Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

Nice. I'm still waiting for my parts as well. I got an automated call from Dell this morning stating that there's been a delay and the parts will get in tomorrow. I'm waiting on GPU (8800), motherboard, and AC adapter.

 

@BatBoy - that sounds nasty, but probably necessary seeing their ignorant approach. Keep us posted if you get any reply from the "top management" guys, will be interesting to see how much they actually care. It would be ace if you were given M17x for all the trouble and personal apology from them

 

Stop apologising, BatBoy, seriously, you make me feel bad for giving 'em grief, and I still feel like I've been holding back. They've taken sore advantage of your polite attitude, and I think you need to cut yourself some slack on the rage front. In fact, you should pull out all the stops just about now; they've taken too long.

Anyway, I got a status update. I'd like to share this with you lot, including UK members as it may be relevant.

I got the official links just a few hours ago, pertaining to the status of my order. It is still on schedule, and the estimated delivery date is on or before 31/7/09. I feel partially relieved.

 

@AlexeyR - you were bidding on the same one as me!! I was desperately trying to get that one!


@bpat - sorry fella, they only had one left, and i snagged it. no more in stock he says.

@Chief barker - his boss is [email protected]

Sujay was just useless for me as he wouldnt accept anything i was saying, and didnt respond to my fears about the refurbed parts. He tried to claim they had never been used! So why call them refurbed?!!

Also guys, want to upgrade the RAm to 4gb from the off. is it just basic PC2-5300 DDR2 667 stuff. i take it any brand will do and i dont need £80 hyper x stuff!

 

Because they are required by law to label any part they receive in bulk from a vendor or as a return and later repackage it to identify it as used/refurbished.

However the sad truth to it is there is NOTHING 'refurbished' to it.

Any DDR2 667Mhz or 800Mhz (will default to 667 though) SODIMM stick will do.

 

cheers batboy, amazon got 2gb pc2-5300 DDR2 667mhz cl5 stuff going for just under £16 each delivered. Better order 2 seeing as the beast has been shipped!

 

Is it not being shipped with 4GB? If not, and its only shipping with 2GB, why not get yourself a single 4GB stick for a total of 6GB?

 

I run COD 4 and 5 in single-gpu mode with practically everything maxed out - never dips below 25, and seems to generally remain around 40-70, although I have vsync enabled, so 60 is the maximum.

Modern Warfare 2 will have an updated engine, with more effects, which is very clear from the demo and promo videos. Taking all that into account, along with the fact that they'll probably optimise the engine even further, I'm confident that our rigs will own this game at maximum setting and resolution, especially in SLi. What I don't like, is the controversy surroundingt he price tag, and I wasn't amongst those that pre-ordered it for a cheaper price tag. Hmm. I might have to wait for a price drop.

 

LoL batboy! Its direct replacement. So they would only ship with 2gb ram. Not sure i would see benefit of 6gb! will be happy with 4 for now!

 

Now that's how you do business...nice work! Beautiful.

 

Batboy, that's exactly where I'm at with dell. Give them HELL! I'm contacting my state attorney general and BBB. I've had enough of the dell games. I've been through a month of a run around with the dell gift cards. After all the previous grief I've gone through I am about to go frothing at the mouth beserk. I am tired of the endless unreplied emails/phone calls as well as the disconnects/wrong departments/inactive numbers and passing the buck mantra.

Additionally my brother's laptop has a terrible history with repairs/replacement parts and I feel awful for recommending Dell to him. They already replaced his machine once and this one is just as big of POS as the first one. So it seems like I'm constantly fighting with dell over one thing or another.

For those who have had mobo and power adapter issues with your xps m1730 I can tell you that the inspirons are in the same boat.

Personally I'd love to lead a calvary charge right through their tech support offices for all their insolence and ignorance.

 

Thanks for that e-mail, I will give it another day and then send him an e-mail and see what's going on with my order.

 

I have heard sod all regarding my replacement, what time scale was it from when they agreed to replace the laptop to getting a delivery date?

Does it include the 9800's?

 

Damn. Well, they were being very annoying with the rare e-mails and odd phone call, so I nevere got the time scale until the last call when they said it would be on the 31st, and that the order was put through on the 21st. That's what it says on my links for the relevant dates, so I think it takes 10 business days.

Anyway, the specs are exactly the same as my signature, with three changes:
- 9800m GT SLi
- NO AGEIA (ARGH!)
- Newer Mode Wifi Card (Whatever the f*** that means!)
- One year extension on my warranty, free of charge.

. . .yeah. OH **********************!

Damn it all to hell! They just postponed the damned thing to the bloody 10th of August!

THAT'S IT! If it's refurbished parts instead of swords, then I get to bloody stick it in their eyes!

 

Another question to you guys . If I set the clocks like one of the powermizer settings does / 384 /301 / - can I run the games safety ? Yesterday I was played Mass Effect on these settings and max tem was 64 Celsius / 80 with stock clocks / .

 

Kade,

I thought the 9800's had ageia built in? I may be wrong? I too have been "upgraded" at the cost of ten british pounds to the intel draft-N card? No idea why. Although they wont extend my warranty! I have to purchase it after the fact. And they would only replace mine with a red one! cos i asked for white and they said no! go figure!

Mine was ordered on 22nd july, and has been dispatched. So delivery expected on or before the 3rd. WANT IT THIS WEEKEND!!! I wanna crack out L4D and fallout on Sli!!!

 

SO just a quick update, I sent the email out tonight. Included pictures of damaged parts, email chain with support and word doc timeline w/documentation of each contact attempt and response.

5 of the email addys bounced as undeliverable and the other 14 (including Mikey's) were delivered - 2 of the 14 produced auto-out of the office vac replies.

Look forward to the response and will report back.

Glad you are seeing progress Kade. Wonder why there was a delay - did you send off an inquiry?

------------

@Evil: All of the cards from the GeForce 8 series and up will support on-board PhysX computations/processing. Be aware that when you have an SLI system and PhysX is set to process with a GPU, 1 GPU will be used to run PhysX processing and the other will be devoted to GPU tasks. See this for more info on PhysX: http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_faq.html

 

yea, i think the 9800's have the ageia features built in. i didn't order it but it shows up in the software settings. i never turned it on because i think the 9800's are powerful enough without it but the option is there to use it.

 

Damn them to hell!

They said on the 17th that it was being ordered and i've heard f-all since.

 

bloody hell bat! you are a font of all dell knowledge! Cheers for that! So cant see myself using the ageia stuff then if it turns off a GPU (effectively) for gfx processing. Still, i suppose there will be games where 1 gpu is better than 2!

@chief barker - dude, get your spartan hat on and unleash hell! you should have got a confirmation through NEXT day!

 

Sorry to rain on your parade batboy but i fired off those e-mails to the same addresses and recieved no reply from them.

The only way I got a response was from the unresolved issues link at Dell.

 

Sorry to change the subject gentlemen.

Obviously the replacement laptop that I am getting sometime in the next 3 years will not have the physx card in it, how do I remove it from the old one does it just pull out like the graphics cards or it needs to be unscrewed?.

Also will the new 1730 have a connector already in place on the mobo to allow it to be fitted?.

Thank you.

 

There are 4 screws and then it pulls straight up. Look at RIP's disassembly guide; step 9 will show the location. It sets between the GPU and CPU fan on a metal plate. the connector is a white rectangle on the left side and there are 4 metal standoff post for the screw locations. Here is a pic,I thought there was a video showing an install. I will see if I can find it.

 

BatBoy, I am so sorry about your situation, man. To think that you've been so gracious with them up until this point. Shameful acknowledgement on their part! My situation's still. . . I don't know. I've sent them an e-mail inquiring about the delay, we'll see what lame-@$$ excuse they cough up this time.

Regarding the Ageia PPU. As BatBoy's already mentioned, all 8-series and upward tier of cards support GeForce PhysX, which is the new term coined for Ageia PhysX, because Nvidia bought 'em out.

Howevere, to me, this isn't an issue of less or more features, it's more an isssue of paying something extra for this additional and currently obsolete piece of hardware. The 9800m GT is exactly the 8800m GTX, so that ain't an argument for 'upgrade'. I also believe that at somepoint in the future, the PPU will provide me with headroom when my cards are pushed to their limit. Yes, I might be wrong, but I chose to believe that simply as a means to justify my stance that Dell, if anything, have downgraded me a notch and that their 'better' wifi card costs far less than my PPU, and means nothing when it comes to the gaming and media performance of my laptop. I only accept the extended warranty as a worthwhile compensation. Had I received a 9800m GTX, then MAYBE, I would've not made a big deal out of the lack of Ageia PPU. . . MAYBE.

To anyone else who wishes to hang on to their PPU card, simply follow the disassembly guide. BatBoy's excellent blog contains direct links to the XPS manual, which you can download and install. The thing has complete info on how to take apart the machine and every single device installed on the model.

Edit: I just got a reply from Dell.

Screw 'em! So what do you guys suggest I do? Should I make an issue out of this, or wait it out like a good little chump?

F'N HELL! Y'know! This is supposed to be on-time support. What the hell, man?! I'm eager to take up a fight!

 

Kade,
There are enough disgrunted owners on this thread for us to make a hell of a lot of noise. Someone suggested getting a spartan hat on. Well a phalanx is a lot more useful than one lone spartan. Although I am loathe to get all oiled up and wear those outfits in 300.

Some of you may not remember but I went through about 9 months of essentially having a non functioning laptop. I literally installed OS's hundreds of times. What was excrusatingly frustrating was the obvious lack of knowledge of their support. While I received a nice replacement it took hundreds of hours on my part, perhaps over a thousand hours. I certainly spent a lot more time attempting to solve the problem with my laptop on my own.

Dell was not helpful, they were rude, dismissive. They would ask me to call them back when their supervisor was there. Tell me to call back in 24 hours. Known issues from users were never acknolwedged or simply denied.

I do believe that moving their call centers to India was a great way to save money and provide users substandard support. I remember talking with XPS support years ago for my father's laptop and they were so friendly and seemed to go out of their way to ensure that the problem was resolved. Now it seems like support follows some script and ignores any information you give them such as error codes, blue screen data, lists of events, tests you have run, etc.

I think if we act together and make enough noise dell might be hard pressed. There's always class action lawsuits. There are other approaches like contacting media outlets as a group and try to embarass dell into taking some sort of action on our behalf to correct their mistakes.

Then we have this sort of action (hee) http://www.pcworld.com/article/168417/united_air_lines_learns_the_power_of_viral_revenge.html

 

We could try but they'd likely fail on us.

 

Well i'm up for it mate.:wink:

 

Let's all just hope Dell doesn't declare bankruptcy in the next 3 years!

Question regarding the PPU card - have those of you that removed it found any temperature changes? Because of its location, I'm curious if it'll help open up airflow...

 

LAWL, and lawl @ Bloodroses and Hikkoo.

If the parts fail, then I'll still use their corners to take out some eyes. . .

I'll have a word with 'em, Hikkoo. They say it's a new system, but I'll try to get some kinda' guarantee.

 

Is the 8700m SLI old for newer games this year (ex. TW:Empires) If so, should I and can I upgrade it manually to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280? I am considering cancelling my order because I looked on their website today for M1730, and they said they are not selling it anymore. Must be recent cause it was fine yesterday or the day before.

 

Very interesting stuff - I have the Dell Alienware M17x with 2 x 280GTX and a 9400. do you think its possible to get the PhysX running on the 9400?

 

the best gpu the 1730 can use is a 9800m gtx sli

 

How can you know what can fit or be used in the M1730? You can tell me generally

 

Because, Dell specifically design their mobile GPUs with a proprietery slot rather than your standard MXM 1/2/3 slots. The 'strongest' GPU designed for the M1730 is the 9800m GTX.

 

Sorry for the double-post. Crap.

It should be possible, in theory. Although I don't think the 9400 will perform too well - can't be sure though, so do give it a try and let us know.

I can tell you that by default, if you're using SLi, your 'PhysX' software will look for an idle card that isn't pushing graphics to offload the physics calculations. It will only use your SLi cards if and when there isn't an alternative available. So in your case, if you're using both cards in a PhysX-supported title, then most likely, the physics cpu-work is being offloaded to the 9400m.

 

Can you put ATI GPU's in the M1730?

And that any GPU that say's "for laptops" (I'm checking notebookcheck.net at the samte time) can fit in the Dell M1730

 

No. Not possible.

 

Also I'm reading online that Aegis PhysX card is useless but I see in here that it is beneficial and some people have it in their specs. Is the Aegis PhysX card a good $100 investment?

 

Can you guys please give your input on what backpack to go with?

I was thinking of this one
http://www.buy.com/prod/wenger-swis...17-screens/q/loc/16234/202719436.html#cRevSec

Would really love some opinions on which one you guys use since I have no idea what to my 1730 in.

I'll be using it daily as im a college student.

 

You will have mixed opinions on this question. Personally, I feel it does provide some benefit depending on use. Is it something you should drop 100 bones on? Unless you absolutely think its necessary, I would say no.

Granted the GPU is now able to handle PhysX computations/processing you have to consider the individual game needs.

Example:

Left 4 Dead uses minor PhysX based textures. If I have the GPU handle this I notice a very slight drop in FPS. If I offload this to the AGEIA card I do not encounter the FPS drop. Does it make a difference? Not really. I say this only since I can't truly perceive any graphical difference with the rendering in Left 4 Dead.

Now if you have a game which relies heavily on PhysX then you will have better image quality/textures/effects from the GPU handling PhysX. You will still see a slight FPS drop however the quality return will most likely more than compensate for it.

At this time there really is no way to be sure since there aren't any games which utilize PhysX 100% at this time. At least none that I am aware of...

Again, you will see many opinions on this - each one of them worthwhile to consider when making a decision.

Important to note: If the game of choice does not use PhysX, disable it - do not use it. Check your FPS - it will have increased slightly.

 

The XPS M1730 backpack is great, but I wouldn't want to carry it around all day. Its way to big. So is the system itself for daily college life (in my opinion).

When I need a quick way to transport my 1730 and don't require all of the gear space, I use my old backpack - a mobile edge 17". It was a tight squeeze getting the system into the laptop pocket, but it worked fine.

 

I probably won't be transporting my 1730 much, but I probably will a few times where I know I'll have an AC plug in. I have my other Inspirion that was bought in 2002 that still runs like a champ. They built them good back in the day....

 

I've gone for the M1730 case tbh. Had the old M1710 one and its lasted so well. The new one looks good, has plenty of space, and i know the beast will fit!

Cant wait to spank L4D on sli this weekend when it turns up! Tho not fussed with phsyx on it! will just be happy to finally play in 1920 x 1200 on high! 7950 GTX cant quite handle it, tho bless it, it tries its best!

 

I agree the 1710 bag was good and strong that's why I just reused it for the 1730.

 

mine started to come apart so i had to get the xps backpack...

 

You should get a Slappa Matrix bag, I have used it for a year now, and I carry my laptop, power adapter, external HDD, some headsets and books all the time. And it`s like brand new :wink:

 

OK I have had a great run with the 1730 for a few weeks. So I've been touching base here to hear the tails of woe from Dell support. It really sucks how they have handled you guys but don't give up. The more they treat you bad the more ammunition they give you for a full refund or better upgrade. Just make sure you document all the calls: how long, who to, what was promised and what resulted.

On a different note I have a gaming question. I was given The Orange Box last week which I never bought back in the day because it's Steam driven which is a nightmare on slow dialup - I was on 23kbps......

Now I am on fast dialup 52kbps LOL No I can't get broadband out here in the bush. So I have gone ahead and loaded it up. Well I got HL2, HL2 Ep1 and Portal loaded. the rest are stuck in the infamous Steam downloading loop...... Oh well I'll leave them to sort out later and play what I've got.

Anyway I have played HL2 up to Follow Freeman at highest settings without a glitch or any lag. It's been so good and smooth I haven't even loaded FRAPS and my temps have been sweet maxxing at 76c. All good untill now...

I'm getting sound looping and unexpected shutdowns. The thing that really borks my head is that just loading the game is getting crashes. I have followed all of Steams k'bases including this
http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9404-WRDH-5396 I have googled without any solutions. Plenty of posts with the same question.

I was able to play thru some of it last night with Sli disabled but I can't get my head around this "supposed" memory issue (on such an over specc'ed machine) and why it would only start now and not at the 1st chapter or load. Also why is it crashing sometimes at the loading pages but only now?

Also I have tried the latest Dell beta driver (Cheers Batboy for that heads up). It's made stuff all difference though. Any ideas???

 

I've never had any issues at all with the M1730 bag... it's solid, well-designed, and holds quite a bit of extraneous peripherals. While I'm apt to carry my T60 around as it's much more portable(and can play Counterstrike and DOD:Source, too!), the M1730's actually not that bad to tote around. Just make sure you've got access to a power outlet and a decently sized desk and you'll be okay.

 

I've played the Orange Box without any issues whatsoever, then again I got the dvd version, not steam one...

 

BatBoy's post is very poignant. You will get mixed reactions and reviews, mainly because not many people don’t have a use for the PhysX card, not because it doesn’t do its job. Not many have found a use for this card because of their powerful 8800s. A single 8800 will easily manage your graphics and physics are a reasonable resolution, two of them will own.

Of course, these cards are very powerful, and we have yet to get drivers and an OS that can truly harness the full power of these cards, and the dual-SLi configuration.

As per BatBoy’s example, you will see the Ageia card offer relief, but in most games, that relief will mean very little, if nothing. So it’s really up to you.

The lighthouse level in Unreal Tournament III, is very intensive. Run the game with everything on maximum and an additional 4-8x anti-aliasing and you‘ll find that your frame rates will occasionally dip under 20. With the Ageia card doing your physics, you can stay steadily above 25-30 for minimum FPS.

Personally, I see it as two glasses representing the capacity and potential of each GPU, and I see the water supply as the graphics/cpu demand from the games. If the two glasses are full to the brim with water, then the remaining water will spill over. Now what if I introduce a third, smaller glass into the equation to manage some of that extra water? That’s how I see the Ageia PhysX card.

…I can’t believe I just used such an analogy. I’ll go bury my head under some rock now.