Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

If I'm not mistaken, you have had a good, stable run with your system as well Time. I recall (somewhat - lol) when you first joined the forums and I cant remember you ever having any HW issues. I also remember you cracked open your system and replaced the OEM thermal pads with aftermarket thermal paste - right?

 

I didn't replaced the thermal paste, I didn't even opened my system. I didn't had hardware related issues with it (it's 7 month old) and I hope I never will.
I had only software issues, ones with the Creative's software, and others with DPCs latencies (wich I solved by changing the wireless driver). The issues with Creative's software I didn't solved, and I'm still crying...

EDIT: A quick question for M1730 uses: how much wear level has your battery? Mine's, after 7 months, it's at 10%.

 

My bad Time - I thought it was you. Now I remember, it was SomeFormOfHuman who replaced the thermal pads with paste.

re: your battery - call dell buddy. Its under a year and they should still cover it (under warranty replacement). Even after a year, my batteries were still going strong in the M1730. Something is wrong with that one.

 

I bought my M1730 from the Outlet back in may of 08 and aside from the battery going after a year it's been great. I use it for everything and knock on wood have had no problems with it.

 

Mine was made in Ireland, no offence to Poland but the overall quality isn´t any good there. I worked for Flextronics and they moved some products to Poland that output bad quality. Though that doesn´t necessarily mean all XPS:s from there is of bad quality, I am sure there is some ireland made ones too that fails.

It might have an explanation with the overall bad quality when they moved some of the production to Poland.

 

They won't replace the battery until it fails. So far, the battery is fine (I mean, I still get over 2 hours of battery life with only 1 GPU powered and power saving).
My another Dell laptop after 9 months has a 4% wear level, but I used the XPS more than the Inspiron on the battery power.
BatBoy, did you ever monitored your wear level? You can check it out with Everest, Computer > Power Management tab.

 

Well. . . my new one's made in Poland. It's no where near the quality of the original.

Now I have lived in the far-east long enough to know that there are some bloody good factories, and I say this passionately. I've seen people in Malaysia and Indonesia do some very solid work for Sony. I wouldn't be surprised if Malaysia ships out some good units, but there'll also be a share of bad.

As for Poland, well, I'm not impressed so far; even Bpat's machine is made at the same factory. Does that tell anyone anything?

 

mine was made in malaysia works great for me solid construction.

 

How do you find out where your M1730 was manufactured ?

I`m not in a position to give an opinion on the reliability of an M1730 as ive only had mine for about a month, so far its a pleasure to use and the performance is stunning and smooth. The build quality feels excellent and solid.

 

The Stig,
Look closely on the underside of the machine's chassis. It's a rounded-corner tag that's embedded above the battery.

As for your machine, well, even -if- it isn't of the best quality, you've certainly got the part to make it run well - X9000.

 

I don`t see any rounded corner tag embedded above the battery, the only 2 things i have on the underside are 2 stickers, one is my service tag number and the other is my Vista authentication sticker.

Do you have a pic of what it looks like, i`ll know for deffinate then if it exists or not.

 

While i`m here i have a bit of a strange one, its nothing major.

I have a Logitech MX Revolution mouse which opertaes via a USB dongle, now the dongle works in my rear USB port and in the single left hand side USB port but it won`t work from any of the 2 USB ports on the right hand side, any ideas ?

The Cryo LX USB to USB lead that powers the rear USB hub on the Cryo LX won`t work in any of the right hand side USB ports eaither yet it will work on the single left hand side USB port and the rear USB port, its as if the 2 right hand side USB ports are as dead as a dodo yet if i plug the 2nd Cryo LX USB lead which is the USB to power lead the fans will start on the Cryo LX albeit at a much slower speed and the fan control wheel won`t work when thats plugged in ?

 

Haha, yeah it had a good 6 month run, I had GPU problems actually but it was attributed to me not doing a good job.

Remember this thread? http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4609489

LOL I didn't ground myself, that was one, and.... and vice versa, I touched the connectors with my static fingers... Worst still, I didn't press the "Push Here" sign located on the graphic card, and boom, I thought I was having a failed card (So many artefacts and checkered lines across the screen) but found out is due to my carelessness.

That's the thing about electronics and computers, they're really, really sensitive things. Lesson learnt.

Yep, using the same card till now. No problems on my end.

For that rounded corner thing, it's really really small, about the size of your battery latch, (and it's located beside it)... But nevermind, you can also remove the battery and look at the right hand side of the battery slot, it should say "Made in (insert country here)".

Both of my Dells (see sig) are made in Penang, Malaysia too. I go Penang every year to visit my relatives and I'm always passing by their factory; all I can see is a Dell logo on the facade. How nice if I had a factory visit.... and complain in person. Kidding.

 

Found it, it says "Made in outer mongalia" by Ahmed Ali, he has signed it. Does this mean mine is a limited edition ?

 

You lucky ba$tard!! Mine was made by him too but he didn't sign it.

 

Woah that's interesting for the both of ya... Any pics of it?

 

Ummm no. My camera isn't working...... And the webcam is built in so I can't get a shot underneath, I'll try with some mirrors and post the shots when i'm done.

 

Oh man - I just about fell out of my chair lauging at this post... lol - MIRRORS!! Classic!

 

how did u only use 1 gpu? disable sli? ive tried disabling sli but i dont see an increase in battery time.. im actually on an oem one right now.. my first orignial dell battery died in 6 months and the replacement died in another 6. and since a battery from dell is 250 sgd i bought an oem one at 150 instead though it gives slightly less battery time

 

Hey there Magnus! I am still here too!
It's just that indeed I've started to read about so many hardware issues and so little about gaming (for which this notebook is for) that I got bored with this thread and also started reading the same problems/things over and over again.
I haven't read the last 200 pages of this thread as I haven't been here in ages but since I do have it in my favorites I decided to have a peak again once more.
And what do I read right above the back? You guessed it!
Good thing I took the time to skim back a few pages for good measure coming across your post. Good to see you are (also) still around!

 

Can anyone give us an opinion on the above ?

 

I can't say with 100% accuracy since I never really tested this but my guess would be the two right side USB ports on the M1730 don't have the ability to power a device like this. This is not unheard of as power level can be set for each USB port by the manufacturer. If you notice, some external drives will come with a USB cable that is similar to a 'Y' - the single end plugs into the device and the other two ends are plugged into the USB ports on the machine. One of these may be sufficent in powering the device however if not enough juice is outputted by that port, the second can be plugged into the other free port to increase the amount of power to actually power the device.

Not sure on the Logitech MX Revolution though.

The USB Y cable I am talking about looks something like this:
http://www.ppctechs.com/images/items/USB-YCABLE01.jpg

 

I have one of those Y cords always wondered that was for.

Stig my bet is that something isn't correct with the USB. Don't take this the wrong way ; ) but your dongle is hardly a high powered unit. If it was me I would be getting the multi meters out and checking the voltage just to be sure. Also check as many USB devices as possible.

FWIW I use a Avermedia TV tuner, HDD, headphones, cameras on all my USB's and never had a problem on any port.

 

By powering the machine with the Dell Media Direct button instead of Power On (the small button, not the big one ). I don't have DMD installed so it boots in Windows with only one GPU (even if I have SLI enabled).

 

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, that was funny as ****!

Anyway. . . man. . . I hate you monkeys with your in-the-moment cracks. It seriously detracts from the seriousness of the situa. . . Ahmed Ali in Outer Mongolia?! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!

Lawl!

Yeah, uh, Dell will collect my damaged replacement system come Tuesday. As for the other issue. I can take vouchers, but I'm gunning for money. So I'm working on getting a consent letter from the company that bought the system. Might actually happen. Bpat, you should try the same.

Now I'm gonna' go and let this 'Mongolia - Ahmed Ali' thing spaz out of my system.

 

Wait, what's that signature thing mean? I haven't checked mine, too lazy to unplug everything and pull it off the cooler.

 

O.O so powering the system with the dell media direct button only enables one gpu? i never realised that haha.. ive removed the DMD the moment i got the system but since i used to have dual boot win vista and xp the DMD button kept giving me bsods at the load screen. now i only have a win 7 i guess ill give it a try when i need extra battery life

 

Yes, apparently there are professional idiots out there who would do anything to inject serious fun.

 

Allright I increased the visual quality of my Crysis config now. Actually runs pretty good on my XPS M1730 at 1920x1200. The screens are from my desktop computer though.







http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=38151&d=1252013028

 

I tried the config.

It certainly -looks better-. Nice work.

However, I noticed a small but significant drop in frame rate.

Normally, I score over 36 average and my minimums are around 25-29. With this one, the average is 35 tops, and the minimum is 20. It's clearly better looking, so I don't mind paying a small cost, I just find that the game begins to stutter once it's below 20, so I have to watch out for such dips.

By the way, I activate motionblur (1) and vsync in your configs because I prefer the features. I know deactivating these would give mme back another 2-4 FPS, but I like 'em and use 'em in your old configurations as well. Anyway, I've tested all your configs using the same approach, so I can say safely that the new one's got better image quality at a small frame-rate loss.

 

Thanks Kade Storm, yes I agree the framerate drops by around 4 fps average with this config. I averaged in my former config 40 fps average in the benchmark test and with this 36 fps average.

However a hint for you, lower the e_shadows_max_texture_size = 1200 to say around 896Mb that should give you a raise in fps. 768 is ok too and looks good.

 

Right ive tested a 6 port USB hub in the right hand side USB ports and it failed to recognise it, ive also tested my external DVD drive which is mains powered on the right hand side USB ports and they didn`t recognise it either and like i said earlier they don`t recognise my mouse dongle either which works in the other 2 remaining USB ports.

The USB port at the back and the single USB port on the left hand side both work fine and recognise everything i connect to it, its just the 2 right hand side USB ports that don`t recognise anything that i connect.

 

USB ports on the XPS 1730 are the screwist buses ever. I have my wireless antenna connected through the back side bus and I use it everyday, almost 13 hours a day. Every three weeks or so, the USB ports simply don't recognize it, or cycle through recognition/not recogizing it, and the wireless antenna turns on/off and the signal comes in/disconnects for a whole day or so. Restarting a bunch of times after several hours, it'll go back to normal.

This happened with my Inspiron system as well two years ago. I tried reinstalling drivers and everything.

 

Right on; that shadow-resolution-lowering approach worked wonders. Now the game is kind of stable. Hell, it can get pretty fast at some points, which is nice. But you know how Crysis is, in terms of programming and engine. It's one of those games that was designed to look and run smooth if above 30 FPS.

I have to ask though, did you lower the size for your setup as well? Because if not, then I'd seriously like to get the same results using the 1200 size shadows.

 

I replaced my battery after 11 months, since it would not hold a charge over 8%... so get them to replace it ASAP.

Mine's a Malaysian also, and it's in perfect shape so far...

 

That is some way odd behavior. So, even a USB corded mouse or USB flash drive aren't picked up at all?

I doubt this will work or change anything at all, but try running the chispet driver installer again. Like I said, it probably wont do anything for you but its not going to hurt to try it.

In the end, if its still dead Stig, you may want to call Dell. I can only see them wanting to change out the motherboard in an attempt to correct the issue. Up to you if you want to take it that far considering this is a new system.

Something like this would drive me nuts if it were my system -

 

Yeh, the right hand side USB ports won`t pick up anything at all, the only ones that are working are the rear single USB port and the left hand side single USB port.

Thanks for the link, i ran that Intel thing on the link and also did a re-boot after but it didn`t change anything unfortunatley, its still the same where none of the right hand side USB ports recognise anything.

Its not good is it for a system thats just around a month old.

 

Stig - I just thought of one more... Go into your BIOS and see what your USB option is set for. I cant recall the specific section of the BIOS its under, but look for it. It should have two options - make sure its set for USB 2.0.

 

All the USB ports on the M1730 are USB 2.0, why would 2 work and 2 not work if you know what i mean, if the bios was set wrong surely none would function correctly ?

I`ll check the bios anyway as their is no harm looking. Thanks

 

Ive checked the bios, i could only find 3 things that were to do with USB ports.

External USB ports: ENABLED
USB Emulation: ENABLED
USB Wake Suppoert: DISABLED

The last one is just to restart your laptop if its in stand by when you connect a USB device.

 

Yeah - I was having a bit of brain fade there Stig... I was thinking that maybe Emulation was set to off so it wasn't seeing the older devices. The logitech is a 2.0 device though - so like I said, momentary brain lapse.

Let us know how it goes after you contact support.

 

Ive spoke to Dell, they are sending an engineer out on tuesday as its something they can`t resolve over the phone.

Apparently from what they said the 2 USB ports on the right hand side are not connected to the motherboard, they are sending the parts to the engineer and he will replace the 2 right hand side USB ports.

Just for reference on the earlier debate, mine is made in Poland.

 

Well, dell finally called today (senior resolution center), and I got my 8800's coming finally. "Lester" assures me that this is a new pair of cards directly from nVidia and are higher quality stock, not prone to overheating like the old batches apparently were. So, it's "technically" a refurb, but actually coming directly from nVidia factory because they are backlogged until Tuesday.

Not exactly what I wanted, but good enough for now as I've had a bad week. I kept asking for a refund and he kept saying, "sir this is not possible unless with the first 21 days" to which I told him he was BSing me (in less nice terms). I was aiming for an M17x but I figure I'll try the new 8800's on for size. My warranty does last for three more years so, might as well get the money's worth.

 

Yeah I was just looking at the manual - its a single board design with both ports on it which has a cable connected to the MB. Tech will have to remove the palm rest to get to it but it shouldn't take long. I wonder if the cable just needs to be reseated. Best left to the tech. Have to love that Onsite warranty

 

Obviously i`m not happy about something going wrong after only 1 month of ownership but thats just one of them things, Dell are dealing with it which is the main thing and yeh the 24/7 call and onsite warranty has really come in handy.

I`ll be watching him like a hawk thats eyeing up its prey to make sure he doesn`t scratch it

If he does i`ll just say when he`s leaving "see you next time when you come to fit the new palm rest" lol

 

Kade Storm I have still have the shadows at 1200 size, that´s where I average 36 fps. I think a trade off would be 1024 in shadow size.

 

I'll say well done to you. I hope your cards do their job, because a good pair of 8800m GTXs are gold in my books. Besides, with your machine, you'll still ace virtually any game at max resolution for quite a while to come.

You can always pursue alternative resolutions at a later stage, if your machine begins to show more faults.

To Magnus:
Right on. I actually average 36 myself, but it's the 'dips' that disturb me a little. I think I'll format the drive in a few days - should give it a try from a fresh OS install.

 

Hi guys i'm back from a nice break in Turkey.

Anyway i've spent the last day or so installing games and running benchmarks to test the stability on my replacement and everything seems great.

I'm loving Vista 64 bit having had my doubts coming from XP, everything has been tweaked to my satisfaction.

Games seems to run faster with Vista but i'm unsure why, benchmarks are higher also.

Maybe it's because I now have the X9000 cpu and 9800 gt's + 6 GB ram.

I've overclocked the cpu to 3.2 and that keeps the whole system really cool, currently the cpu is running at 21c and the gfx cards are idling at 42c the 9800's never go above 52 whilst gaming so that's a plus.

 

How do you keep it that cold? "never over 52" <--- dry ice?

 

Hmm Crysis at 1920x1200 play for 2 hours and then report the temps. I doubt you´ll have 52 degrees after 2 or more hours with Crysis at 1920x1200.