Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

Hi Guys new to this forum but what I have read so far it's an excellent forum


Now is anyone using Win7 at the moment... Having quite a few issues at the moment...

Now I have a SSD drive OCZ vertex drive Second edition.
2.5 duel core.
6gig memory

My problems are as follows.

When closing a window I have a slight stutter when it closes now a friend of mine says thats not normal and was wondering what could cause this.

Also does anyone play world of warcraft? Sli performance is 20 fps lower than using a single gpu... even then i'm not impressed with that either.... but its ok only when you take off all shadows..

Now does anyone have a list of drivers I need for all my devices? Would be nice to make sure i'm not missing anything. Thanks for any help in advance

Garion

 

@ruby,

Dude, get it sorted. you've had replacements, you've played the game. now get serious. Daily calls, get names of who you spoke to. Start copying in every management team possible. Tell them the M1730 IS a high end system. Copy in the [email protected] address as this gets a management team involved. email [email protected] as he's sujays boss and hopefully he can start the ball rolling.

To face facts, you may not get an M17x. But they should replace the M1730 if they have replaced all major components and its not software. Tell them its not fit for purpose. Let them know you're unhappy!!!

We gamers do NOT pay £2000+ for a system to simply websurf! Gaming is integral to our way of life! And not hitting those frame rates is upsetting!!! Have patience and tenacity and you will get somewhere!

Good luck!

 

Yup, that's what I used back home, I propped it up around 2-2.5 inches in the back and placed a desktop fan on the side. See, what it does is push all the hot air from the back of the laptop so that it doesn`t gather around the laptop only to be sucked back in. That way the air around the laptop was always cooler than the rest, and it worked.
From my experience though, drivers and dust play 66% role in temps, 33% being the coolers. If you can match all of them properly, it`ll be ok. Right now I`m doing some experiments with the same thing, since here in America where I am now it gets over 100F a lot ( over 30 some C ) and my laptop has seen a max of 80 or 85-85C depending on the game and I`ve checked, the air behind the laptop , for around 1-2 square metres is also hot so that needs to be pushed away toward a window or something.
I`ll also do another fan cleanup on Monday to see if it helps.

Go for the m17x , it`s more expensive and new, why not ?

Dust will gather anyway, more when it`s on, less when it`s off, electrostatically . Anyway, if the fans are on, they should cool down the components, but it`s not really necessary.

That's quite a story there dude, did you add pepperoni to it?

Now you`ve got me curious. Mind making a tutorial with some pics?

 

i'm still waiting for the engineer, the parts (screen and gpu) are not availble, maybe next week,...
i just read the w90 series from asus are discontinued(bad news)

 

Someone recommend me a good joystick to use with my M1730, i like games like flight sims, rally games, and medal of honour etc, i`m just after a good all round joystick to play the above games and similar.

 

Hi guys. A few days ago I've sent Dell a message about warrenty is there any chance to extend it and today I received a call from them they said It's gonna cost me £110 - 1 year, £120 for 2 years and £160 for 3 years. Any thoughts?

 

Yeah I can take some pics, though I don´t want to open up the XPS M170 again But I can take a pic of the whole setup for you

 

i use a xbox 360 wired controller works perfect

 

I use an Logitech Precision gamepad and it works great with my rally/racing games. I also play FPS games like FEAR, but for that I use keyboard and mice.

 

I use Saitek Xbox 360 joypad. It's basically your typical 360 pad, but you can pull out the left-analogue stick and d-pad module and put it in reverse, setting it up like a PS3 controller. It's nice, and works great.

 

guys i just sold my M1730 to a mate.
Left it blank
He installed an OS. got all games installed.
then after 15mins of gameplay it BSOD'd and now won't detect the first HDD, no matter what drive is plugged into SATA0
Has anyone else had this?
If so, has replacing the cable sorted it?

 

Looking at the conversion to what I was offered here in Australia that is much much cheaper. IS it NBD or just parts?

 

NBD = what?

 

Next-Business-Day?

And 160 quid for three years ain't bad. I would say that you should try to negotiate it down to 140.

 

Yep, In Australia it was Au$500 for 2 years maximum. No 3 or 4 yr option.

 

thanks.. ive actually emailed [email protected] about a week ago but no response from him at all.

the problem with my case is that the problem lies with the entire system design so replacing another 10 new 1730s will not solve the problem at all. they refuse to give refunds and the m17x and also agree replacing another 1730 will not solve the problem.

i have no idea what is wrong with dell.

im expecting a call from them tomorrow and hopefully he/she can help me.

ever since june they keep saying "ill have to speak with the management" with regards to the alienware and a full refund and till now everyone i talk to doesnt seem to be in the management even though ive requested to speak to one and at the end of the calls they will say "i will have to speak with the management"

its so frustrating-.-

 

My system is similiar to yours, I need to change my specs. I have a patriot torqx 128 ssd and 500GB HD as secondary. Windows 7 pro x64. Almost every driver installed automatically with RTM disk. Ran into some issues with the Intel AGN wireless card but that's a known issue.

Have you followed all the advice for SSD drive? Here's some advice you might find useful/applicable:

http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47212

Some drives has issues with stuttering, do you have the latest firmware?

I'm not impressed by the SSD either. While the scores can be impressive I don't think the performance is worth the cost. The gains from my raid 0 was noticeable but ...eh.

With most applications you'll notice they'll load faster but it seems that some aren't designed to take advantage of SSD's. When I load guild wars I notice some slight stuttering or loading issues which causes a delay after an otherwise fast load.

Definitely have a look at the forums for your specific SSD.

 

I have noticed something strange since I was playing around. Installing intel storage driver seems like a no no for SSD. Trying to use the Wiper program with the storage driver caused it to crawl (only a few percentage points in hours. Uninstalling matrix driver caused the TRIM to run as normal. (TRIM would take under a minute)

Is your drive set up in the BIOS to run in SATA mode and not AHCI? I've read several times that there can be a performance decrease with AHCI.

 

Blood:

From: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3625

 

Don't fret. They have to offer you a solution, and if it comes down to replacement or refund, they have to oblige.

What you need to do is get noticed by someone a little higher-up in their management as opposed to these. . . liers. There, I said it - some of these support-techs lie through their teeth.

For example, make a short but solid list of all part failures, including the relevant case numbers and dates. A person who reads this list should feel like each case is a blow, so put them down in bullet-point form.

Then send the e-mail to one of their customer service departments, or the corporate folks. . . or both.

Someone should respond, and someone will back you up, eventually.


On a side note:
I think, Dell's gotten a bit too big. Too many false promises and miscommunication between departments.

 

Cool, looking forward to that. Never know when it might come in handy.


Ok, which is the latest driver that STILL HAS POWERMIZER? I`m sick of running full clocks all the time, I need to lower my idle temps (68-69C).

 

The official Nvidia mobile driver, as well as most post 186 drivers including the 190.xx drivers.

 

Hi all,

I could really use some help, as i am nearly losing my mind (although that is not what i asking help for haha).

Recently i changed drivers for my dual 8800GTX (on Dell m1730). After that i cant seem to get SLI working as it should, no matter what driver i install (the original DELL one, or latest nvidia or anything in between).

What is the problem:
- At the nvidia configurator i have enabled SLI (and physics).
- When i try to customize setting, for instance, i want to change the setting of SLI performance modus. It is currently set to SINGLE GPU. But i want to change it to force alternate.
- So far this works, i can even press the APPLY button
- But when i close the configurator and open it up again... all the settings have been reverted. So in this case the SLI performance modus is back to SINGLE GPU.

It is very frustrating, and have tried alot of things

I hope someone can help me with this

 

Hi my first visit to this forum, I am not a gamer, but needed a good spec laptop for my word (I am a video DJ)
I reckon I am a really unlucky Dell buyer or they are way over-rated.

On 9th June 09 I ordered a Studio XPS 16, within 24 hours I had problems, within 1 week I had a service engineer out, within 2 weeks it was shipped back to dell, on 25th July I was given a full refund - Dell could not fix the problems,

So not detered I set about getting another Dell Laptop, I started with an Alienware but got directed away from the Dell site and changed my mind

Sorry to ramble!
On the 28th July I ordered a Dell XPS M1730
it arrived on 21st Aug, I actually read the manuel, instructions etc. before turning it on
Today I turn it on for the first time, 15mins to boot up!!!
trys to load Vista and I get a BIG 'FAILED' message on screen followed by 'DO NOT REBOOT THIS SYSTEM' 'FAIL THIS SYSTEM TO EMR'

these laptops costs approx £2500 so they were not cheap.
I will be contacting Dell tomorrow, probably requesting a refund and get a Mac or some other alternative.
BUT
Am I just unlucky? is the XPS M1730 a good machine and worth sticking with or are there better alternatives out there (my budget will reach £3k

thanks for reading, any advice appreciated, sorry for any typo or spelling errors
pp

 

Sorry to hear about your problems, i just think you have had some bad luck. I recieved my M1730 approx 1 half weeks ago and my early impressions are its an amazingly quick laptop, it certainly makes a statement with its looks.

My previous laptop was a Sony Vaio, the hard drives were just 4200 rpm, the speed of these 7200 rpm drives is amazing really, the boot up time is seriously impressive.

Contact Dell and ask for a replacement M1730 as i just think you have been unlucky, good luck whatever you decide.

 

@dj-pp is the m1730 a good machine?
after 3 new replacements and diffrent repairs i beginning to believe that the m1730 is a big failure, including the Dell support.

I think we (xps m1730 owners) unite and send a email in name of all of us to the big boss of Dell, it's time to act.

 

LoL, Well i'm enjoying mine. beast of a laptop, love it.

That said, if a few hundred of us wrote a clever letter and petition detailing common errors and faults, and demanding M17x upgrades regardless of country, would be fun to see how far we got!

 

hey evil did you run 3dmark06 yet and if so what are your scores?

 

Are you running XP or Vista?

Download 2 programs that are free that might help out - ccleaner and driversweeper.

Once downloaded and installed:

1. Uninstall nvidia drivers. It might ask to restart. If so, reboot into safe mode.

2. Run driversweeper and have it analyze anything that says nvidia and clean/delete the files it finds.

3. Run ccleaner's file cleanup wizard and the registry checker. Fix all errors/delete all files it finds. Make sure you backup the registry.

4. Restart. If new drivers are automatically installed (nvidia video card drivers, not the "standard vga adapter" - that's fine), uninstall them via the device manager and check the box to permanently delete them from the system. Then do steps 2 and 3 again.

5. Once Windows boots and does not install drivers automatically, it should just install "standard vga adapter". Now install the latest drivers. Batboy has a link to 190.40 drivers which seem to work well with our system. Install those.

6. Try SLi again. Pray it works

 

@claxdog my score was around the 9000 mark. i get heavily punished for having 2.1ghz processor really! But thats all they would give me!

 

Im happy for you Evil_Ras
2 months ago i was also a happy person with my first xps m1730.
But then it begin with heat isseus and hardware failures,....from then youre on a long way with phonecalls, emails, replacements, repairs(with refurbished parts) and a bad support,....read the dell forums, this forum and the story's from persons with bad luck and you understand what i mean.

 

I was never a happy person, but that's because I've made a cult out of self-loathing.

Wait, I'm going off-topic.

Yeah, the M1730 was pretty dandy for the first few months. However, after the new year, it just declined. And then in April, I had my first proper GPU failure after months of artifacts during gaming. It's been a hell-ride ever since.

No, the M1730 is -not- an ideal machine. It's an unfortunate fact, but this is not of the consistency that some of us saw with the M1710s. With this laptop, you have some nifty features, which are horribly overshadowed by crucial design flaws that could've been compensated with a better cooling protocol in the BIOS; another area where Dell failed. The machine needed to run cooler, and Dell offered no form of fan-control, neither did they bother to offer us a BIOS with a lower threshold for the fans to kick start.

Therefore, as of this moment, an M1730 with the X9000 CPU, overclocked to 3.4 GHz, would be the best solution as it forces all the fans into high-speed. I think that particular setup in this machine would run for a good while.

 

I was so pissed when I stuck a 7950 GTX in my Inspiron (modded the original chassis so I could fit two heat sinks that my original 7900 GS didn't have), and then found out my XPS 1730 that was coming wouldn't fit the 7950 GTX. Proprietary cards are BS That card was the bomb. The XPS has poor consistency control.

 

Thanks mate

That did the trick, SLI is working now as usual... The FPS has gone up.. and i am back at the mark3d 06 rate of around 11385, which was where i was befor.

Thanks.. Weird thing is that Mark3d only sees 3gb of memory in stead of 4gb.. Think it was Vista bug (running Vista 32 home premium)

 

Vista 32 bit won't utilize more than the 3 gigs. Consider going 64-bit. Sees/uses all 4 gigs and more stable anyways.

Vista Service Pack 1 32-bit should show all 4 gigs, though I'm told it only uses 3.3 gigs.

 

I reckon you've had bad luck. I've bought a heap of Dells Notebooks and workstations and Ive never had a DOA.

Now as for 1730 reliability which is very different to what has happened to you, mine is 6 months old and I just replaced the GPU on the weekend and there is many others here that are onto their 4th... So I feel it is kind of safe to say there are some issues with the 1730 for some people. There I've said it and it hurts.

BUT I will balance that by saying their are about 20 people on this forum and to the best of my knowledge this is the biggest English Owners lounge on the net I have found. Now don't take this out of context but forums are usually where people resort to when they have problems or need to vent, which is all fair enough - this forum differs from most as there is great tip sharing and long term owners with excellent problem solving abilities - nonetheless I'm guessing there are 20ish people on here who have had problems. I reckon it is a very safe bet that Dell sold a hell of lot more of these machines than just 20, let's even expand it to say 100 owners on here with problems. So dell must of sold 100,000 of these machines at least for it to of been a viable product so where are the 1000's of owners with problems?

If you Google XPS + owners this forum is 1st on the list. Search for m1730 + problems and there is mainly driver issues, some hardware and the old screen issue back in 2007. Again where are the 1000's of owners with problems?

Anyway back to your choice, I think even with my problem I would rather have the 1730 and hasslesome Dell warranty than being limited to an Apple where the extra cost is for those 5 letters and cute logo rather than the better spec's of the 1730.

 

problem is i can never ever seem to get someone from the higher up management teams even though ive requested to speak to one from the start. the last time i spoke to them they seemed adamant that they will not replace a m17x or give a refund-.-

does anyone know the emails to the management teams in asia pacific? ive searched the net but so far ive only found emails for those in western countries.

 

No, I don't have a particular contact, but if you want to talk to someone who can help, ask for "senior support rep" staff.

 

Rubyboy, I've got a couple of contacts from late last year I would share with you but you're PM isn't working as your post count is below 10. How about you go do some quick replies here and elsewhere on NBR so I can pm them to you.

Also they flatly refused to upgrade my 1710 but were forced to refund. a) because they weren't authorised to do upgrades b) because I threatened them with legal action thru consumer affairs here in Oz. What country are you in?

 

cool just wanted to see if my score was normal we have same cpu.

 

im from singapore. my dad also suggested that i could take legal action with the consumer protection stuff here as well but im thinking that would be alot of hassle and as a student i dont really have much time to deal with all these so im trying to deal with dell and hopefully i can get it solved without having to go through too much problems

ok ill get my posts up =D

 

ok ive got my posts up.. batboy you wanted to pm me about something as well? i can take pm s now

 

Rubyboy, your Dad's right. The trick is it isn't how much time you really have but how much they BELEIEVE you will spend on this. I think your Dad might also be part of the solution along the lines of, "I've tried everything to resolve this amicably but Dell won't help so now my Dad is getting really annoyed, he's read all the notes I've made of every phone call i've made and he's a retired lawyer with a heap of time on his hands, his law form all uses Dells and they are waiting your response to the problems I've experienced...."

 

My little fan setup did the trick, it`s on the left side and blows the air towards the right, from behind and under the laptop,so the surrounding area stays cold. So without powermizer from 69 idle now it`s down to 64. Let`s see what it does with the official nvdia driver.

 

what fan control programs are you using for your system fans? im using i8kfangui and my cards idle around 69 and processors around 45

peak temps for cards are 98 degrees and processor 71

 

http://everythingsfree.org/image//images/20507208-06-18 049.jpg

http://everythingsfree.org/image//images/9851808-06-18 050.jpg

Not the prettiest cooler but it blows air as Eleron said from under the laptop out the back and helping to clear the hot air that sits around there. I was gaming the other night and forgot to turn it on and my temps were 83c. turned it on and 1 min later my temps were 67c. : )

 

Dude, that is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hot

my cpu idles around 45° and the Gpu's around 55° peaks at CPU 60° , GPU's 75°

 

"" ^

Do you mean the recomended max's or is that what you're getting under load?

 

thats what im getting .. the highest its ever gone..typo in the cpu though its 61 not 71..

as for the gfx cards yep, 98 degrees. not under load, its the highest its ever gone

 

3 calls to dell so far and i feel like im gona vomit some blood.

every time they say ill call you back it means you have to call me back

all emails have also been ignored so far...

they say im comparing an apple and an orange when i talk about the m17x and the 1730.. best part of all is no one seems to agree the m17x and my 1730 costs around the same price right now..