Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

woa whr did that massive post come from.. am i missing something?



anyway i leave my laptop on for days in a row.. record was 7 days without shutting down or restarting and constant gaming throughout those 7 days. there were times when i played about 6-7 hrs straight and the cards stayed at around 80-90 through the whole time and the system is still fine =o

 

I agree and i think it's a good sign that you can leave your laptop on for days in a row without an itch.
Personally , and im probably just a freak , i don't like to leave my things on for to long unless i really need to.
Don't get me wrong you can leave your laptop on for days and im not critizizing you for that , Im just saying that personally i like to let my PC rest when not using it.

Idioms : different strokes for different folks.

Don't hate me for it =)

 

whr was it from anyway? ive scanned through the previous few pages and didnt see such a post =o was it from the first few posts of this forum or the first hundred?

 

Was way back around 220 page , didnt have a connection for a wile so i couldn't respond back then.

 

Before this escalates, I'd like to remind everyone of the NBR Forum Rules. Specifically:

While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts.

Thanks.

 

Hi maxwell,
The artifacts(the problem here are not only artifacts) are on both laptopscreen and also on my samsung, i tryed all the drivers from the 170's -190'series, some of those drivers are good for a few days then it starts again with artifacting,...

Ok, after a week waiting for the replacement of screen and gpu i called the support(they really beginning to know my name and servicetag there ).
rep told me there are a lot of failed 9800gt's that sended back to nvidia,and they don't use the refurbished 9800 gt's anymore for replacement because of problems with....i don't know anymore, but nvidia will replace all those cards,....sorry for my english hope youre all understand what i'm trying to say.

i hope that's true what they told me, if somebody also heard that rumour, let me know please.

 

hmm.. i only heard about the 8400 and 8600 cards having issues not the high end 88s and 98s. could be true, since the heat produced by these cards are hot.

anyway, anyone managed to stop the gpus from downclocking on battery with recent drivers? eg 190.40. ive disabled powermizer via registry and powermizer switch and it still down clocks to 200 core 100 memory the moment i switch to battery and there is no way to bring them up.

 

Okay thanks, never really noticed any problem unless I was trying to record video capture.

 

For what it's worth, here is my Resident Evil 5 Benchmark in DX10 result:

 

Hmm something´s not right GadegetBoi I score higher than you in the RE5 benchmark test and this with the 186.81 drivers for Vista 64.

Mine is at two different resolutions.

For RE5 I score 59.7 at 1680x1050

1920x1200 DX10 56.8 FPS average.

 

I score an average of 41 fps? 1920 x 1200, what am i doing wrong.

AA is off.

 

What driver are you using chief barker?

Edit: Woot reinstalled the Tweakforce 180.84 drivers and now upped my average FPS to 59.7 1920x1200 DX10 Resident Evil 5

 

186.03 WHQL. Would it make much of a difference if I tried another one?

 

Hello,

Im not quite sure what to do, im thinking of selling my 1730. I've had it since may 08 and it hasnt gone wrong so far, but it seems once it does go wrong its a long road to travel to get it fixed properly if ever. I've lost confidence in it after reading the horror stories on here and i also quite fancy a M980. Do they actually sell second hand? and what kinda price would i get? spec in sig plus blu ray burner but i'll be putting the T9500 back in (for warranty purposes)

 

Could also be the chipset drivers. I tested a few and force installed them, some boost FPS better than others.

 

Do you get the same trend? Starts high and drops at 2nd segment.

BTW, I have since installed 186.91 drivers, will test these for a couple of days.

 

Gundam,
Putting aside all the repeated Ferrari references, which are deeply disturbing, I will say the following very simply.

- You don’t have an English language problem. You were very aptly rubbing up a lot of people the wrong way, and you knew you were doing this; don’t backtrack from there, because you were talking down like no one else.

- As stated, this isn’t an English skill issue. However, I have seen that people who are too wrapped up in their own egos, seldom ‘comprehend’. This isn’t a language issue, but it certainly begins to present itself as a language issue because the person keeps rambling on and on about a point that might be either wrong, or irrelevant.

- Yes, your statement wasn’t in need of being disproved, because there was no logical element to the statement that addressed the paradigm of what was being discussed. People were having issues, and you jumped in and said, ‘well duh, if you overuse your machine, it will have issues’. I paraphrase, but that was very implicit in your post, denying this only means contradiction. So you assumed something, for whatever reason--I have a few theories, but just to follow BatBoy’s rule, I won’t indulge. Now you use this assumption and very boldly make a massive statement that is 110% condescending. Once again, denying this just proves contradiction, or blatant fallacy.

- Don’t tell me about stability being an illusion or a myth. This isn’t philosophy class, and we aren’t the realm of ‘I think therefore I am’. Same rhetoric goes to your little reference about ‘uncertainties’. I am not here to discuss philosophy with you, but anytime a very unexpected freight train bursts out of nowhere and runs over your Ferrari or M1730--I look forward to your PM!

- Also, do not tell me about what I purchased and what I did not. Under European and UK consumer acts, everything sold is expected to have ‘work optimally’ without extreme conditions attached. To say that this law is invalid or inapplicable is, well, just plain ignorance.

- Furthermore, you once again, make a very exaggerated statement out of stability and price. When I say with such a price, some stability should be expected, you so casually turn that into, “More money - more stability - is you nuts!” There’s some of that ego-eclipsing-comprehension phenomenon happening again. Sorry, you don’t get away with something like that - you’re clearly misrepresenting and misstating. At least if you must make bizarre and exaggerated comments, restrict them to those of your own and don’t blow up those made by others - you’re not the mouth piece, and neither are you the conscience.

Now that we’re done with these points, I can clearly see that ‘disprove’ wasn’t even required. To disprove, requires a valid hypothesis and a nul-hypothesis, which was never presented, because you made a very exaggerated, extreme example-statement, with the actual intention of condescending the rest of us about your ‘buy wise’ views, and you had no counter-hypothesis to put in place. Furthermore, you refuse to comprehend refuting statements and continue to repeat the same irrelevant comments as though they’re valid or applicable. You were being condescending, initially, and you were implying that quite a few of us with issues are greedy for M17x, and intentionally abusing our machines. You were being elitist. You got the heat from some of the members, myself included, and you resorted to selective statements that say or do nothing to change your initial and irrelevant statement. Now this is what we call 'running in circles'. Given that we’re not puppies, I think this kind of behaviour is highly inappropriate.

-FIN-

 

Don´t see your point Gundam, I have had my XPS M1730 for a long time now and have pushed it really hard by overclock and such, no problems at all here.

These are built for gaming you know, they are ought to be pushed hard running games like Crysis and whatnot.

GadgetBoi my framerate is pretty consistent throug whole benchmark, though if you mean the very first scene when the leader speaks there I get around 70 fps, then when the actual "gameplay" starts I get around 45-60+ throughout all tests.

 

Wow, 50 odd pages later and this gets brought up again... What's odd is the exact same statement is being reiterated without further argument.

The analogy of a car to a PC is so off the mark it's almost inversed. Do not compare mechanical devices to electrical. Mechanical devices have many more issues in regards to possibly causes of failure due to moving parts whereas electrical devices, in particular computers, only really have one: thermo-static damage.

Ignoring bearing failure in cooling fans and any substandard material used in construction (i.e. the substrate material used in the construction of NVidia's G82/84 chips), the main failure of a PC over time will be the heating and cooling of components.

If you have 2 people playing the same game, one for 4 hours, the other for 20, the wear and tear the PCs are going to receive will be so similar due to the fact both PC will heat up to the same peak temperatures and cool down to the same base temps. A PC used less but turned off and on more than another PC will receive more damage because it is going through more of these heat cycles.

The argument for a PC failing quicker due to it being used more is irrelevant. If you said it will fail more if you cycle it through many temperature changes (off to on, low use to high use etc...) then you would be correct, especially in regards to the M1730. In my case the GPUs were having a thermal change of sometime 60C+ (topping out at 85C), with constant changes of up to 30C (45C to 75C depending on load). In comparison my new M17x has max changes of 30C (has topped out at 60C) with regular changes of up to 15C (usually from 39C to 54C).

The M17x has a much better thermal profile simply because it’s keeping the fans on longer. This is also the reason the X9x00 equipped M1730 (especially the over-clocked ones) seem to have better lifespans. The CPU is causing all the fans to stay on longer preventing the GPUs from going through dramatic temp changes. A device may also fail if it surpasses its max temp rating, but my laptop never even got close when it failed.

Saying we're paying for bleeding edge laptops and shouldn't expect longevity is fairly narrow minded. The premium (and it's a fairly large one at that) we're paying for these laptops is for the increase in the tech, no one would be expecting a loss in longevity. Yeesh, this was my 3rd high end laptop, and has been the only one to cause me issues (my old Area-51M 7700 is still going strong, and it's like 5 years old, same with my old Clevo - now being used by my junior).

 

I never said i have a Ferrari , i simply said "if i have a Ferrari and ...." has an example and i only mentioned it once and not repeatedly.
Plus what's so disturbing about a Ferrari reference?

Anyways I came on this forum about 6 months ago ( long after the M1730 came out) and asked for advice on buying an M1730 and most if not all responses pushed me into buying this machine, everyone went on to say how great it was.
Now all of a sudden it overheats and blah blah blabh blah. It took almost 4 years for people to realize that the GPU overheats in this machine?
I find this a little weird either something has a problem or it doesn't.
If the M1730 give problems to few people and works ok for most something is wrong here would you agree?

You said ""I just want what I 'paid' for, which is stability" i didn't make this statement.
I was just pointing out that to expect staiblity and to expect the M1730 to run flawlessly for a long period of time is a gumble.
This machines are pushed to the extreme and ANYTHING that is pushed to the extreme in such a small package will have a higher chance of malfunctioning in the long run.
The reason why i keep brining up cars, wich is highly disturbing to you =/ , is because i worked for many years in a garage where they modify engines and tweak cars and we also do repairs.
Everyday people spend thousands of dollars to get theyr cars tweaked to the extreme and 5 months later they back in the garage with problems.
That is because they pushing this machines to the limit and failure is bound to happen in the long run especially for people that love to go full throttle 24/7.
I see more problems on 100K cars that i do on 20k Civic's.
So for you to sit there and expect a certain level of reliability on the M1730 because it's an expensive machine is foolish.
If something that costs 100k can have problems because of poor control from BMW or Mercedes do you really think Dell cares that much on a 4000$ laptop?

Where did i make an exaggerated statement? You sayd :"Yes, and fact - for paying thousands of dollars, the thing should have a longer life-span"
I simply sayd not to expect a longer life span just because you payed thousands of dollars.
Are you serious? You are starting to twist things around and this i find disturbing
Whats was so exaggerated about what i said?
And yes i sayd that lot of people, since the m17x came out, started to have problems with theyr m1730 lol.
But i just couldn't help to notice that was the case.
If I had come here 3 months ago and asked if buying a m1730 at a low price would be a good deal , im sure today i would not have an m1730.
You can say i'm not helping anyone by doing this and you are probably right but in a strange way you are not has well.
Just look at this post :

""Hello,

Im not quite sure what to do, im thinking of selling my 1730. I've had it since may 08 and it hasnt gone wrong so far, but it seems once it does go wrong its a long road to travel to get it fixed properly if ever. I've lost confidence in it after reading the horror stories on here and i also quite fancy a M980. Do they actually sell second hand? and what kinda price would i get? spec in sig plus blu ray burner but i'll be putting the T9500 back in (for warranty purposes)""

here is a guy with a perfectly working M1730 that wants to sale it for fear of it breaking in the long run.
Can it break? Sure but it might also be possible that he could have his M1730 for 3 years without a itch who knows right?
So for me to say that it wont break is wrong and for you to say that it will it's just has wrong.

Has Don Corleone would say " Capisce?" lol

 

Cars have a lot of electrical components to them to , and if those fail you car will fail.
Modern cars have the oil engine level checked by computers they don't use the old stick to measure like older cars.
Have you ever been around an F1 car and realized how much of it is controlled by computers?
You missing my point i never sayd that just the long term use of this machine will make it fail faster , i was saying that since we all know that this machine has some flaws in his design to use it 24/7 would not be reliable like maybe the m17x. and that's a big maybe since it's a brand new machine.
Cause when the m1730 came out lot of people claimed that the cooling was one of the best.
I will bring this thread back up in 3 to 4 years time when people will start to complain about the m17x cooling not being has good has the m20x cooling lol.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/175-WATT-CAR-IN...in_0?hash=item19b5e85597&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
Is this any good? Would it work, since my car provides only 180W of power...

 

Any laptop or computer can fail, it´s not just the XPS M1730 so I don´t see the point in all this debate. An M17x can fail just like an XPS M1730, or an Sager go figure.

BMW can fail, Audi can fail and do fail so what´s the point? The XPS M1730 has very good cooling, my GPU´s have never exceeded 85 degrees and this is when I hadn´t cleaned it for a while. No matter how much I pushed it it never exceeded 85 degrees on the GPU´s. Now they can go up to 80 degrees but not more, Unreal 3 engine and games that doesn´t push the GPU´s as hard as Crysis 75-77 degrees full load.

Cars today is more about electricity than actual cars and they become more and more like that controlled by computers and when they do fail oh boy is it expensive to fix them compared to older cars.

Yes is it a coincidence that XPS M1730´s started to "fail" when the M17x came out?

 

Gundam,
I implore you to actually 'read', and not have that 'knee-jerk' reaction to post a reply, simply because you find yourself being 'challenged'.

Fine: You say the longer a machine is used, the lower its life-span--whatever that my be in whatever terms.

How does that answer or apply to something like:

I just got my machine out of the box and it was artifacting?

Or.

How come older models with 8800m GTX seem to be doing stable, even when overclocked?

Or.

How is this even valid, and why is this being repeated if it isn't really applicable here?

Short answer: It doesn't.

Long answer: Once again, your intentions when you made that first post. Kindly refer to my last post, and then your first post.

And that's very nice that you've got garage experience, but seriously, I don't think the two concepts mix. As other, more qualified people have already pointed - it's a conceited view. I can see what you're trying to accomplish with such a comparison, but it doesn't work that way. Also, expectation is paramount - hence the warranty premiums on this machine - it's called quality assurance. Trust me, if it's done right, good products last; refer to the experience of other users with 'other machines'. Hell, even look at some of the better-off XPS M1730 machines; clearly some of the older models were of better quality.

As for my statement about stability. Yes, I did expect stability. I told -you- not to tell me what I should and should not expect. When I say stability, I don't state ten years or twenty years, I simply state 'stability'. It's not a very abstract or metaphorical term, my friend. Very direct, straight-forward, and literal, effectively ruling out any notions of the concept being 'myth'. Superior machines with even more challenging hardware have accomplished this, and their companies have supported the product. Instead of perhaps counteracting the issue with a BIOS update, Dell are simple giving the XPS a nice phase-out treatment. So yes, it is unacceptable. There were options, and they slipped up on both - quality and potential counter-measures for hardware failure. Every Dell owner--good system or not--will feel the expectation factor.

Re: M1730's so-called cooling.

Actually, I still say it's cool. It ran cooler than my Toshiba. It was praised for being cool, but that was before the very obvious and exposed issues with the GPU core. The issue was with the flaw in the GPU core design, and the threat posed to the integrity of this core under high temperatures. You know, constant change of temperature from highs to lows and vice versa. Not good for this GPU type. And yes, the quality of these GPUs has declined. I've actually sort of repaired mine, and found a few cooling short-cuts to fix the issues in my machine. I'd recommend that X9000 users not worry. Raise the back of the laptop, and if you can stand the idea, then leave the fans on full blast.

Read up on the issue with the G92 core. This is widely known, and even impacted the desktop models. Yes, sure, M20x might be cooler, but people won't be bashing the M17x for not having good cooling. I don't see anyone bashing the M1710 for having bad cooling. M1730 is 'criticised' for having a bad BIOS-locked fan threshold, which doesn't compliment the rather frail--and getting worse--G92 design.

Anyway, clearly that last sentence in your post is once again, another condescending little jab. You just don't get the real gist of what everyone else is saying. Forget the M17x and the M1730, and look at where you're position - high atop your horse, but backwards.

 

Good points Kade Storm, as it seems it´s the newer made models that fails, at least some. I got the "older model" and mine works great with GPU overclocking.

 

week 4 at depot....

 

Woah.

Wodstock, you really getting an X9000 along with 9800m GTX SLI?

 

Lol, nice attempt at REVERSING my logic. I never argued that cars don't have computers in them, and in actuality simply adds more points of failure, but I also don't see a 1000hp engine strapped to my laptop... Mechanical failures in my old M1730 could at most (bar be mishandling it) be drive failures (sans SSD) and fan bearing failures (or issues with liquid cooling units in desktop PCs). That was the reason I said using the analogy of a car to a computer was wrong.

Actually you did, here...

This was exactly the point I was targetting... there is no real difference between (using your examples) playing 2 hours and 8 hours. Both PCs will reach the same peak and same base tempuratures in both cases, and both will go through the heating and cooling cycle which is where electrical devices receive the most damage.

If there is a material failure or defect in the unit, that's another issue, and failures will happen regardless. But the general use of a PC and failure rates shouldn't be governed by their length of usage. Even a home PC used as a server can have extremely long life span simply because it isn't going through those heat cycles.

 

There are some horror stories but if you read a bit more carefully you will see that the older builds and x9000 cpu's overclocked are not having any issues.

It is quite clear as Kade (et al) has so eloquently stated many a time -

So I wouldn't be rushing to sell it if you are still happy with it.

FWIW None of this temp cycling BIOS issue has anything to do with the release of any machine. I like my 1730 and I don't want an m17, (do I need to go there again? I still haven't posted Batboy my treasured pink comb!)

 

Is it really worth debating over something you can`t control any way?
Some units will fail, others will work a lot without issues. Just take it as it is, for God's sakes.
We`re all laptop users in the end.
Keep on gaming !

 

Anhybody?

On a side note, I started to hear some weird clicking sounds from the HDDs, like really fast hdd activity... sometimes right before going to hibernate or sometimes before shutting down.
Should I prepare for a HDD failure?

Since I have RAID, I can`t monitor temps on the hdds, nor can I check the health of both...

 

lol my bosses XPS M1330 does the same thing about once every 5 minutes. I'm just waiting for it to tear itself apart completely.

 

The occasional click isn't really an issue. Power management (in and out of low power mode etc...) can cause the drive heads to be parked (noticable tick) and auto-drive surface tests can also cause the tick.

The bad one is usually repeated ticking sounds, which is caused when the drive is resetting itself due to read-head failure (the read head clicks as its parked). This will eventually result in a dead drive. Though the data can still be retrieved by a data recovery service etc... Symptoms are usually repeated clicking sounds and slow data access or data access errors.

 

Slow data access and repeated , fast clicking sounds...Sounds about right what I have.

Although HDTune reports no errors...

 

Hi chaps I have a question about chipset drivers,

It looks to me like mine aren't installed (I may be wrong though) There is no entry in the device manager for the 965 chipset?

If I need to install the chipset driver which one of these do I use?. (Vista 64 bit)

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...dows+Vista+64*&lang=eng&strOSs=150&submit=Go!

Can they be installed even though my laptop came with the O/S installed already.

Thanks,

Sorry I know nothing about this subject.

 

Here ya go Chief....

Intel Chipset INF Installer v9.1.1.1019, Last Updated 09/07/2009

They are already installed but it wont hurt to run the current installer.

 

BatBoy, I read somewhere that those drivers are BETA. Is this right?

 

I need some help, a Dell engineer called today to replace the right hand USB ports on my M1730. All seemed fine after he had changed them apart from when the first time i booted up after the repair when the screen didn`t boot to the Dell screen and instead i got a solid colour screen that changed colour randomly, apparently when he checked he said a cable to the LCD wasn`t seated properly. Anyway after that it booted normally and the USB`s he had changed seemed to work fine.

Approx 30 mins after he left the right hand side USB`s have stopped working again, i went to restart the laptop to see if a reboot would make any difference and the laptop just hung and then a blue screen appeared and some of the info i got was Bug Code USB Driver.

I was greeted by this when the laptop restarted



This is what the error report says

 

chief barker I know how to install chipset drivers. Usually if you run the exe installer it doesn´t think it needs an update at all.

What you want to update is the PCI Express Root in the device manager. I always manually install the chipset drivers. Now if you install it manually it will tell you that it needs info from 2008.inf something. Install the 965G inf instead or the 965m inf. Try different chipset releases. Belive it or not it can increase performance quite a bit

I update my regulary with beta chipset drivers, just like I try GPU drivers beta It can yield quite surprising results if you get the right chipset driver installed

I mean if you look at my 3D Mark 06 result. I usually had around 10600-10700, now updating the chipset driver I got 11127 instead and better framerates in games

 

Hikkoo,
In order to properly replicate GadgetBoi's benchmark, you might want to overclock the way he did - 650 for core, and 950 memory.

 

No problems hikoo, glad the cfg works great for you I envy your 9800m GTX SLI a bit I want those GPU´s too, they are essentially real 8800GT´s desktop except the clocks which can be raised easily though

Hmm hmm, hikoo I can recommend the Tweakforce 180.84 drivers for both XP and Vista 64 I am having flawless performance with those. They are desktop drivers and I install my GPU´s as desktop drivers too. Hmm maybe this is why my GPU´s don´t fail, I never run the notebook GPU´s off laptopvideo2go. Always install my GPU´s as desktop 8800GTX drivers

 

Just wanted to report that I'm running with sli on, 185.85, and physX acceleration by GPU turned off. I removed the zalman nc-1000 I had under my laptop for a year now, and temps dropped ten degrees like I expected. I have it propped up in the back with a bottle cap. Temps go between 52c-64c and then the fans go on high at the upper end. I'm typing this message after looking through hundreds of high-rez SLR photos and watching a couple web-videos after a couple hours, and the GPU's are currently at 54C. Powermizer is on.

 

Yeah that would be something, if I would be your neighbour Though I live in the cold Scandinavia, or hrrm not so cold actually

 

*Edit: something I left out. If anyone's been listening to my posts (I know Kade has...anyone else?) I've been toasting my cards in the oven when they fail. If you recall the last time I did this, I had done it TWICE now to the same cards. Well, a couple days ago I did it for a third time. I've successfully burnt my cards in the oven THREE times now back to life. FPS has never been smoother in DoD: Source for me actually. They only lasted a week between the third and second toasting, unfortunately, so this is obviously not a long-term solution like getting new cards is, but I'm waiting until September 15th for my new cards to come as the 8800's are backlogged. I'm getting new ones from nVidia directly. Supposedly this batch doesn't "fail" like the old 8800's are supposed to. In the mean time, I'm going to burn my cards to hell and back before I stick the crappy 8700 gt Dell sent me by accident in there.

 

He he nice hankaaron, instable GPU´s indeed.

 

Since we both have around the same config, what chipset drivers are you using, and what video drivers? I am a heavy powermizer fan, so if it's without PMizer...I might reconsider not updating.

Dude, I`ve been following your progress and I must say, you are cooking dinner and gpus like nobody else. Like, instead of desert, you have gpu`s once a week

 

eleron it´s without powermizer, well you can enable it of course but I have it disabled. I run the Tweakforce 180.84 XP drivers and latest chipset drivers though forced install.

These chipset drivers:

http://files.laptopvideo2go.com/chipset/intel_chipset_9.1.1.1019.exe

Now when you install them I only install for PCI Express Root and Processor to I/O controller. This is the inf I use 965g.inf for those chipset drivers.

Also you can give the 965m.inf a try and see which ones yields best performance. Sometimes older chipset drivers is better too.

 

The link you gave above, that's all the chipset drivers you use now? Just install the .exe and that's it? Or how do you do it ?

 

Yes that´s the link, no I manually install them instead for two devices

1. PCI Express Root (Usually wants to reboot, wait with that until you have installed the one below)

2. Processor to I/O controller

These are in the device manager.

 

How cold Hikkoo, we usually have around 20-30 degrees minus celsius here. When it´s around -10c it´s warm at least I think it´s warm.

By the way the dell chipset drivers performs worse for me, that´s why I upgraded mine.

These are the only out of interest

Express PCI Express Root Port
Express Processor to DRAM Controller

The rest of USB ports and so have no inflict on performance. PCI Express Root Port is where the GPU´s communicate to the OS through.