of 10 and 20 to rendering in the game without totally garbled up picture.

You see the SLI bits of 10 and 20 is real performance bits. However I can upload the one I have now though performance isn´t as good as it would be with those SLI bits.

It´s strange though since Crysis 1 uses these SLI bits, however it must be the beta since I dedicated a few hours to just get an ok running SLI profile for it.

I am quite sure I will get those SLI bits with an ordinary picture when the game gets released.

The good thing though is that that game with those SLI bits runs at 35-40+ fps at Medium settings, High settings I haven´t tried yet on the XPS M1730. Though the beta isn´t that optimized in the first part.

Another thing I got working was my cfg tweak for Crysis 1 to work in Crysis 2. However I am not sure how many of the old commands Crysis 2 can use. I will get this sorted out of course and make a cfg for Crysis 2 when the game gets released

 

I`m not sure I`m getting the game, not until I know how it will work.

Also, by then I should have the CPU installed, so whatever config you have operational, should be near identical to mine.

 

Well, your grammar skills rocks man, really. You made a correct sentence (which we call "periodi") using the correct verbs and coniugations of the case.
My humble compliments mate Now if only my english was half good as your italian....which brings me to:

Kade my excuses. As i pointed out a few times my english skills are rusty and they sucks. What i meant for liking being "opposite" wasnt referred to your points or replies, but i was referring to the whole PC Gaming community and Mass Media who praise Crysis 1 for being a masterpiece when obviously it isnt, for the reasons ive explained.
Therefore our perspective is the same, and im sure that its on the same plane / angle. Just this

 

Hi mate and welcome aboard.
First we would like to know your full specifications, aka CPU and GPU.
Second, if the cpu is hovering around 60-99% all the time, this can mean two things:

- The cpu is getting old, therefore its creating a bottleneck. As we explained a few posts ago, an old cpu is also slow and it cant feed the SLI system correctly on latest games. As Kade explained, basically the cpu cycles needs to be fast in conjuction with a better cache to improve data streaming from and to the GPU who renders the scene. Even on 1 gpu a cpu bottleneck could happen, so think about SLI, that requires a good amount of speed.

- Your GPUs are slowly dyeing, or one of them is already dead or near to it. First thing to do is to monitor their behaviour using an OSD function like the ones featured into MSI Afterburner or EVGA precision. Enable them under settings. You have to monitor GPU clocks and temperature. If the GPU downclocks at some point, it can be either the powermizer kick in, or a defective product.
In case it downclocks, be sure that BOTH cards are working ok before doing anything else. Enable the SLI indicator under NVCP just to see if both gpus are scaling. Enable gpu usage OSD under MSI Afterburner to see if the sli is working on both gpus, with a SLI enabled game (that you have a profile for it).
If the gpus arent downclocking, but under SLI only one is working instead of two (again check the usage) then one of the cards is probably busted.
Also it would be cool if you post screenshots of CPU-Z and GPU-Z (both cards).
Remember that 8700m sli isnt really anything good with latest games. Mostly they can bottleneck the CPU quite bad if a game requires alot of power.
Hope to hear you soon.

 

Grazie ancora una volta per i tuoi complimenti

So, I`m getting this CPU either Thursday or Friday, there`s only 3 more available, 7 sold...

 

Thats awesome, reserve one now.
Then we want you here, benching with us, being happy as always lol.
And throw some italianish here and there just to make me happy ^^

Prego, non c'è di che

 

Without saying too much, a pair of mildly overclocked 280m GTXs in SLi run at almost 50-60 FPS on 'Hardcore'. It's just that the screen flickers since we don't have a proper profile.

--

And Eleron, all the very best with the CPU. If. . . for some messed up reason, it doesn't work out, then I'll sell you mine with warranty.

 

Yes with a proper SLI profile Crysis 2 runs really good.

 

HELP

I'm having the "AC Adapter Not Recognized" problem that is common on the M1730, thus my system is running like dog sh*t. Is there any software fixes for this yet? Even something temporary that will restore system performance? (aside from adapter / board replacement)

Any help is greatly appreciated!


I've searched the entire board, as well as the M1730 Lounges for an answer, and I've not found one (or missed it).

 

I've had once this issue with my "monster". I called the DELL Helpdesk and they send me a new one. the problem was fixed then.

the issue was within the old AC Adapter. Sometimes the AC Adapter of this type have some slight voltage/current fluctuations after some month/years of usage. The bios then recognize the AC Adapter as wrong, because of the bios tolerance settings , which only can be adjusted by DELL > ergo a new BIOS version. But this seams to be impossible, because M1730 is EOL.

 

So, a short review of my issues:

-2009, after less than a year I had the battery replaced;
-2010, after 2 years, I had the AC adapter changed, since it just would not charge anymore
-2010, changed GPUs twice, and motherboard once (I tend to think that the initial issue was with the motherboard, not the GPUs, but got a free upgrade with that to the 9800M GTX SLI

-2011: extended the warranty for 2 more years, peace of mind ftw
-2011: I`m upgrading the CPU to the X9000 since it just won`t cut it anymore with the T8300.


Normally, now I should have the fastest available config for The Beast

 

Nah, unless youre running 8gb and an ssd, yours is just as fast as mine and mag one
Oh well this if you can keep 4ghz stable..that will be one of the fastest for sure.

 

3.8 is plenty fine for me, that's 50% boost in speed for the CPU and finally SLI worthy (since SLI is held back at the time because of the CPU)

True, an SSD would make a difference, but not in gaming, that is. Also, 8 gb vs 4 Gb in games, again... not a big difference.

 

Hi there everyone
Is it possible to display an image on an external monitor in SLI mode active? . On one GF , everything is ok, but when I switch sli mode the external monitor is going to sleep . Driver issue or something? I know it is a simple question - not once time discussed , but I really can't find the answer by this hundred pages of this thread
Thanks , a lot .

 

Yep, I have an external monitor and SLI enabled.

You just have to choose from the NVidia Control panel, under 'set up multiple displays' or hit FN+F7 (if I remember the key with the monitor logo on it) once or twice, until the monitor becomes active.

 

Not only that,but the cache as well plays a major role. 3mb vs 6mb and a fast clock-per-clock ratio is what makes things snappier!

 

If anyone is looking for a great 1730 or another one, I have one for sale in the marketplace, still under warranty.

 

Hi Guys, i have an XPS M1730 that I just installed Win XP PRO on and I have everything working but the "Cardbus Express" slot on the side. I have a wireless card i want to use but cannot find the driver for it.

Any ideas?

 

You mean the Ricoh driver? should be on Dell`s site.
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...dateid=-1&formatid=-1&source=-1&fileid=216735

Ordered the CPU, let's see how fast it gets from China to Europe...

 

Nope, I tried that one and it didn't work. How can I tell if I have a "flash" card module installed? It did give me an error to disable it when I set up my RAID.

-R

 

It might be of a type unrecognized by the card reader.

Any links with it or name ?

 

So - I plug in an external monitor in a single graphics card mode - view is displayed on both monitors . Than I switch in the Control Panel on the sli mode , external monitor is turning off and the view is only on loptop display - and than I have to press fn + f8 once or twice , and the image should appear on external monitor too - is that correct?
And please be patient to me

 

No need for so many steps. You either :
a) enter the Nvidia Control Panel and under 'set up multiple displays' you choose 'single display' and the name of the monitor from a dropbox or
b)you use FN+F8 until the corresponding display is on. Make sure you have SLI enabled before doing this, and after pressing Fn+F8, give it a few seconds.

 

Hey great to see you all guys again! It's been a while.

Anyway I got 2 750GB WD Scorpio Blacks working in RAID 0, so far the performance is astronomical. Been loving it so far. 1.5TB of storage in a laptop....

 

Care to place the HDTune results on the topic?

 

No problemo.

 

Sure beats my 115MB average 640 ex RAID 0 array...
But in one year or so you`ll have fragmentation issues, experienced that myself...

And also, that burst rate is phenomenal...

 

Id rather have a 6 seconds of time needed to load a game or a map compared to raid 0 1-2 seconds instead of having my whole drive fragmented as hell, slow streaming data and in the need of a format after 12 months.
Matter of opinions naturally

 

True that. Which is why a 4 disk setup, RAID 0 + Raid 1 is the ultimate system

Man, i can`t wait for my CPU to get here already...game on

 

eleron you will notice a huge difference in performance with the new CPU. For me it was like a whole new laptop

 

I don't think it's fragmented as it was. I had two Seagate 500GB 7200.4 in RAID 0 for 1 and a half years now and never had any slow downs or fragmentation issues. I upgraded because I needed more capacity without the compromise of speed. And I like a maxed out spec'd system.

Though I admitted using disk keeper and a scheduled auto defragmentation every end of the month. Weird and unnecessary, but yeah.

 

Hello.

I am looking to possibly upgrade my XPS M1730 soon. I am looking at memory, graphics cards, processor, whatever else may be needed. What is compatible with this system? Can the XPS M1730 have a quad core processor? What would be the best upgrades possible, without worrying about cost? How do I know if a part is compatible with the system?

Also, when I play disks in my BluRay player they always pause. This happens with Movies, Music, Games, etc. It seems like the drive reads some of the disk, shuts down, plays back that bit of the disk, and then pauses a while later to read some more of the disk, and then repeats. It only pauses for a second every so often, but it is really annoying. Is there a way to configure it to not do this?
Also, I don't think it's a problem with the drive as I just had the drive replaced today and the old one also did this.

Thanks!

 

Being a former XPS M1730 owner, I think you would have a better end result by purchasing Dell's current offering in the Alienware M17x product line. The M1730 motherboard will not accept a quad core. You could spend a lot of money buying the best Core2 Extreme processor, 9800M GTX SLi modules, more memory and bigger hard drives and come fairly close to the price of the Alienware, and still have the XPS M1730 as a second laptop. If you're out of warranty and cannot extend, spending that much on such an old machine would not be a good investment.

This is my humble opinion. I am offering it because you asked for suggestions.

As far as your BluRay drive is concerned, I'm not sure what the problem is. It may be a problem with the controller channel the drive is attached to, which could be something as serious as the motherboard. It could also be a software issue. Have you installed any type of drive cloning software? It could also be an issue with disc burning software. It would be difficult to diagnose that problem without knowing more about your system. Perhaps someone that has experienced a similar problem and found a solution will see your post and respond.

 

Ah yes, I had originally ordered an M17x and was sent a M1730. So, long story short, by the time I got to the bottom of the issue my 30-day guarantee or whatever was over and I was stuck with it. I know 30 days seems like a long time, but Dell just really wanted to screw me on this one. I spoke to countless Dell representatives and no good came of it. They assured me that at the time of my order the M17x was not available in Canada, which was completely untrue. They also told me not to worry because the M1730 was a far superior system. I didn't believe them, but I had no choice. Anyway, that's still a sore spot and I'll just leave it alone.

So, my warranty just ran out a few days ago... I'm not sure I can renew it or not. I'm not really interested in spending the money to get a whole new laptop, as much as I would like a M17x. It's not like I can even sell my M1730 for all that much and have a good amount of money to start with. But, perhaps my best option is just to wait and buy a new laptop.

Concerning the BluRay. I have not any drive cloning software installed. What kind of burning software issue might cause such a problem? A problem with the controller channel, this would be a hardware issue?

 

Yes, the controller channel (SATA port) would be a dying motherboard problem. That may be the issue, but I am not sure that is the case. Given that the drive was just replaced and that did not fix the problem, it seems to be a possibility.

This question is a long shot, but have you tied disabling your Windows page (swap) file, rebooting and re-enabling it. There is a remote chance the page file is corrupt and unable to cache information from the optical drive correctly. Again, it's a long shot but something you could try that does not cost anything.

As far as disc burning software, if you are using something like Roxio or Nero, it's probably not an issue. Have you experienced any problems with the drive losing write function while burning CDs or DVDs similar to the read errors you described? If you have the installation media to reinstall, try uninstalling the burning software and see if the problem goes away. If not, then I would be inclined to think the SATA port is intermittently losing its signal and that would not be good.

If your warranty just ran out a few days ago, I would urge you to contact Dell tomorrow if possible and try to extend the warranty for a year or two. This would be less expensive than replacing major components, like motherboard and the video modules. If something major dies on the XPS, chances are that you could receive an M17x R2 under warranty. That's how I ended up with one, and it is the bomb. I've had it since September and love it.

I went through absolute hell with the M1730, with 12 service calls in less than 2 years, with the first one starting about 30 days into ownership. They replaced the motherboard twice, battery twice, AC adapter 3 times, the SLi modules twice, both hard drives twice and there was a complete system replacement in between all of this mess.

I had the 4-year Dell Complete Care On-site warranty with accidental damage coverage and I think that may have influenced their decision to give me the Alienware. It probably saved them a huge amount of money in the long run. I have not had any replacement parts on the M17x R2 so far. That may or may not be true, as there have been a whole bunch of M1730 owners that received the Alienware as a replacement.

EDIT: I apologize for not looking at your signature. I see you already have the best video system available for the XPS M1730. Other than a Core2 Extreme CPU and more RAM, and SSD, there's not much you can do to upgrade your system. Your specs are already pretty decent. If I were in your shoes, I would spend money on the best extended warranty you can afford rather than upgrades for the time being. You might eventually end up with a system upgrade as a warranty fulfillment since the M1730 is obsolete and replacement parts will become an issue as more time passes. If you can get your hands on a good used Extreme CPU, that would be the best bang for the buck as far as an upgrade is concerned. If you notice any of the posts by Kingpin and Magnus, they are getting awesome gaming performance from their systems with the Extreme processors.

 

Thanks. Good call. I can be really impulsive; I was totally ready to go buy a new laptop unnecessarily. I can get another 2 years warranty on my M1730 for $525, I think I will go with that. Hopefully the thing dies within that time frame and I can get a decent replacement, M17x if all goes well. In the meantime, maybe I will have to invest in an Extreme processor, I have seen them for fairly cheap anyway.
Thanks Again.

Edit: By the way, which Extreme processors will work with the M1730? Is the X9000 my best, or only, option?

 

The X9000 rocks, and I think it is the best that works with the M1730. Go back a page or two and look at the signatures for Kingpin and Magnus. That's what their systems have. You will also find some links on this thread for Shirley's CPU on eBay. That's where other NBR members are recommending purchasing the CPUs.

After you get an X9000, you can probably sell your T9500 CPU on eBay and make a few bucks to offset the upgrade cost.

 

I'd say keep the T9500 around for when it (probably GPUs) dies. Swap the T9500 back in when you send it back (for any sort of warranty service or replacement) and resell the X9000 for a lot more, plus not have any warranty issues.

 

That's great advice since he is extending the warranty. Only a matter of time until something on the M1730 goes TU.

 

University of Tulsa? TU??? Haha.

 

Well, that's one interpretation. :rolleyes2:

 

@eleron911 - Thank You Sir !

 

Sure dude, that's why we're all here