Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

You cannot undervolt in the bios at all and unfortunatelly RMClock only works with 32Bit version of vista I tried running it in the 64Bit version and it never worked. If I left the default voltages and ran my cpu at 3.4Ghz it would get to 92c which is very bad for any cpu and with RMClock after playing COD5 WOW for over 2 hours cpu core 1 = 58c and core 2 = 69c.

 

I can't quite drag it out as I'm pretty busy at the moment, but there are driver files that work for x64 and RMclock... I'm running RMclock with Ultimate x64 and it works like a charm. Search around for a file called rtcore64.sys... I forget how to exactly do it, but there is a guide somewhere and it works.

 

Review this thread for Vista 64/RMClock - may or may not work with the current Service Pack.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=220543

 

I currently use RMClock with 64bit Vista without any issues. At 3.2ghz I am at 1.2625volts and everything is nice and cool.
Used this guide and the 64bit drivers are at the bottom of his guide It is also referenced in the above link from BatBoy:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

 

Well thanks!!!, I did not know there were 64Bit whql drivers out yet. Maybe it is time to try 64Bit Vista again.

 

So, out of all of the people on this forum, only two of us have had this problem? Come on guys - throw me a bone here. Who else has this happened to and what did you do/where did you go to replace the battery?


Thanks, man - Mike

 

I'm really getting peed off now,

I've had bsod's and random lockups with the laptop over the past 3 days, and after 2 hours on the phone with dell they are going to replace the graphics cards AGAIN! on tuesday.

This is the last time they are going to do this as I am going to demand a like for like replacement if it happens again.


I was looking forward to this weekend to play some games as I have a rare 4 days off from work.


:cry:

 

I feel your pain Chief.

This morning, as I was ending a night shift, I was packing my laptop up and knocked over a full cup of coffee. The coffee drenched the base of my Logitech Alto stand and splashed up all over the bottom of the lappie. Of course the Alto stand protected the lappie for the most part with the exception of the GPU fan exhausts. I quickly wiped away the coffee (yelling at myself the whole time for being such a noob). I tilted the lappie to see how bad it was and there was no coffee dripping out. My hope is it just hit the chassis itself and didn't make it into the GPUs.

Tonight I did experience some odd behavior though. I was playing a quick vs. game of Left 4 Dead and I notcied the lappie was quite warm (warmer than usual) around the GPU output (left side). I ALT-TABBED to the desktop to consult HWMonitor and it showed the GPUs were sitting @ 78c. This is not typical of my machine. My GPU temps never exceed 74c.

I'm reinstalling my driver again and will be keeping a close eye on temps. If they continue to stay high, I will be popping the case open tomorrow to 'see what I can see'. Hopefully I don't find any trace of coffee spots inside near the GPUs. If I do, I am calling Dell and taking advantage of my Complete Care coverage.

I dread the thought of a replacement motherboard, GPU. After all of the replacement part horror stories of late, its not something I want to deal with. We shall see. At work again tonight and my coffee is further away this time - LOL.

 

My system is 1year 4 months old, always used my notebookcooler Cryo, never overclocked my gpu's and cpu's always running at 3.0ghz, ...........it seems these M1730's have a very short live.
My M1710 served me well without any problems for about 3 years.

 

If....there will be a refund, my next notebook will be a asus W90vp.
one of the fastest gamernotebooks for now, and not overpriced.

 

Hm.... I'm really hoping I don't have to deal with the GPU issues that seem to be cropping up. I don't have any warranty on this system, and the only insurance I have is my stock 8700M GT sitting in a box in my closet.

Haven't had any issues thus far, at least. If I have to shell out this much for a notebook again, I'm going to be going for a Thinkpad W700DS.

 

maybe the last thing you can try at own risk:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=385973

 

I get the message saying my 230W Dell AC adapter isn't being recognized. I wouldn't even care about this if it didn't slow my computing and gaming to a snail's pace... so here I am. After hours of forum scanning, I found this page:
http://www.laptop-junction.com/...power-adapter-mystery-revealed
It's a most interesting read, and I've determined my issues are likely loose connections on my board, in my AC adapter cable, or both.

Dell recommends(I'm lucky they even spoke to me on the phone; my contract is long over) I update my BIOS. I can't seem to update because my battery is a worthless brick that the system won't recognize. (Is there a command line option to preclude the battery checks?)
I doubt this BIOS update would work even if I could do it, however, unless Dell cancelled this frustrating brand-name-only marketing scheme.

All that said, I've considered a few other options:
Are there other BIOS' I could install that wouldn't mandate a gimped CPU?
Would it be worth the trouble of opening my cable, adapter, and board to check and re-solder connections?
Is there a simple setting somewhere in the power options I just missed?

If I knew someone else with an M1730 or similar piece of gear I would swap their parts in to diagnose, but alas, I'm deployed and seem to be the only one here that cares for this degree of mobile computing sophistication.

Can anyone offer any tips, suggestions, or this-is-what-I-did stories?

 

If you are running A10, there is no way I know of to bypass the BIOS check with the current BIOS release - sorry. You could try to downgrade to BIOS A03 - I believe this was the version just prior to the change. If not, then BIOS A01. A03 is here: http://support.us.dell.com/support/...eid=R170894&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=232763

As you already know, it wont do you any good though unless you can find another battery or adapter.

I advise against cracking open the power brick as its not the safest way of dealing with the issue.

If in fact its the motherboard, you'll have to replace it since there is no easy fix - attempting to solder another power connect to the MB is a bad idea.

I would start with the power brick and replace it first. You can order one from this location (not sure on shipping to your deployment area though):

http://www.impactcomputers.com/wx695.html

Its the lowest price on the net that I could find.

Motherboard's will be more pricey - might want to check eBay first - there is one for 150.00 right now. The part# for the Motherboard is: Y012C

http://www.resaleremarketing.net/servlet/the-1189/Dell-Inspiron-XPS-M1730/Detail

 

Has anyone got any tips for making ArmA 2 work well for the M1730... its got pretty crappy performance at the moment; around 15FPS in the campaign.

 

Try lower settings and resolution? Turn off AntiAliasing and all that from nVidia Control Panel. See if the Game settings lets you lower details on only a few things, like shadows or something.

 

LOL. Please, if anyone has an extra failing 8800M lying around, try this and post your results!

 

Have you tried this patch? http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24506

 

From the Demo, I am getting about 25fps in the benchmark. If you haven't yet look at this thread on their site.
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=76908
I used the NVIDIA patch to enable SLi support. The EVGA item may be an option also.

 

Thanks tried that but performance was still awful.

I've come across that before but I can't find 186.18 modded for laptops on laptopvideo2go. Is there somewhere else I can try or is it possible to mod the file myself?

Thanks, I've applied most of those. The exception being the EVGA as it requires 186.18

 

What driver version are you currently using? I applied the patch to 186.12 and it worked without any problem.

 

186.03

... I might give it ago in a minute.

TBH this reminds me alot of when ArmA (Armed Assault) came out. It ran so crappy on the M1730 it drove me nuts, so I'm half thinking of just shelving the game for 6 months till the developers get it up to 1.5 or something and the new approved laptop drivers have native support.

But in the mean time I'll give the patch a go.

 

Has anyone else had a problem connecting to an HDTV via HDMI? I have a Panasonic Plasma that the laptop won't recognize and I can't get anything to output through HDMI. I've tried the HDMI to DVI cable that came with my laptop.

 

I'm confused.

"I've tried an HDMI cable and the HDMI to DVI cable that came with my laptop."

How did you try a HDMI cable? As far as I'm aware there's no HDMI ports on the M1730, unless I've SERIOUSLY missed something =-P

 

Oh wow I'm an idiot... brain fart dunno why I put that. Maybe its time to get some food in me. Should be just tried the HDMI to DVI adapter and it wouldn't recognize the TV

 

Lol okay, phew.

Rcas, sometimes I find changing my driver version can affect this.

Also realise that older drivers (Pre 181.xx I think?) didn't support SLI dual monitoring.

It can be a big temperamental, I've found this myself. All the drivers from 185+ seem to work 100% for me though, maybe try newer drivers =-)

 

Updated to the latest dell driver and still nothing... no other display shows up in nvidia control panel nor in display properties. Do you have to turn the DVI output on? I'm stumped I've never had a problem with dual monitors with any other system. S-Video out works but not HDMI it seems..

 

Have you tried it with SLi disabled, just in case? I've never tried hooking up a second monitor to my M1730, nor do I have an HDTV, so I'm pretty clueless myself.

 

Tried SLI on and off... no difference. Tried using display settings and Nvidia Control Panel.

 

Will somebody please throw me a bone here? Anybody here replaced a battery yet? Where did you buy it from? Thanks - I seriously doubt Dell will replace my battery and I am probably looking to order one this week. Any help would be great!


Thank you - Mike

 

If you are under warranty they'll replace it no problem. I had my battery prematurely die on me in my Inspiron and they sent me a 9 cell to replace my 6 cell

 

My warranty is expired. I have never had any warranty issues with Dell's - which is to say that I have never had any issues that I needed to use a warranty - until now lol


Later - Mike

 

I tried hooking mine up to a beamer, didnt work, so i was worried that my dvi port was broken, tried further a LCD tv (didnt work), an analog monitor (with dvi to sub-d cable)(didn't work) so i was kinda worried
tried a digital monitor (worked flawlessly), so it isn't broken, but picky
uber pants isn't it ....

 

I'd check eBay... buy a new OEM replacement, not a generic version.

 

I'm using an analog monitor (DVI to VGA/D-Sub adapter) without any problems...

 

That's what Im on about, I will stick to my guns, as I did pay an extra 150 quid for the 9800GTX, anyone had a problem with their 9800GTX's then let us know how you got on with a replacement.

 

Maybe I should do this now? (contact dell and say my 9800GTX card is faulty) as I know there are NO 9800GTX's anywhere I want one of those M17x's because I only bought my 1730 2 months ago!

 

How do you tell the difference?


Thanks - Mike

 

O.k. Think I figured that bit out. I don't get the 180 day warranties, though. I'm assuming I should stick with items shipped from within the U.S.? And full 1 Year Warranties?


Thanks - Mike

 

I'm not sure, but i don't think the M17x is much better than the high-end of Dells M1730.
I see a lot of benchmarks on youtube and i'm not so impressed.

 

Bad Karma dude... lol

 

It doesn't seem like the DVI port should be that pickey.

 

Well, thanks to the few of you that provided input on my battery replacement issue. I nabbed one off of eBay today for $80 - Dell boxed battery with warranty. Not sure what the deal was with all of the ones up there with only 180 day warranty, but mine is supposed to have 1yr. We'll see - it's shipping out of California...


Later - Mike

 

My beast had just arrived yesterday, it is soooooo awesomeeeee!!!!.


Just wanna ask some questions,

First, is there anyway to check my M1730 warranty? is there is, how?(coz i'm looking forward to extend the warranty when it nearly expires)

 

Warranty Status Check:
http://support.dell.com/support/top...info/details?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=pub&~ck=anavml

 

It says "There are no service contracts or warranties associated with this system."

 

If you purchased the system from Dell, contact Customer Support.

 

I have another laptop which is running very slow lately. Should I format and re-install XP on it, or can I image the hard drive to a file or something, reformat, then flash it with the old hard drive image? Will that achieve the same effect as formatting to speed it up or will that defeat the purpose?

 

So this has happened twice now:

I put the computer to sleep and go to work. I come back from work and the beast is awake. My wireless mouse is off, and there are no other wireless devices connected to it. No network cable connected. I'm thinking maybe the wireless nic is turning it on? Any way to tell? And how can I turn off wake on lan/wireless? I tried checking the BIOS but couldn't find such an option...

Edit - checked the following devices, all of which do not have "allow the device to wake the computer" checked: internal wifi card, broadcom NIC, bluetooth, USB.

Any other ideas???

 

Took a week for the Dell techie to come and replace my GPUs (replaced the motherboard this time as well). Seems even the 8800GTX are in short supply as that was the reason for the delay.

/sigh, two failed GPUs for me now... wonder when, or if, it will stop.