Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, Take 2

HUman - I think Timewriter was hinting to nVidia's plans to create GPU's that consume CPU processing abilities in the future.

 

Yes I know. That will also depend if Autodesk (Maker of 3Ds Max) and their metal Ray and scanline plugins utilise them, which is however not likely due to their mathematical calculation nature, which is entirely the job of the CPU still. The GPU does the work on the viewport, such as sunlight, path, shadow casting, geometry amplifier, culling detection etc.

The CPU does the job to put everything together after the GPU does its calculation.

I'm speaking in a very simple layman terms already. LOL.

It's a very complex subject.

Either way, CPU still has to be what it is supposed to be. It is an advantage in the future of renderings still.

It's interesting to see what the future holds for us, and it'll be nice if Autodesk releases updated plugins in future especially CUDA based environments... but at this point in time I know what are the hardware and what I need for my work. Well also like I said earlier, I do not only do renderings but also other applications that makes use of multiple cores. Staying in Dual Core mode and for the future isn't the way for what I need. Therefore I need a Quad.

 

the game is great. Highly recommend, especially if you haven't played the original. As for performance. I run it all maxed out, no AA, Ambient occlusion set to medium. That gave me an average fps of about 35. Never dropping below 30. I'm not sure how well it will run on your system tho.

 

Hey there,

I'll copy this in from the hardware forums:

Hope someone can help me out

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

Hello all,
I'm new to this forum, but anyway I was wondering what would be the best RAM for me to upgrade my M1730 to? Also what would be the average cost for me to upgrade my 8700gt Sli to 8800GTX sli?
thanks,
Woehrle

 

Hey there. Right now, the best bang for your buck will be 4GB of PC5300... 4GB SO-DIMMS are still pretty pricey. I'd say getting a good brand like G.Skill would be best, but you're looking around $50 or so for the RAM.

Doing a quick Feebay search, I saw two for sale with Buy It Now... one a little under $800USD, and one just under $1100USD. If you're willing to be patient, you can score a good price.

Edit: If you're comfortable with opening up your computer, replacing the cards yourself won't be all too hard. Lots of screws, but the process is pretty straightforward.

 

Thanks for the help! =)
Also is it possible to put 800Mhz Ram in M1730. I've seen some people with it, but does the system recognize it?
Thanks once again,
Woehrle

 

Short answer: No. The M1730's Santa Rosa chipset only recognizes up to 667Mhz RAM. You can still use 800Mhz RAM, but the system will downclock it to 667Mhz. Handy if all you can find is 800Mhz RAM, but you won't get any of the benefits of a slightly faster bus speed.

 

I have DDR2-800 and it runs at 667 anyway.

 

Cool - thanks (it was nice to get input from at least one person ;-)!


Later - Mike

 

D@mn the game looks great. Here it is 60$, stupid country...
I'm currently playing TimeShift, it runs great, and game is good too. I got it for 10 bucks.

 

I have the same problem in my country (NZ), usually use Steam instead of D2D though. i.e. I can get Aion Collectors Edition for $84.50 NZD ($59.99 USD) on Steam, yet it costs $129.99 NZD at local retailers. Granted I miss out on the t-shirt and music cd, but meh, the price difference is still rediculous.

 

How difficult is it to swap out the CPUs in the M1730?
Thanks,
Woehrle

 

Search around for the M1730's service manual to get a good idea of what it'll take. You have to take it completely apart, as the M1730's CPU is mounted on the underside of the motherboard. It's not the most difficult job, but when I upgraded to my X9000 it was a bit nerve-wracking as I was completely aware of how expensive that machine really was.

 

So an update for those following my case - I was promised 11 days ago that I'd be getting a system replacement for the 1730. I contacted Dell Tech today and was told to keep waiting - the order is currently in the initial stages of being processed. I was also told that they cannot tell me what the system replacement will be yet at this time, but assured me I would be contacted once that's been decided.

The waiting game continues...

 

Lord Zath - Originally they tried to push a Studio XPS 16 (on the 24th of August) on me but once I refused they told me on the 15th I think it was that I would be getting a M17x but could not tell me the configuration for a day or two. We will see if I hear anything monday. He did say that it would "match my M1730"... so I expect SLI 260m, 2.6 cpu and raid 0 hard drives... but we will see. I won't rest until I see the order!

 

yep I'm in the same boat. I suppose it was promising that they asked for the best time to contact me and alternate numbers. But ya never know!

I'm also thinking about requesting a 30-day extension on my warranty due to my computer being unusable for so much time now and in previous repairs...

 

how much time? mines been dead 3 weeks now and still nothing from dell

 

Hi guys!

Just signed up to the forums, and i also received my new M1730 last week!

Spec is as follows;

CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9300 (2.50 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 6 MB L2 cache)
GPU: Dual SLI™ 512MB nVidia® GeForce™ 9800GT graphics card
RAM: 6144MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1x2GB + 1x4GB)
Hard drive: 320GB Free Fall Sensor (7200RPM) Hard Drive
Optical drive: Internal Blu-Ray ROM Combo (Blu-Ray, DVD and CD Read, DVD & CD Write)
LCD: 17.0" UltraSharp™ WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT with TrueLife™ with Integrated 2.0MP web cam
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64 BIT)

I also got a Bluetooth module.

The total including VAT and shipping was around £1460 (UK)



I hear the M1730 has been, or is in the process of being discontinued.

Is this correct?

 

Hello again to everyone,

I seem to have run into a major issue.
I would really appreciate any help.

I decided that my system was getting bogged down too much with tons of software and old files sitting around so I backed up all my necessary files.

Since I had received a copy of win7 (MSNDAA) I thought that I would do a fresh install of it.

So popped in the DVD did the install and all looked well, until I noticed that only one of my vid cards in my 1730 were recognized, (I have Sli 8700s), at this point I started trying out various things that I could think of but for the life of me I couldn't get it to recognize the other card at all (just sees it as a PCI device)

Thought I could do a factory restore from the partition but no matter what I try I can't seem to access the partition for a factory restore.

Any suggestions? I have XP(the one that came with my system), Vista 64-bit, and Win 7 64-bit, so if you have any solutions please help me out.

Thank you for your time.

 

Have you installed the latest drivers, and the Nvidia Control Panel?

You may need to enable SLI which is an option in the Nvidia Control Panel...

 

Indeed I have tried installing the latest drivers, only problem is that they only get applied to the one card.

If I can't get the drivers onto the card the Nvidia Control Panel won't see it so it won't even have the option for sli.

 

Lovely laptop but the throw is fantastic looking!

 

Ahh... i see :/

I'm not sure what to do in that case, but i'm sure someone else on here will help you out!

Thanks hahaha! It cost a fair bit actually, but not quite as much as the laptop!

 

The Video card Monster has finally caught up to me. I've had my M1730 for a little over 1 year and aside from a dead battery it's been great.

Last night while gaming I got a BSOD and it rebooted.

Long story short I can't boot the PC is SLi. I called Dell and they said they don't have any available until Oct. 5th. I'll need to call them back then.

Until then I'll have to use it with just 1 card.

 

if anyone has a ghost image of their system that is the factory default settings and all, that would be helpful as well, realistic... maybe not, but helpful

 

Would Overclocking a T8300 @2.4Ghz be a bad idea?Is that even possible?

 

No you cannot overclock a T8300 or any CPU with locked multipliers. You can only overclock with any CPU with an "X" abbreviation infront. X7800, X7900, X9000 only.

 

ok so i've made a little bit of progess... maybe,

i reinstalled vista, looked at the devices it sees one and innately installs the drivers onto it, it see the other as a PCI device, i can force the drivers onto it but end up with a code 43 error on it

any advice?

 

Ahh that makes me sad , X9000 processor is pretty pricey right now. Also SomeFormOFhuman your signature says you have 8g of Ram in your M1730, does your system recognize it? I've always thought it maxed out at 4gs?
That would be freaking awesome if i could get 6g or even 8g in my M1730.
Thanks,
Woehrle

 

Hmm, there's a user on ebay who goes by the name of shirly or something like that. She sells cheap priced quality QS CPUs on ebay. You may want to check it out...

I bought the X9000 5 months back for about 300 + shipping to Singapore. Considered not too shabby....

About RAM, yes the M1730 supports al 8GB. It is reading all 8192MB of RAM according to my task manager, I do photoshop work all the time and I use up to 7.5+GB sometimes. Yep, I do alot of posters, skyscraper illustrations, banners, Photo stitching etc...

However if you're just a regular gamer/everyday user 4GB coupled with an x64 Win7/Vista OS is actually more than sufficient.

 

Human - do you use Photoshop exclusively or anything else? I have paint.net and am very impressed on the tiny footprint on the 1730. Only adds 1 or 2% RAM useage to my task manager when first open - of course we both know how much this compounds when you copy/paste things.

 

Update: so i still have had no luck with getting my sli working, i assume no one else has had this issue or found a fix for it that i cannot fathom due to my confused style of thinking.

Called up dell and surprisingly instead of making me jump through hoops the guy asked me to hold the line for a good half hour, after which he came back and said they were going to send me a new vid card and hopefully that would fix the problem, being my last day of warrenty(today) he said i'd have to install the card myself

think that would solve the problem... if not many sad times to be had by me

so if anyone comes across a solution to this problem it would be mighty helpful as I would like to solve it BEFORE the new vid card comes in

 

Sorry Niazu can't help you with that issue, did you ask it on the Dell forums?

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/3519.aspx

good luck

 

sounds like the 2nd gpu is bad. did you ever use fangui to control the fan speed?
i had the same symptoms before and it was my gpu.

 

I`ll have to stick with my M1730 (as he says through gritted teeth) lol as i can`t really afford to write off the loss with what Dell would have offered me as a refund, i bought mine from a Dell re-seller and Dell will only refund what the re-seller paid to them and not what a customer pays to a re-seller. I understand that part fully, its the shoddy Dell aftercare that leaves a lot to be desired of which i`m stuck with for 4 years, anyway if it packs up after 2 years they will have to replace me with a system thats like for like given that the M1730 has been discontinued.

When the M1730 runs correctly its a great machine, its when Dell aftercare kicks in that the problems start from my experiences.

 

Whats the better card to up grade to from the 8700gt x2? 8800GTX x2 or the 9800gt x2?
There is a noticeable price difference between the two.
Thanks,
Chris

 

9800gt > 880gtx >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 8700gt

(i.e. > = how much better)

get the 8800gtx if its alot cheaper than 9800gtx

 

I've got 6GB and i can see all of it

 

I think 72hundred mistyped.
9800M GT is just a rebranded 8800M GTX. So, 9800M GT = 8800M GTX.
9800M GTX (if you are able to find it) is a bit better, than 8800M GTX. Will give you about 5-10% performance increase. As 72hundred noted, any of these card will be a huge upgrade from your current 8700Ms.

@Niazu
Sounds to me like a failed GPU. I've read about a few people having this exact problem on this forum before.

 

Same here on my M1730, the system recognises the full 6GB.

 

Why you only have 5.0 in WEI?

 

No idea, i don`t think Vista likes me, we`ve had plenty of arguements in the past and i think its getting its own back.

 

Vista's rating system is terrible. This is the second thread I've read today where someone asked "why does WEI say..." It just infuriates me this late in the game people still want to go by that, sorry.

As for the gentleman asking about the 9800 gtx/8800 gtx, I don't think it'd be wise at this point to get the 9800 GTX. If they only made a limited number of those, and Dell is currently backlogged on 8800's, you can see how getting a card that will fail and isn't even stock for a replacement is a bad idea...

 

What would be your best recommendation on how to get two 8800GTX cards?
Thanks,
Woehrle

 

@wodstock - i did not actually use the fangui since it would only control 2 fans rather than all 3 and decided rather than messing up 2 fans i'd just let them all die naturally

@bpat - haven't tried those forums yet honestly, i'll see what they have to say

@DDT5 - honestly i really do hope it is a failed GPU cuz if its anything else i have a long road of problems ahead of me

 

Yea, you're right! I read 9800M GT as 9800M GTX in original post, well spotted

 

If 9800M GT = 88000M GTX. grab the cheaper of the two? because 9800M GT is roughly 170 each compared to 350 a piece (Google shopping prices).
Once again thanks for all your help
Woehrle

 

Just a general question for those that have replaced their vid cards for a better one or just when replacing a faulty one, did you have to do anything special? or was it just swap the card and the drivers loaded up on their own?

 

I assume you swap the cards, see if your system sees an unknown device and put the driver on your system. not 100% sure. So i think your right