I have 2 Q's for existing M1730 owners

Hi, I was hoping the nice people here could help me. I was wondering how many fans are in an M1730? Is it more than just what's on the GPU? I was also looking for those little rubber screw covers on the LCD front bezel. Does anyone know where to buy them? I currently own an M1710 and I know there are also 2 plastic screw covers on the LCD. Is it the same with the M1730?

I'm asking these question because a friend wants me to build him one and I'm trying to gather the specifics before doing so.

TIA!

 

There are two fans in am M1730, one for the GPU(s) and one for the CPU.

There are eight screw covers on an M1710 bezel (unless you mean something else by that)...

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsm1710/en/SM/display.htm#wp1006390

They will probably not work on the M1730, though I don't know where you could buy them for said machine either...

It's going to be more expensive to source the parts for an M1730 than to say, buy one from the Dell Outlet. Not worth your time, if you ask me.

 

Thanks for the info. It would only be cheaper for me because of extra parts I already have (hdd, memory, optical, cpu). LCD will probably be the most expensive unless I buy a 8800M GTX or higher. The goal is to keep it under $1k which seems to be impossible with an 8800 GPU.

 

The m1730 has 3 fans. 2 for the GPU's and one for the CPU and the PhysX card.

 

Start your search here...

http://www.impactcomputers.com/
http://www.parts-people.com/

 

Thanks. This all seems doable. I ordered the CPU fan from Dell. The only thing that seems way out of whack with price is the hard disk bracket. The cheapest i found is $60 on Ebay. For a simple bracket that seems awfully high. I can get both the lid and base for that price. I'll see if the one in my old inspiron works.

 

It wont... Sorry.

 

I'm relatively certain that you can use caddies from the Inspiron 1720 and Vostro 1700, but I don't think they are much cheaper.

 

I'm kind of hoping someone on ebay pops up with one even cheaper. I shouldn't need it for testing, only final assembly.

 

OK, I have another question regarding this project. There are 2 line items that people often list here when they list the specs of their M1730 that I have no idea what it is.

MM332 CVR,SCR,BTM,MYLAR
and
PY771 PLCMT,GETS,XPS,M1730,DAO/EMEA

Anyone know? TIA!

 

Is there a refresh in the offing? I'm tempted to buy a M1730 but I sense a refresh. Anyone agree or is the M1730 a dead end product and moving to Alienware?

 

It's really hard to say at this point. I believe that the 1730 will continue to be sold for a little while longer, but I remember seeing a German article where one of the Dell execs stated that the 9800Ms were going to be the final major upgrade on the M1730.

Personally, if I move onto something else after the M1730, I won;t be going for Alienware. They might be slick systems but I've heard from more than a few people that their customer service just plain sucks, that and there's something about these big XPS systems that I just plain like. As I've migrated to notebooks and am completely disregarding desktops(specs-wise, my M1730 wipes the floor with my desktop system, and even my old XPS Gen 1 had a bit of an edge over it), it'll be hard to find a decent replacement as far as features go. I love the 1730's backlit keyboard and G15 display; they're extremely useful and I hope similar setups will migrate to other notebooks by the time I'm looking to replace this.

Personally, unless you can't live without the best of the best offered right now, the 1730's still a very good machine. Compared to most other notebooks it's still a brute powerhouse and will run just about anything you would want it to, and run it well. And as I said.... the backlit keyboard and G15 LCD just do it for me... heh.

 

Thanks for the informative info. I have several concerns, maybe you can address them.

1) 800mhz FSB vs 1066 FSB with DDR3 memory
2) Heat and Nvidia GPU issues
3) How is the screen re: refresh rate?
4) 8700m GT vs GT130m (HP HDX18t laptop)
5) Is SLI necessary to play the latest games?

edit: What kind of performance gains will the latest tech give over the m1730?
edit again: The 9800m GT are now available in SLI for $700, and the 9800m GTX for $900, ouch !

 

1: I'm honestly not too sure you'll see a major difference between the two in day to day use. I'm sure the differences will become more pronounced as time goes on and applications/games become more powerful, but at the moment the 800Mhz FSB and DDR2(keep in mind I have an X9000) runs anything I've thrown at it without hesitation.

2: The M1730 has one of the best cooling solutions I've ever seen on a notebook. The GPUs and CPU all sit at the back of the chassis and not buried under a lot of casing... the entire back third of the notebook is devoted to cooling. Each GPU has a separate fan, as well. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't run hot... expect GPU idle temps of high 50s to low 60s, and low-80s are about the max you'll get out of it when pushing it hard. Hot compared to a desktop, but well within the safe range for these components.

As far as the Nvidia card issues, I'd say it's a bit of a mixed bag as far as reliability goes. We seem to have far less in the way of issues as 1530/1330 users do, but there have been several people with overheating issues on their graphics cards(although they do seem to be in the minority). I'm the only one with my particular problem, but my 8800M came with a dead fan(apparently a card level issue as a new fan has not helped things any). However Dell customer service isn't too hard to deal with from what I've seen... I have no remaining warranty on mine so I don't have any firsthand experience. I do have a guide on how to pull apart the heat sinks on a 1730's video card in order to apply AS5 and polish the mating surfaces; just search my posts and you'll find it pretty easily.

3: Don't quote me on this, but I remember seeing an advertisement that the 1730 had an 8ms response time. Refresh rate is 60Hz. My personal screen has a bit of light bleed but is only noticeable on a completely dark screen... it's a minor annoyance with movies but completely unnoticed when gaming. Colors are extremely sharp and viewing angles are excellent... Other than the minor light bleed and glossy screen(reflections) this is the best screen out of any notebook I've owned. WUXGA native resolution, too.

4: The 8700M GT are the weak cards for the M1730. I'm currently running the lowest-end, the single 8700 since the fan gave out on my 8800M SLi setup. I'd say that the GT130M would handily outperform the single 8700M, and probably the 8700M SLi setup. If you're seriously looking at the M1730, get the 8800M GTX SLi setup as it significantly outperforms the 8700Ms. My single 8700M with X9000 benches at around 5500 in 3DMark06; the 8800M GTX with SLi disabled benched around 9600... this is with SLi off. I don't know specific scores for the 8700 SLi setup, but I think they bench in the 7-8K range. All tests were done with the X9000 running the stock 2.8Ghz clocks.

5: Leading into this, I only was really able to test my 8800M with SLi disabled, and only really played Bioshock on it. The 'single' 8800M handled the game flawlessly and silky-smooth with all settings at max, although I keep AA down to 2x since higher settings aren't really necessary at this kind of resolution. Games are still playable at native res on the 8700M, but the 8800 setup is a whole new world of performance. I can't really comment on the 9800M setup as not many people have chimed in on their performance. The 9800M GT is simply an 8800M with some BIOS tweaks, so I know that the performance difference will only be marginal... I'm not sure what the difference is between it and the 9800M GTX, though.

 

Thanks man !

I just went to notebookcheck and that's exactly what they said regarding the 9800m GT. They mentioned the 9800m GTX might do a little better. I saw the review on this site and I love the back of the laptop with the lights and LED's. Very cool indeed.

Say what color do you have? I tend to like the red accent. I was kind of leaning on getting the HP HDX18t because of the GT 130m which does perform quite nicely but I have a Dell Business line of credit I could use to pay off the laptop with.

I would just hate to buy this thing and 3 months later Dell releases another 17" XPS beast that i'll be kicking myself for not waiting.

 

Not a prob!

I personally have the Sapphire Blue version. It was my favorite color out of all of them. However, I purchased mine from a local Craigslist ad that had it listed as the Crimson Red variety, which would have been nice... so imagine my pleasant surprise when the seller shows up with one in blue. Heh. I've been toying around with getting a set of each of the inserts and swapping them out periodically, but I really like the blue. The color matches the 'normal' LED indicators on the notebook, and I'm kinda OCD about that. However, the inserts look a lot better in person than photos are really able to capture.

I wouldn't worry too much about Dell coming out with a 1730 replacement anytime soon. The general consensus is that Dell's going to shift their gaming system sales over to Alienware... kind of a bummer as I'm not really all too hot on Alienware at the moment. Since I'm assuming they spent a pretty good deal of money with rolling out the 9800M cards(they released those in Feb), they'll be selling the 1730 for at least a little longer.

 

Legend, can you clear something up for me? Here's a list of all the video card options. You mentioned you have an 8800m GT SLI setup but I don't see it as an option on Dells ordering page. Am I missing something?

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...=en&s=bsd&cs=04&kc=productdetails~xpsnb_m1730

NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory [add $400]
NVIDIA®GeForce®8700M GT graphics with 256MB GDDR3 Memory [Included in Price]
NVIDIA® SLI™ Dual GeForce® 9800M GT with 1GB GDDR3 Memory [add $700]
NVIDIA® SLI™ Dual GeForce® 9800M GTX with 1GB GDDR3 Memory [add $900]

I'm kind of leaning on the m1730 because of the dust problems the edge to edge screens have been experiencing including the Studio XPS 16 and the HP Infinity screens. Oh I checked eBay and those color panels are available for $30. The only color missing blue.

Someone on eBay is selling an 8700m GT SLI card for $149. Sounds like a good deal.

 

I did a bit of research before ordering my 1730 (should arrive end of the month) and determined that the 1730 actually outperforms the current alienware offerings.

While Dell will definitely keep the alienware brand alive, I think they're going to continue keeping the crown jewel for themselves.

 

If you're ordering new, the 8800Ms aren't an option as they've been replaced by the 9800Ms. As before, The 9800M GT SLi is simply the 8800M with some BIOS tweaks added and is supposed to be slightly more powerful. I don't know how more powerful the 9800M GTX is over the 9800M GT, but without those cards the system is seriously lacking. That's not to say that the 8700Ms won't play anything, but don't expect to play modern games at max settings on native resolutions without choppy framerates. Bioshock will play well at 1920x1200, but DX10 features must be turned off to get a decent framerate.

IIRC, there's only a couple of Ebay sellers that sell the color inserts. One of them I've done a decent amount of business with, and have come to find out he's a Dell parts reseller. He can get just about anything for the M1730.

Oh, I hust came across this in the marketplace: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=370132&highlight=M1730

For the price, the specs are amazing... 9800M GT SLi as well as the X9000 processor. It doesn't look like the system has a warranty, but the seller is extremely reputable and the system is brand new. Edit: If you're not aware, the X9000 is the highest-end processor available for the M1730. With it installed you can go into the system BIOS and overclock from the stock 2.8Ghz all the way to 3.4Ghz. As with all overclocking, the system's stability isn't guaranteed.

If you buy one with the 8700M cards, I came across a good deal for the 8800M SLi setup here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=339339&highlight=M1730

Hope this helps!