Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

I wanna do that, what software do you recommend? That is, since I have a 1 Tb external

 

I use Vista Ultimate's back-up facility, I think its pretty solid. Can't access the files without doing a complete back up though - that's about my only complaint. DriveImage XML is what I could use for that but I don't bother.

I don't know a good freeware complete back up tool.

 

I tested the demo with 1280x800 all high. I got an average of 50+ fps, but sometimes it drops to 20-25 fps when I get water floating down from a drainpipe. I think that's the moment of the demanding PhysX effects.
I also tried it with nVidia PhysX disabled. The framerate drops then at 5-8 fps.
When I have time this weekend I'll put my Ageia card back in and run this test again.

 

I've only had one instance where the stripe had an error - the computer locked and I was forced to do a hard restart. Booted back up saying there was a potential error - checked and everything was fine.

 

Long time no see everyone, my old HD fried in my laptop so i got me a new one and reinstalled, have not been around for a while. Wanted to ask somthing in magnus72's department, if he is still around. Been fiddlign with some Gcard ocing again and at 600 900 1500 i run things pretty good but Team Fortress 2 gets a little slow some times...push it to 640 925 1550 and it runs real slow for some reason. was hoping someone has a good level that is a bit higher then 600 900 1500 or 610 910 1500 that they have been using thats stable and has given them some good performance gains.

Thanks in advance guys,

D_Sage44

 

TF2 just doesn't benefit from SLI. Check your 3D Game Settings in the NVIDIA control panel for TF2. You can try one of the other SLI options or select Single GPU.

I leave SLI enabled since I see a FPS jump in L4D. TF2 though - nothing - no dice.

 

Ah, alright. It is really a shame that they put only one GTX280 with new Core i7 CPUs tho (different sager lappy )

I personally use 625/950/1550 all the time and have never had an issue with these clocks.

 

50+?! Okay, now you're doing too good. Dips of 20-25 is a welcome sight in my books! My game struggles to sustain 30, and with the water physics, it dips well under 20 and stutters like mad.

I really need to figure out why my system stutters so much. My 3dMark performance is fine, but when it comes to the real games, especially the newer demanding ones, I get these horrible dips.

Anyway, you have been a great help, Ernstig. Thanks for the assist.

So true. Any/most source games run fine with one video card. In my opinion, why put both cards to use when one is more than enough to eat the whole game right up? These games were designed to push mid-upper-level 7-series cards to their limit; a single 8800/9800m GTX would absolutely ace these games. Not to mention, pre-2006 games don't have the best support for SLi.

 

Well I will need to get a 1t drive. I wonder if I can convert from a RAID 1 to a RAID 0 without having to reload the OS. I could probably clone the drive create the RAID 0 and push the image. But that seems like a lot of work again. Any ideas?

 

Are Clevo's any good? I would be concerned buying a Taiwanese brand without any local country presence. Support can be a pain , driver support is spotty, manuals often aren't available - just not what I want to consider when I lay down that much $.

 

It's known for power. Not sure about support at all.

 

I disagree. SLI on with my 8800's for DoD: Source gives me 10-15 better FPS, and that's the difference for me when playing a really good sniper on a map - whose image gets rendered first and can aim first. But I play very, very competitively. Multicore rendering is HUGE - but these small improvements are necessary for me because I run it at 1920 x 1200 and everything on high.

 

Converting from RAID 1 to RAID 0 was easier than I thought.

1) open the Intel Matrix Storage Console in Windows.
2) Make sure you are in Advanced Mode.
3) Right click on the array in my case ARRAY and choose Modify Volume.
4) Choose next in the Modify RAID Volume Wizard
5) Your array will show in the Selected (Right). Choose Next.
6) Use the drop-down and choose RAID 0.

You can not go from RAID 0 to RAID 1 this way. You would have to image or clone your drive. Delete the RAID 0 and then create a new RAID 1. Below is what HD Tune Pro benchmarked.

HD Tune Pro: Intel Raid 0 Volume Benchmark

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 25.3 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 143.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 126.7 MB/sec
Access Time : 13.2 ms
Burst Rate : 62.6 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 9.2%

Original RAID 1

HD Tune Pro: Intel Raid 1 Volume Benchmark

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 27.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 98.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 61.3 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.0 ms
Burst Rate : 60.0 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 4.6%

 

Damn, that is slow...
This is what my Seagates scored in HDTune with RAID0:
Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 61.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 162.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 126.7 MB/sec
Access Time : 16.4 ms
Burst Rate : 693.8 MB/sec
CPU Usage : -1.0%

 

Well, to each his own. You are right. I just can't--unlike you--give an opinion as an online gamer, because I lack the experience. In my gaming, I don't need more than 45 FPS with these type of games. Actually 30 would be fine, but 45 is like the safe-zone for me. And to be honest, I haven't played much of DoD, so I shouldn't actually speak broadly on the subject. I also have it out against Counter-Strike: Source for all the unfair reasons I hold against Counter Strike.

What I have played of the 'Source Engine' are the Half-Life games, along with Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress. I maxed all of 'em out resolution and AA; didn't have any problems.

Hell, I even started playing Prototype in single gpu mode and the 20-30 FPS is working out just fine. So long as it doesn't stutter.

Re: HDD speeds. I have Raid 0, 320 GB. The following are my results. . .

HD Tune: Intel Raid 0 Volume Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 36.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 105.1 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 86.9 MB/sec
Access Time : 14.9 ms
Burst Rate : 83.1 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 4.9%

Is that bad? It looks bad. Any way to improve this?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWpbBAnU9gg&feature=related

The above links to an XPS video, which is quite nice. However I'm more interested in about 0:43 - the keyboard looks so colorful and pretty. I was wondering if this guy has modded his keyboard, or if it's just the way the camera is picking it up. 'Cos if I was to have any complaints about the lights on this beast, it's that:

A) I wish the backlights were easily interchangeable
B) The keyboard light undermines the speaker/touchpad lights by being so 'dull'. Looks good when you first get it, but the novelty wears off =-(

I would love to pimp out my keyboard like that hehe. I read about someone considering it, and each key has a seperate LED apparently. I wonder how hard it would be to stick a lot of different color LEDs under each key and make it look like how it does in that video =-P Any thoughts?

 

I'm getting kinda bored of one color keyboard LED as well; I just don't see why dell didn't let M1730 feature different key backlit colours. In the video the guy has just used 'breathing light' effect in Quickset. As for the mix of color, its just a trick of light, we may not be able to distinguish different colour spectrum in white light, but camera sensor does a good job picking it up.


Maybe someone can try replacing M1730's keyboard with AW M17's... They look identical in layout.

 

I think its just the camera

 

Do you guys even use your lights on the M1730, I have all mine disabled. Was cool for the first couple days, besides showing friends, they stay off

 

I leave my LCD lid light and keyboard light on. Touchpad and speakers are always off.

 

I leave it on just in case it goes out, so I can get it repaired lol.

 

Hell yeah course I do =-P I still even use LightFX when listening to music =-P

If anyone has any idea how difficult it would be to mod a few of the lights on the inside let me know. That video looks so purdy =-P

 

Din't someone purchase the UJ-120 Panasonic BluRay player from geeks.com recently?

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-UJ-120-DO&cpc=SCH

If so, how did it work out? Any playback/compatibility issues? I'm thinking about ordering it - I typically use PowerDVD or MediaDirect 4 for movie playback... Looks like 1 person has run into issues ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=391702). Anyone else?

Thanks.

 

@TimeWriter:

Here ya go - modded INF for NVIDIA 186.18 driver as you requested Not sure about nHancer compatibility with the 186.xx series. Check before installing.

This INF has the 8700M GT, 8800M GTX, 9800M GT and 9800M GTX cards added to it. It will use the same configuration settings as the desktop counterparts. No mobile tweaks have been added. I have also removed the DynamicSLI switch and configured the driver to require a reboot when enabling or disabling SLI. I find its a bit cleaner when doing this.

For those interested, you can grab the driver here:

Vista 64-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_186.18_whql.html

Vista 32-bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_186.18_whql.html

The .zip contains both the 32-bit and 64-bit Vista INF files. Should also work now with Windows 7 - let me know if it doesn't. Just copy and replace the modded INF file to the extracted driver directory prior to install. When you first launch the installer after downloading from NVIDIA, it will error out since the original INF does not recognize the mobile cards I added. After the error is displayed, exit the installer and copy over the modded INF to the driver directory. Run the installer again.

The driver runs nice and stable with the same low temps as the 185.xx series. I have also not experienced any crashes in L4D or TF2. So, perhaps this one is a keeper. Yay! I didn't really bother with 3DMark06 since I really don't care about the numbers anymore. As long as my game doesn't crash and performance is there - all I care about.

Enjoy!

NOTES:

1. Normally, I would suggest using LV2Go for modded INFs. Their current version INF for this driver is having an issue where the NVIDIA Control Panel is missing. I'm not sure specifically where the problem is, but I decided to just mod the desktop version driver for our purposes. This is why their are none of the Mobile Tweaks LV2Go adds. Some of their Mobile Tweaks are not in sync with the settings in the Dell INFs - so I'm not crying over them missing from this INF. I'm not even sure they really help in most cases. You be the judge.

2. By default the driver will install the 3D Stereoscopic driver as well. If you don't plan on using 3D Glasses, just uninstall this via the Vista Programs & Features Control Panel. I have no hard evidence, but I suspect it might add a bit of heat to overall temps.

3. I don't anticipate any errors however if any 8700M GT, 9800M GT, 9800M GTX owners run into errors @ install, let me know so I can check the HardwareIDs against what you show in DeviceManager. Thanks.

 

Sometimes I prefer to write in the dark, so the keyboard backlights to come in handy.

BatBoy,
I'm going to give your INF a try. I'm bored of 185.85.

 

Didn't worked for me.

 

@ Time:

Received your PM. I think I know why it didn't work - I didn't add in Win7 coverage. Changes made - should work now. Give it another go... Blasted Win7 testers...

 

all lights are on for me. Though sometimes I get a little static/skipping noise when playing games and the lights change - I used to have zone rotation red-green-blue every 5 seconds. It seemed to give the least disturbance compared to any of the other options.

Lately I threw everything to sapphire (blue) as that matches the lid. So purdy! A keyboard that could change with the other LED's would be awesome - it's honestly something that originally pulled me into Alienware's 17x. However, it would have delayed my laptop by over a month since the keyboards were on backorder...

 

Since I did not see much of an improvement I went back to RAID 1 and tried to see if I could figure out why my number were so low. I found I had the incorrect Intel Matrix software and drivers installed. For a RAID 1 these numbers look better espically the burst. Now that I have this basic setup preforming better I may try RAID 0 again. I will keep working with this checking different cache settings 1st.

Before installing the correct software

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 27.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 98.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 61.3 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.0 ms
Burst Rate : 60.0 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 4.6%

After Installing correct software.
HD Tune Pro: Intel Raid 1 Volume Benchmark

Read transfer rate
Transfer Rate Minimum : 35.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 93.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 71.4 MB/sec
Access Time : 19.0 ms
Burst Rate : 883.3 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 6.2%

 

Yeah, that was me. Will receive it this coming week.

 

@Batboy: Have you tried Wake-Over-LAN with the M1730? I've the Intel 4965AGN and apparently its supported. Any experience/tips?

Cheers,
72oo

EDIT: Having a bit of trouble finding the BIOS setting for it...

EDIT2: Started a specific thread for this.. I've looked through the BIOS and there's no option specifically for "Wake on LAN". It's be amazing if a top end laptop like the M1730 couldn't support it!

 

I don't use this option since I don't have a need for it. Open Device Manager ---> Network Adapters ---> Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller ---> Advanced Tab

There you will find the option for Wake Up Capabilities

 

Can you try it in your M1730, see it indeed works, before send it again? thanks

 

Does something need to changed in the BIOS aswell?

 

I tried the Cryostasis demo with my Ageia card back in.
With the Ageia card I got 50+ fps average and 25-29 fps during physics intensive screens.
With the nVidia PhysX enabled I got 50+ fps average and 24-29 fps during physics intensive moments.

The difference is hard to notice, whyle benchmarking with 3Dmark06 the difference benefits nVidia PhysX. So in my opinion the Ageia PhysX card is no use for me anymore.
I guess I have to take the card out again next time.

 

I would just leave it @ default... 'Enabled w/PXE Boot'.

 

D_Sage I am still around Currently I have my 8800m GTX SLI clocked at 585/1463/950 and it runs games very well. Tried that when I saw how the 280m GTX were clocked at.

 

That's really helpful. Now since the card is still in there, do just one more test for the road: Same everything, but at a resolution of 1680x1050. Share your experience. (Btw: Are you using Anti-Aliasing?)

 

FYI for those who are thinking about picking up the M1730 backpack...

I was finally able to pick one up (was sniped on a previous auction). Secured one for 60 USD which included free shipping. The seller has 100% positive feedback and currently has 1 more which ends in a day (currently @ 49.00 USD).

http://stores.ebay.com/Just-Wholesale-4-You

 

For those who are benchmarking Seagate's 500GB 7200.4 in RAID 0 (1TB) This is the result I got in HDTune:

 

Wow, that's actually quite impressive. My 200gbx2 in raid 0 can do similar min, 150 max, and 120 average.
+rep
Do you know if your drive is running new FW？



Another question, I'm trying to install Dell media direct. Can I do so without lossing all my data, and my OS?

 

Thanks man.

In regards, I believe its using the latest firmware. I heard earlier releases had alot of problems, and the transfer rate was too slow.

I guess mine was the revised revision, I never had a problem with it...

How do I check my drive's firmware?

The way I look at it, I compared with the WD500BEVT in RAID 0 as well, the feel of it, as in transferring, copying, accessing, loading a game, installing it, opening a 2GB .psd file, it is as good as it is.

I paid $125 for each drive from Ebay.

EDIT: Ran another test again to proof that it wasn't a fluke...

 

I'm not so sure. For all I know, the latest Firmware is 0002SDM1.

Time to update your sig?

 

I have one, and Merrick97 has one, as well. So far, I've only watched DVDs in it, using media player, and windows media center. Haven't tried PowerDVD or MediaDirect yet. All I can report so far is that both play smoothly, but picture is a bit clearer in windows media player.

 

Is that version 3.5 or 4.0? If its 3.5 and you have not removed the factory MediaDirect hidden partition then you should be ok. If you have removed it, then the only way to proceed will be a clean install starting with the MediaDirect install CD (you'll have to boot from it). Once this is complete, them mediadirect installer will prompt you to insert your OS install media. The reason for this is the MediaDirect installer creates the necessary hidden partition and an OS partition. Bear in mind this is only with version 3.5 of MediaDirect.

If you have version 4.0 or higher of MediaDirect, then you are good to go and can install it from within windows. Version 4 does not use nor require the hidden mediadirect partition since its a standalone app.

For additional steps/questions, check the following:

Version 3+
http://support.dell.com/support/top...82DAC1D7384CD5E040A68F5B2814A2&doclang=en&cs=

Version 4+
http://support.dell.com/support/top...7F2608E006804EE040A68F5A2860BD&doclang=en&cs=

 

if that's media direct 3.5 i wouldn't mess with it at all. from my research of looking at the huge "m1730 owner's lounge thread part I" media direct is bugged. mine doesn't work properly and i think it's because of my RAID 0 config. i'm using windows vista 64bit and there are others that have used media direct 3.5 with vista 64 fine but they don't have RAID drives.

i decided against leaving off media direct completely with a new install because of the MBR corruption with the house button since it is hardwired into the laptop...i don't know whether a workaround was found?? my problem is that i when i hit the exit button to exit media direct nothing happens so i have to hold the power button down and then i have to power up again using the house button to get into windows. then i have to shut down and power back up to get everything normal again.

someone correct me if there is updated info with the crappy media direct software...

 

Okay. I'll leave it alone, don't want to reinstall all over again...

 

Pressing the power key + media direct key fixes it. Takes about 10 mins to boot up though ¬.¬'

 

what exactly does pressing the power key + md key fix?

 

Has anyone tried to mod the bios in the 8800s to get the fans to kick on sooner?