Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

I agree slammin - a clean workspace is essential - this doesn't mean have a can of cleaning wipes next to your rig, but you get the point (actually I have a container of cleaning wipes sitting on the shelf - lol).

 

man, what is the deal with this piece of garbage......

3 gpu's and my currant one is failing
2 motherboards
headphone jack bad
2 ac adapters
battery bad
2 screens
lcd cable fail's the diagnostic
2 hard drive replacements
and the cover lights dont work anymore....

i thought my 1330 had problems but this is retarded...

the last 8800 i got looked terrible, lots of dust and some kind of hair so i am not optimistic the replacement i will get will last.

at my wits end... even if i get a brand new replacement i doubt anything will be solved as this is only 7 months old now


i dont even have the energy to mess around with dell right now...

sorry, needed to vent

 

Woodstock I feel your pain... I'm sure you saw my pics I posted on the POS replacement cards they have sent me. Yep - I found a couple of 'odd looking' hairs in one of the fan housings when I removed it to inspect the card.

You have to stay on them though - stay focused and do not give up. This might depress you further, but it certainly opened up my eyes to some of the shoddy behavior on Dell's part lately. LINK

Given the # of replacements you've had, I would be pushing the new system now. Is it in the works or on your action list? Keep on them and dont back down.

I'm venting as well. As much as I have stood by Dell, I'm losing faith rapidly.

 

Thanx, I'm getting this cleaning guide you gave me, let's try.
Alright. I did not mention I've got XP and I tried those drivers from lv2go - doesn't work for me. I tried 2 or 3 different versions. Maybe you can suggest a particular one?

 

yeah, i know all about the dell game, the 1730 was a replacement for a constantly busted 1710, which was a replacement for a 170 that went through 8 7800 gtx gpu's. i have gone through so many hours dealing with the whole dell hell game i couldnt count even if i tried.... i am just so sick of it.

i think i will try to get everything repaired and stick it out a bit more, that is until the replacement is something other that the 1730. i dont think a refurbished or even a new 1730 would satisfy me at this point

i saw your pictures, the one i got was a bit worse, but the one in my 1710 was ridiculously bad

 

and the fans....

this was a replacement computer dell sent me, the quality control sucks

 

OMG Woodstock! Now that takes the prize! WOW. Talk about something from the garbage pile.

Well, I have had it - right after I posted my last post to you, I left the room to grab something to drink and came back to find a nice black screen and unresponsive system. I manually powered down and rebooted into my Diag partition to do a quick thermal check (not that it would tell me anything) and as the diag was loading I received a nice error message along with a very annoying beep pattern. Message stated:

HARDWARE DETECT ERROR - KEYBOARD BACKLIGHT CABLE NOT DETECTED

Powered down and pulled the keyboard only to find it was connected. Reseated the cable and tried again. Same error message. That NOOB tech broke my keyboard backlight cable. I remember he was having a hard time plugging it in which I thought was a joke since its an easy thing to do.

GEEZ. Now I am going to fire off a pic of the error message to the resolution specialist I have been exchanging emails with and DEMAND a new (not refurbished) keyboard as well as a VOICE CALL from somone at Dell. I am done playing this game.

MORE TO FOLLOW. Sorry all, I am starting to see red and lose it.

 

. . .those are nasty pictures.

I don't know about my future with Dell laptops.

Update:
I just received a phone call from Dell. The estimated period for the arrival of my 'new' system, which the man repeatedly said is in the primary 'build' stage now, is 31st of July, 2009. I'm going to keep you guys in the loop, seeing as some of you are in the process of getting replacements yourselves. Personally, regardless of whether my system is new or not, I will still consider my future vis-a-vis investing in Dell laptops.

 

Do people have the same problems when dealing with Alienware since Dell owns them?

 

Well, I'll never overclock my laptop, always watch the temps and hope it will run best for at least 3 years, when I'm gonna sell it and buy a new one (wich probably won't be Dell, and not a gaming laptop).

 

Wise move. I don't see much of a point in overclocking anything above the basic spec of a 9800m GTS. Too much power going on; these cards are already bottle-necked by the CPU, and overclocking will only boost the FPS by a mild margin, and further the bottle-neck so you won't be able to enjoy the full benefits of the overclock. It ain't worth the risk or effort. Maybe a few hundred 3dMark06 points would disagree with me, but the point still stands.

Unfortunately, for me, running the system in stock and keeping it clean still wasn't good enough. Lawl.

 

I feel bad for you guys with issues. Knock on wood aside from my battery dieing after a little over a year my M1730 has been great. I use it all the time and temps seem to be average.

I actually love this thing. To be able to do pretty much anything anywhere is great.

 

From what i have heard, Alienware support used to be awful, at least in Europe. Never owned AW system though, so don't have direct experience, and also don't know how much has changed since Dell took over.

 

New tip for M1730 users: powering up the machine using the Media Direct button will start up the system with only one GPU activated and powered. This will reduce heat and power consumption. If you don't have Dell Media Direct installed, system will boot in Windows (or other primary operating system installed).

 

Hello to all users of this excellent laptop
I have a problem with my m1730. I used to connect my m1730 with my projector 1080p which has HDMI input , via a DVI to HDMI adaptor. Worked always perfectly but yesterday for an uknown reason the m1730 dont recognise anymore the connected cable. for example I press the FN+ F8 as I always used it to switch the output to external and I get the message 'No external display attached'. Tried to format my laptop, installed all again but the problem still remains. I also tried to connect a dvi to VGA adapter and it sends picture fine. So the problem is only the digital output not the analog.I tried also to reflash with the latest bios but still no luck. Anyone know what happened? anyone that had the same problem??
thanks and sorry for my bad english, Im from Greece

 

do you think it could be the adapter and not the pc . don't worry about your english you spell better than some people i know.

 

I'm sending off my M1730 tomorrow to the buyer. Anyone got last requests for the system? eg... screenshots? pics?

I have slow internet, and dont want to open it up, but other than that...

 

Very slick tip...thanks!

 

It will still boot up with one GPU deactivated if going into Windows? Thanks for the tip, will be useful when starting it up on battery.

 

Well, this is for Windows. So, when you press that button (only if you don't have the Dell Media Direct app. installed) it boots in Windows with one GPU deactivated.

 

F ing hell!

Bar stuards should have been rounded up and shot.

The first think I will do when I get my replacement is open it up and take a peek inside.

 

I bought new M1730 but I have question about service tag - number on the label inside battery bay is correct (when I check it on Dell's website) but number in BIOS is different - and when I check it, I see different model (Latitude). Checking notebook's configuration and service tag by website (in IE) is impossible - cannot find it. So which service tag should be correct? Is possible to change it by BIOS updating? I don't unterstand it.

 

Did I get ripped off or what?

I got my M1730 (June 2009) and after reading all kinds of people happy with their express card remote, I found that I didn't get one. Though honestly I don't remember adding it in the config and I don't see it on the list.

When did they stop including them for free??

I also assumed.... that the overclocking option in the bios was built in. Little did I know that the joke was on me because that only applies to certain processors that are more expensive than the one that came with mine. I was not amused however....

I bought directly from Dell.

 

i got mine (in sig)for 1679 in may didnt come with remote either

 

yes I am sure its not the adapter, because I test it with another new adaptor and still not working. Maybe something fried inside???

 

I got my Cryo LX. Turns out, it won't run at anything over 6v on the Radioshack adapter setting, the fans stop spinning at 7.5, 9, or 12v.

EDIT: My temps went up like 4 degrees celsius on this thing. :rofl: What a pretty waste of space. You can cool your laptop down sufficiently just by raising the back two inches and making sure there's a normal cheap fan somewhere nearby blowing air at it.

EDIT: Wow, the temps stay hotter even when lifting the back of the laptop an inch off the cooler...

 

How do you raise the back two inches?

Anyone else have the Cryo LX and found the same results?

 

Yes im using one and I've found it to be great, really lowered my temperatures, was well worth the money.

 

It might lower your temps as opposed to sitting on a straight normal surface.

It raised mine because the way I had it set up before ran everything REALLY cool.

Put it (just the laptop) on top of an old computer tower or something similar and raise the entire thing up by at least one inch (front AND back) and have the back end hanging off the edge. Temps were 3-4c cooler than the Cryo LX with fans at 6v and laptop raised a little over an inch.

They'd have been even cooler if I had a normal little desk fan pointed at it.

Just place something under the rubber feet to raise it.

 

Also its a nice angle to type at

 

OMG!

Prototype is a FANTASTIC! Its been a while since I've been engrossed in a game, but this thing is brilliant.

72oo

 

I am using one right now and have been using it for a year now and mine runs great using the radio shack ac adapater at 12v which helps keep my beast cool and if I lower the voltage setting on the ac adapter I can actually feel and hear the fans slow down too, a note is that I do have some 1/2" rubber feet on the M1730 to raise it above the cooler and to make sure air flows properly too. I have heard of some problems with some of the Cryo coolers, but I guess I got one of the good ones. I wonder if Raad11 got one of the bad ones which is a possibility.

 

Hey guys, I pressed the media direct button with my laptop off, and it couldn't load it. However, now the laptop won't load Windows 7 anymore. When i turn it on, it goes straight to media direct...how do i fix this to go back to Windows 7 loading?

 

Yeah, if you got yours a while ago they might have changed some parts in the manufacturing process so now it doesn't handle voltage over 6v.

Is it possible to remove these fans from the cooler and put in my own fans?

Also, the adapter it comes with is a 5v, 2000ma adapter. The fan speed seems the same as the Radioshack adapter at 6v, 1000ma. Is this right?

On top of that, the fans start up intermittently with the adapter that came with the Cryo. They spin up and run smoothly with the Radioshack adapter.

EDIT: I opened it up and it looks very easy to replace the three 120mm fans. How convenient, much easier to clean than my old Zalman as well, looks like I'll be holding on to this. Now to find 3 120mm fans that are made for 12v, 1000ma.

I think the problem is that the GPU fans don't seem to turn on when they should when the machine is on the laptop cooler. They don't kick in until 75c and turn off again at 69c, whereas they'd turn on in the high 60s and cool to low 50s normally. .

 

Raad11 - You should be able to replace the fans with 12v fans, all they are are 120mm standard size fans so doing that should be no problem. But you are right at 6v the fans are basically useless as they spin too slow at that voltage to do any kind of cooling especially on this laptop that runs hot as it is.

Edit: No the fans should run all the time on the cooler as long as you have the ac adapter connected, on the laptop the fans are off then turn on at 75c then turning off unless you do like I do and run my X9000 cpu at 3.4Ghz which keeps all the fans in the laptop running all the time too which helps keep it cool as well, but the cooler does bring the temps down a few degrees too last time I checked it was about 5c to 8c lower with the cooler and the fans running at 12v.

 

I edited my post

Anyone else noticed this?

 

Something's weird though, I swear without the cooler, the fans kick in somewhere in the high 60s then don't shut off until it's as low as it can possibly go at like low 50s. At night when it's really cold, the 'min' temp even dips to 48-49. So... why would it stop doing that all of a sudden? Can the card tell how much airflow's going through it?

 

No it doesn't look at anything but the temp on the cpu and gpu's to determine when to turn the fans on, maybe the cooler pushes just enough air into the bottom of the laptop at 6v to throw off the temp sensors. That's why the cooler would only be helpful if it ran at 12v all the time to really push the air through the laptop and help keep it cool, I think Edit: (But I may be wrong!!).

 

This is so weird! I don't mean to bother you, but do you think you could try underclocking to 3.0GHz temporarily to see if your GPU fans do the same thing even with the cooler fans at 12v?

 

No the Card cannot tell how much airflow is going through it.

I think what is happening is when you dont have it on the cooler then the CPU is heating up faster than the GPUs and kicking on the fans, so if your GPUs are at 65C at that time then they havent reached their peak temperature so appears cooler.

All the fans are interlinked to eachother so causing one to turn on will turn them all on so it all depends what reaches its peak temperature first.

When you have the laptop on a cooler then it seems the GPU is reaching its peak temp before the CPU,
The GPU turns on at 75C im not sure of the CPUs peak temperature before it comes on as I cannot test mine due to a lack of temp sensor on my X9000

As a quick test my GPUs were idling at 70-75C and I have started Orthos CPU stress tester and now the GPU's are idling at 45-50 so that is proof of all the fans being linked

 

At what temp does the CPU fan turn on? My CPU temps are pretty low... they seem to lag behind the GPU temps. When the GPU temps go up, everything in the system gets hot. When just the CPU temps go up (via stress test), the other temps aren't as affected. There's hot air coming out from the GPUs and nothing much from the CPU.

Btw, my temperature didn't fluctuate with the 8700M and neither did the CPU temp which stayed at a cool low 30s.

 

Im not sure of the peak temps of the CPU in the m1730, I know that they are usually a lot cooler peaks than the GPUs though due to other laptops ive used, Most of those were reaching 50C then turning on the fans

 

It's not a bother man, I just turned the clock down to 3.0Ghz on the cpu and I could feel some air going trough just with the cooler fans, but the laptop fans kicked in right when the gpu's hit 75c and the cpu was at 66c. Having the cpu at 3.4Ghz is what is doing the most cooling, even with the cooler the gpu's right now idle at around 68c and the cpu is still at 3.0Ghz but it is idling at 40c on both cores. So having the laptop fans on all the time by running the cpu at 3.4Ghz is what really cools things down the most, so I was wrong about the cooler it doesn't work that great at all.

 

As well as needing earplugs .
I usually run SuperPI on one core when not gaming or doing anything intensive just so i can keep the GPU temps down below 50C all the time

 

I just played COD2 for a while and even at 3.0Ghz the gpu's hover at around 76c while playing the game and the cpu will never even go above 66c on both cores, so I could safely leave it as is, but I don't like thee gpu's idling at 68c, oh wait a minute!! now they went down to 53c as I am typing this message, which is what I remember them idling at before I started OC'ing the cpu last year. So maybe I had something running in the background earlier.

Update: Just played COD5 WOW for a while too and the gpu's max out at 80c then go back to 76c and will stay between 76c and 80c and the cpu goes to 71c but no higher and mostly runs at around 66c.

 

I heard some strong things about this game. What I can say impressed me personally, was the damned enemy/character count.

By the way: What kind of frame rate do you get with the game, and are you running it with an SLi profile, or in single GPU mode?

 

That stinks man, looks like a nice cooler

Prototype was great!

 

Alrighty... I'm coming across something kinda iresome on my M1730... the palmrest to the left of the touchpad is getting kinda toasty, especially when I'm gaming. I'm honestly not sure why... I don't recall there really being anything underneath that part of the computer other than the daughter card for the audio jacks and the optical drive.

Other than that, I'm thoroughly enjoying Far Cry 2. On maximum settings it runs like a complete dream on this setup.

 

Guys...I hit media direct when the laptop was off and it couldn't load right. Now it loads media direct everytime I try to turn it on.....HOW DO I FIX THIS TO MAKE IT LOAD THE OS AGAIN (WINDOWS 7)?



thanks for the help guys..much appreciated. Do i have to enter the repair utility w/ windows 7 and do fixmbr?

 

anyone can help with my problem?? :confused2: