Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

Bah, I just loaded these drivers!!!

I'll let you know if I find the same problems.

 

Okay... chiming in on the 190.40.

As I posted before, I got a slight increase in 3DMark06. Am actually now running my 8800Ms overclocked(followed BatBoy's clocks, but I don't remember exactly what they are). Fired up Far Cry 2 and got a CTD within about ten minutes of gameplay.

Will be testing again here shortly. I'm also going to be testing undervolts again for 3.4... I'm now confident enough to start pushing my system a bit.

 

That is your Intel 965 chipset.

 

Well... I decided I was going to throw caution to the wind and go for the gold... I went for a stable undervolt on 3.4Ghz and overclocked my 8800Ms today... and wow. I'm impressed at the benchmarks, and I just love this machine.

Just went off to play some FC2... I'm a couple of hours in with no craches whatsoever. I'm thinking that was just a fluke.

 

Well KA8? Where are the benchmark links/screenies? How are your temps holding up? Oh and try: setting your shader to 1650 (650/950/1650). It should be able to handle it.

 

Just loaded up Empire Total War. Watched the opening movie and moved the laptop slightly and the whole thing went down (power cable had come out).... So I reseated the the battery and it was OK. Strange though for that to happen I thought.

 

That is strange 72... unless your battery is starting fail. Very odd. I would double check the battery in the BIOS and see if it reports any issues.

 

Unfortunately I neglected to take screencaps, but here's what I have found out:

Orthos stress testing for 1 hr 30 min resulted in 86C maximum CPU temps... a little high... but considering my T60 regularly hits that sort of heat if I fire up any sort of intensive apps I'm thinking it's okay. Under gaming conditions my max CPU temp is 73C(and usually in the 65C range... games don't put constant 100% load on the cores.

The undervolting helps drastically. I ran Orthos at stock voltage and stopped because temps shot as high as 98C... within two minutes.

Funnily enough, the GPU temps seemed to actually decrease... I attribute this to the drivers instead of overclocking. After two hours in FC2, the GPUs hit a maximum of 74C... with the 185.68 drivers(and stock clocks) I would see temps as high as 82-84C. Everything played wonderfully smooth in DX10 and at near-max settings... yet this wasn't a problem before.

I'll definitely try bumping the shader clocks up to that setting tomorrow... I'll give more details when I do it.

 

Just curious here but why 185.68? Have you tried 190.38 or 190.40? There is also 186.24 which I was using until I switched it to 190.40.

 

holy cow.. was on those 190.40 drivers, with the settings you suggested for L4d. playing that "heaven can wait" custom map. dropped to 12fps at one point!! Its an AMAZING map tho! Anyone who is actually good at the game (unlike most of me "clan") feel free to jump on sometime! It really needs good players to succeed!

 

Most of the custom maps lately have really horrible frame rate - period (with the exception of Death Aboard). The Toronto one, oh geez - talk about laggy as hell.

 

i think the 190.40 is doing pretty good so far

 

Thanks, I ordered some new thermal pads, will see if that improves things. I ended up going back to 186.24 drivers. I could never get the 190.40s to match the performance in CODWaW.

 

Aah... sorry for the confusion. I was using 185.68 until I bumped up to 190.40 yesterday. The driver switch is actually what I attribute the lower temps to.

 

Okay... just did another 3DMark06 run, and the results are below... the only differences from my last run are that I was running CPU-z and GPU-z, and pumping the shader clocks up to 1650Mhz. I saw a reduction to 14,099... strange. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is it just that the 3DMark gods were just not smiling on me? Haha.

 

With the conclusion to the poll it came out as:

36% had at least 1 or more failures.
89% of the users who experience failures had 2 or more failures which is scary.
67% of the failures were experienced by those using standard C2D CPUs.

Few too little results in the non-OCed Extreme CPUs to really draw any conclusion from them, though currently at a 50/50 success rate.

Most stable seems to be the OCed Extremes with only 14% failure rate.

To top it off, even though many already guessed there was a problem, we're now getting this reported in the media...

Faulty GPUs reportedly cost NVIDIA another $119 million
Nvidia Takes $119.1 M Charge for Faulty GPUs

 

yeah, up to 5 gpu's in 8 months...

 

Yeah KA8, I don't know... ya know 06 can be really odd like that. Sometimes it will return a score 200+ points lower than the previous only moments before. CPU or HD activity? who knows really. In the end its just a number. So far, the highest I have ever been able to take the T9300/8800M GTX SLI to is 11800 3DMarks in 06. Just a number

 

BatBoy maybe you meant T9300.
My highest score is that in the signature (without any overclock, as I don't wanna kill my system).
I also have another strategy now, when my laptop idles, I keep my CPU under some load to keep the fans running.
One question: I don't like how PowerMizer changes the clocks. If I disable it using PowerMizer 1.2 app and use nTune to underclock my cards, will be any problem with them? I would like to keep my cards running at 275MHz GPU/300MHz memory on AC power and 200MHz/100MHz on battery.
When I need to game or something that uses the cards, I just revert back to the default clocks.

 

Thanks for the correction Time... brain pain

I don't see any issue with locking it at the freq you mentioned. Its not running full bore, so no biggie. You are still picking up the advantage of less heat production due to lower clocks when in 2D.

 

Activate SLI-indicator and you'll see something very interesting. When you do a proper overclock, possibly a bit beyond the fringe, the SLi bar's won't be as active and will fluctuate in 3dMark06 - the darned thing doesn't respond too well to overclocking. This has happened on all my SLi rigs. This will also explain why your 3dMark06 points peak up until a certain point, but further overclocking results in a drop in points.

 

Using the 190.40 drivers and using Mediadriect to turn the laptop on (only 1 gpu turns on). Working good so far with the temps....seems its taking a longer time for it to hit 70c or greater at idle.

 

Interesting... this might sound like a noobish question, but how do you turn on the SLI indicator program? I'll have to try this.

 

@Kade,

I have heard nothing since last week regarding my replacement, they said it would be before the 13th (the courier would ring) i'm starting to get a little concerned. I know its not the 13th yet but........

What was the time scale for delivery after they said they would order yours?.

The old order was cancelled as they were waiting for a physx card (BS) so i've been wating since the 16th of July. from the start

New order was placed on the 30th.

Still heard nothing.

 

From nVidia Control Panel, go to View and check SLI indicator.

 

Hi guys,
I just bought an Acer 23 inch LCD, the X233H model (40 000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 300cd/m2) and it's simply amazing.
I have though one querk with it...
How can I make the games start on that screen and not the primary laptop lcd when using extended mode? On clone I can't use both screens , and I need extended mode since I work with tons of windows...
Also, the 190.40 driver does not have the option for SLI, where is it ?

 

Just for the record, I did try to change settings in the NvCP for both SLI and the primary screen and cannot do it...

 

right click on desktop, choose nvidia control centre, enable SLI, disable PhsyX.. Done!

 

Wow. Were they all from Dell?

 

Well, I need SLI and extended desktop, and the external LCD to become the primary. Can it be done ?

Cause with SLI I can only switch between screens, no clone or extended...

 

Eleron, I've always had that issue with SLI enabled - I have found the only time it can display both outputs (projector plus monitor) is with SLI disabled.

 

Go to nvidia control panel by right-clicking on you desktop. Select 'Physx and SLi settings', and then there should be some kind of 'advanced settings' tab on the top, click that and it will have 'Set SLi visual indicator' or something like that, make sure that it is checked. It'll work.

Okay.

Here's the protocol. They should've given you a service tag and order number. With the order number, you get a customer number too, and with both, you can track you order via dell.co.uk. If you have this, then you should know exactly what 'phase' your order is in, and they should also have an E.T.A. on when it will be posted. Once its handed to their delivery courier--whoever that'll be--they'll link you from the progress page to that package and you can track it and it'll let you know exactly what day the parcel is estimated to arrive at your door. You'll even get a log of all the branches where the parcel is held up for transfer, at least that's what Walsh Western International shared with their tracking service.

Anyway, they never 'called' to tell me it's coming. I was suppose to use the tracking info and be ready myself. You should have something like this by now because it's too bloody late. If the order's placed on the 30th, you should start busting their balls by the 10th. Mine was placed on the 21st of July, and they said it would be sent out for delivery on the 31st of July. Then there was a sudden delay on the 29th and they said it would be ready for dispatch on the 10th of August. The next day, 30th, I check the status, it was already handed over to the courier, meaning they actually beat the initial dead-line by a day. Of course, the courier will take its own sweet time with the delivery - usually 2-working days.

My best advice to you is that you keep yourself emotionally patient. I think your machine will show up, or something else will show up in its place. However, don't let up easy on Dell, either. They should've given you more info. by now, so express your displeasure when and if possible. Ask 'em about the full information on the order and how you can track it for yourself.

 

Which is why I`m pissed off also

Still, how can I use my external LCD for gaming , and not the primary laptop LCD? that's more important...

 

While keeping the other display on?

This is unrelated, but what are some good gaming LCD monitors? Are there any that have better than 75Hz refresh rates?

 

Yea, I wanted to keep both screens, but game on the external, and work on my laptop lcd...

 

Impossible. I've chewed all my nails off in anticipation.

 

I tried this as well. As far as I know you can't run SLI and have both displays on. At this point the only time I have my laptop open is when I press the power button. Then I close the lid and swivel the 24" monitor that's on an arm back over it.

Yet another reason for me to get rid of this laptop since it's basically being used as a desktop.

Alas, I'm stuck with this beast.

 

Don't chew your limbs off, otherwise you won't be able to enjoy your new machine.

You also won't be able to fend off dell's tech support. They have claws!

 

Hey all -

For those of you who have not heard, apparently there may be an issue with the NVIDIA 3D Stereoscopic driver. It has been reported that a memory leak is occuring and this could impact overall system stability/performance (ya have to hate those memory leaks).

For full details, check HERE

Since I don't use it, I opted to uninstall the driver via the Programs & Features CP.

 

Heh.

I try not to go that far, but then I get ulcers.

Anyway, Bloodroses is right - you'll need them nails to fend off Dell-cronies and techies.

 

does anyone else get bsod when you try to run ntune. and if not why am i.

 

What OS you use? Also what version of nTune you use? Try the latest (6.05), it should work fine with all OSs.

 

Eleron, I can play games on my projector, but I need to set my primary display to projector (or whatever) in the dropdown box. Then when I'm done gaming on the projector, I'll need to re-set the display output to Seiko in order for it to work. Kinda annoying, but works.

 

In the dropdown box it won`t let me choose any other display as primary except the onboard LCD...

 

I was given a customer and order number but they never worked on the order status screen an dell.

I'll give them a ring tomorrow to ask is happening.

 

A questioin about memory for the M1730.

Apparently from what i`m being told DDR2 (667mhz) is very slow, my new laptop that has just arrived has 6GB of DDR2 (667mhz).

Ive been told that you can install Low latency DDR2 800 PC2-6400 which will improve the memory speed, how many of you have done this and what memory do you recommend ?

 

It'll downclock to 667 mhz anyway. Chipset limitation. As for pc2-6400, I don't know. I always thought it would only accept pc2-5300 and 5400.

 

I have vista 64. just downloaded ntune again did a fresh install still get bsod?

 

Don't use ntune?

 

Just a quick question, if your using the mains all the time on an M1730 do you need to have the battery in ?