Issues being faced by Dell XPS 1530 users

Hi All XPS 1530 users,

Please kindly list here the various issues and problems you are facing with your respective Dell XPS 1530 notebooks .

Thanks

 

Just how the palmrests turn fingerprints white. It makes for a gross look on the rests, but is easily cleanable.

 

Do you have any issues with the 1680 x 1050 screen " glossy "screen ?

Are there any advantages and disadvantages of high 1680 x 1050 screen resolution ?

What is Matte screen ? Is any XPS 1530 available with matte screen ?

 

I'm pretty happy with my WSXGA+ screen. Mine is the Samsung XR860 and I've got no complaints with it so far.

 

I have absolutely no issues with 1530. I couldn't be happier.

 

My screen is fine. There is some grainyness to it but not that bothers me. The 1680x1050 screen is beautiful and I recommend it. A matte screen is a screen that doesn't have the shinyness to it. It's just a flat black screen.

 

hey! following is my list. ive had my 1530 for about a week. I am hoping I can get some of these fixed via warranty when i get it transfered (ebay purchase of a new system). I am very happy with the system overall.. but these are my issues:

-power brick squeals and hums when its plugged in (sound like 3 not-so-loud crickets are inside it)

- processor on laptop DID whine , but the latest post about shutting off the lowest power c5 modes has solved that completely. I can schedule it so that c5 is operational when i change to a "mobile" power scheme .. so easy fix!!!

-speakers are low volume! at the highest setting. If i plug headphones in, I have to move the volume to almost OFF or it blows my ears out. Speakers suck!!

- the touchpad delays/lags sometimes. (I think i've reduced the problem by tweaking the setup, and also changing the two exe files that control it HIGH priority when I get annoyed with occasional lag)

- cant find "dell location manager" in quickset anywhere, like it says i should in C:\Program Files\Dell\QuickSet\help\ENG\connect.htm (copy and paste that to start > run or a browser, on your m1530.)

- the screen is grainy /sparkely ... although not so bad that I need it replaced NOW (i will have it replaced soon though.. great threads in this forum)

- i wish i didnt go with the highest resolution 1600xsomethig. The text is much too small at that resolution, although it will be great when I'm connected to my 1080p panel. I have it at 1200 normally and it scales VERY well, no one can tell its not native ( i guess bc it has so many pixels to make it smooth + the great video card)

- cant eject a CD unless laptop is powered on. More than once i forgot my music Cd inside the PC , got in my car, and had to power up completely in order to get it out. I can undertand that the touch sense needs power to operate .. they should have put a hard button on the slot itself!!!

- the fan .. it doesnt ramp smoothly. every once in a while it will just POP up to like 80% from around 30. then within 1 second slowly ramps back down. Not a big deal at all, just something that bugs me.
- cant find any place to adjust the fan schedule.

- The vents .. this laptop makes a lot of heat, as all [high powered] intels do. If its sitting on your lap ... NOT GOOD! try to put the laptop on your left leg so the main vent on the left bottom is open to air beneath it. I'm using a flat board with tower PC rubber feet on it to give the bottom a little more cooling clearance .. works great and lowered my fan noise tremendously. as an added bonus, the rubber feet stop laptop from sliding off the board much better than the small rubber feet on the laptop itself .... so Get a real coolpad or make your own, one w/ or like mine w/o a fan. it needs it, sitting right on your lap or fabric is not optimal, ESP when playing games (fan = jet turbofan mode)..... i always thought laptop engineers should put the fan intake right under the keys of the keyboard!! It would never be blocked when a laptop is on your lap .. plus it would feel nice to have air moving past your fingers!!


but overall i love the laptop. Fast, powerful, good on battery. I think the screen could be less reflective , but its not a deal breaker for me at all!! I will likely be getting one of the 3m privacy/glare filters for it when I'm using it outdoors in the summer.

 

I too have the sammy and it is awesome and compared to others it stands up ..but there seems to be issues with them so we may have got the luck of the draw or they may have finally sorted that issue...others have some whine issue which again I don't have...just look at it that every system out there will have some with various problems and keep an open mind...the main thing is if you have to go through any exchange or replacement that you are satisfied ....I haven't had to go that route ...some don't like the speakers ...but on a compact system such as this you aren't going to have awesome bass etc...the hdmi etc makes up for it ..gaming on the 50 flatty with the home system rocks baby!!!cheers...you will like it and the price point is great for what you get....

 

Issue: Intel Virtualization Technology Disabled (w/ no option to enable).

 

Do any of you face the following problem/problems with your Dell XPS 1530 notebooks :

a)Grainy screen.

b)Audio jack noise.

c)Getting shocked when touching the palm rest.

d)Poor build quality.

e)Noise in HDD

Some one mentioned these issues with Dell XPS 1530 in some other forum .

 

Please kindly explain what this " Intel Virtualization Technology " means ?

Thanks

 

Hi Ryaske,

Thanks for giving us fixes also to some of your problems

 

im totaly happy with the price i got....
the only anoying issue is the whine which obviuosly it was solved.

processor on laptop DID whine , but the latest post about shutting off the lowest power c5 modes has solved that completely. I can schedule it so that c5 is operational when i change to a "mobile" power scheme .. so easy fix!!!

anybody care to tell me how...

 

I'm pleased w/my Red 1530 too!

No issues at all. Not even fingerprints!
Enjoy the day. Mt9

 

no doubt all of those things are issues ...but go to any forum and you will see each manufacture has problems with respect to some issue or another...as not everyone gets the perfect rig...think of how many peeps don't even report that their samsung screens are great for example....or how they have nothing wrong ...that is just the way it is...granted the screen thing is a big issue ...but every company has had issues...dell pumps out an insane amount of produce so in the big picture their percentage must be pretty low as far as poor quality etc...

 

a)Grainy screen.
yes, sorta. not bad.

b)Audio jack noise.
yes. very slight static hiss during silence, inaudible otherwise. you need to get a digital audio port + setup if really bothers you.. even bluetooth audio will stop it.

e)Noise in HDD.
the click it makes occasionally? turn it back to performance mode. Quiet mode parks the head which lowers noise. you will hear the click when unparking


everything else you mention .. nope

 

seach for Whine!! And dont whine to us if you didn't think of that first

in all seriousness .. the latest post on this forum "see here if you have cpu whine" explains it. You need to download RMClock and change a few settings. The moment you hit "Apply" the processor no longer goes to the lower power mode that causes the high-pitched whine. So all of you should notice the whine only when the cpu is idle. I had to shut off superfetch in order to get it to whine for extended periods .. apparently that uses a lot of power (caching stuff it think you might use into RAM... also the reason svchost is one of your most memory hogging processes in Task Manager!)

 

You would have to power your laptop on if it was a normal drive bay anyway.

 

really?? I didnt have to with my compaq presario .. just hit the button and the tray popped out as long as there is a charged battery in the laptop. And it wasn't mechanical .. the button was electronic and popped a servo which released the tray , same action if i right clicked the Cd drive in windows and hit eject. If compaq could do it, dell certainly could.

I was thinking that the touch interface with the eject button is what's stopping the desired operation .......... its not powered up and looking for a finger when the PC is off. Im sure it would drain the battery if it was. But a hard button for the Cd drive doesnt have to use any drop of power until you press it..

 

I Got this laptop this past Tuesday. Its the product red version. I like the look and feel of this laptop a lot, and I would love to keep it, but so far there are a couple of annoyances, and one major one that might seal the fate of this laptop.

-The screen though a little grainy isnt so bad you cant live with it. The most annoying part of it is that there is a tiny bit of backlight leakage on black screens, but again not so bad you cant pretty easaly ignore it.
-The DVD drive is very noisy when in use, havent had much of a need for it yet but is quite loud.
-the HDD I had heard was quite loud but so far it is almost completley silent at all times. way quieter than my 3.5" external
-*BIGGES ISSUE** the sound quality on this machine is nothing short of life shatteringly bad. I am not talking about the speaker quality, even though it is terrible. There is an inordinate ammount of popping and static that comes out of this machine weather it is an audio stream, mp3, or video file. It happens with the speakers and with the audio jacks. I watch a lot of downloaded shows on my computer and listen to a lot of music, and its just not in any way enjoyable when the sound just doesnt work!! This could cause me to return this thing and not look back!
-the touchpad is too small and delays a lot. I have tweaked its settings and it works better now but still not as good as a macbooks.

 

Just got my 1530 today, The only thing I don't like with it is that the fan goes from no sound at all to MUCH sound when the temperature is like only 45 C on the processor... So it's really Load because of the fan..

 

I think that Dell has done a pretty good job at fixing all the problems that this machine had at the start. I bought one of the first models, and I am still waiting for a replacement, but Dell's unresolved issues team cannot get anything right. From what I've heard, the screen issues have been fixed, the processor whines are gone and the other very minor problems have been taken care of. As far as the resolution goes, I got the 1680x1050 screen and love it. Now I really hate to work on any other laptop that has a smaller resolution.

 

stevey: What is your opinion about the fan noise?

 

Honestly it doesn't bother me... I can see how it would bother other people, but there are other issues that really take priority over silly fan noise. I can hear that it is on almost all the time, but I am usually listening to music or playing a game. Even so, it's not loud to the point where it makes me want to pull my hair out. My biggest pet peeve with this notebook is the palm rest and how it gets discolored after your have your hands on it for awhile. I have not been able to get it to go away after the first time it happened when I had it replaced for a defective touchpad, thats why I am waiting for a replacement.

 

It really doesn't bother me _that_ much either but, I see people complaining about CPU-whine but the fan noise is so much louder. The first level of the fan nothing I'll hear but when comming to "level 2" it's kinda loud, why is there complaints about hdd noise and cpu whine noise when the FAN is the loadest thing on the laptop

 

I have a question that relates to cell battery. Right now i have 56 Whr 6-cell battery. Is it possible to get 9 cell 85 Whr battery? This is for XPS M1530

 

Yes, just call up Dell and tell them you want to order the 9 cell. Heres the part number to make things easier.. 312-0639

 

Thanks for your help.

 

stevey

if yours had been black and mine was missing, I would have come looking for you

oh, 1 thing. I don't see any support for vista 64bit, even though they were glad to exchange disks with me since I had just received the laptop. Any problems finding drivers?? This is probably an old topic, addressed elsewhere....

 

Check out

http://loytty.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D38B786E8EA7A572!36893.entry

 

I'm getting more disappointed as time passes.
1) My screen was a Samsung, not LG. So it looks horrid. Also wish it wasn't glossy!
2) Internal Speakers aren't the greatest.
3) Slot loading drive can't take in small discs.
4) No Gigabit Ethernet.
5) And the camera is a flop. (See this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=224082 )
6) To top that Windows Vista doesn't help.
7) I often get a vibration/shock when I touch it.
8) Touch pad often goes crazy.
9) Media Direct keys should have been hardkeys. They are difficult to use and need to be pressed down hard to respond.
10) The remote control sticks out slightly, which is annoying.

 

My gripes are the following..
1. Dreaded samsuck screen which was replaced by the lg.
2. My Inspiron 6000 speakers are better than this. Volume levels are horrid and so ins't the quality.
3. The jumpy touchpad.. which is eased somewhat by clicking rapidly upon opening lid.
4. Does not support the proprietary Sony pro duo card (go figure).
5. 'Upgrading' to xp is not a factory option
6. The sensitivity on the media controls are also horrid.
7. And lastly (for now) because its black, you notice the dust/pet hair a lot more.

 

Hi guys, ive had my 1530 for about a month, and i have two issues and was wondering if anyone could help,

1)
The crackling hisssing noise from the audio jacks,

2)
What do you guys mean by the whinning from the processer, i hear quite a bit of activity from the unit,

Cheers guys

 

I couldn't have said it better!

Check out my review and lid makeover links in my sig.

 

I dont know of any solution from the hissing on the audio jacks ...



but for those of you with a low volume, be sure to go into Start > Control Panel > Sound. Right click "speakers / headphones" and select properties. Go to the enhancements tab and check "loudness equalization". Press settings and mess with that slider .. I'm not sure which direction is louder. But this settings has definitely improved the loudness of the speakers. Although it is still a bit low.



The whinning from the processor can be heard whenever the computer is 100% idling (NOT when windows is doing its normal things in the background during "user" idle).

If you pop in a linux distro into the Cd drive ... the processor defaults to "factory settings" while its running... and thats when you can hear the idling whine when the linux is sitting idle (it doesn't do anything in the background).

P.s. the room has to be silent to hear it really. Your ears might not be senstive to it like others are.

 

I would call dell for a solution...maybe the solution is a replacement.

 

Well I spoke too soon. The more I used it the less I liked the Samsung. Too gray and blurry text. Took three tries but Dell finally sent me a LG display. What a difference it makes!

 

I love my 1530 and can honestly say that it is completely problem free.

 

I too love my XPS 1530. I edit video and pictures on this computer and it seems to render everything quite well.

I did a fresh install of windows vista following the guide here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157838

And defintely did some Tips and Tweaks using this guide here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

Although I do have some things to say:

1) The finger print reader is useless and should have had the option to not have it.

2) Not to happy with the placement on the HDD. After about 20 min of editing/gaming your left hand has the nile running through every line.

3) Had some problems with the WiFi card at the beginning. Vista kept shutting it off to save power. Easy fix. Just went into Device Manager -> network adapters -> Intel -> properties -> power management -> uncheck allow computer to turn off this device to save power. You should do this with the gigabit ethernet port also.

4) The display seems to work quite well. I would like to know how to find out the make of the display though. (hint: someone tell me please.)

5) Well well well. The CPU whine is here and guess what it will probably never ever go away, unless I install a 3rd party software. And frankly I do not want to install RMClock because you should not have to use a 3rd Party software to shut this off. Hopefully Dell will actually read their forums and listen to people. Just add the option to turn off the lower states in a BIOS update. Would'nt that be brilliant. P.S. I will probably end up installing it anyways.

6) The Media Direct invisible keys are cool, but would rather have something like the power button and Media Direct House button for that stuff.

7) The speakers suck. PERIOD!!! My old Dell Dimension | 2200 from like three years ago has better speakers.

Other than that it is amazing. It does what it needs to do and then some. I got the system with 2 GIGs and now looking to upgrade with a 2 gig stick to 3 gigs of ram. Sooner or later.

Good luck to everyone else!

 

I have had my M1530 for a week and observed the following issues though I have not considered calling Dell yet...
1. Hissing noise from audio jack
2. Laptop literally vibrates while using CD (and not DVD)
3. The media buttons not sensitive
4. The touchpad
5. The poor framerate of the webcam... it sucks.
6. Speakers are not impressive (though I can live with that)

However, I haven't faced the 'Shocking' experience . I got the LG WXGA+ screen but I would say it is not as brilliant as the WXGA - AUO screen on my friend's 1525...

Finger print reader is cool once you get used to it.. For some wierd reason my index finger could never be registered (even after trying more than 50 times

 

I don't have any real issues.

Umm lets see.

1. Webcam is just poor. As a camera it's fine, but for video it's bad.
2. My HDD is pretty scratchy and makes a fair bit of noise.
3. I think I've had some hissing etc from the audio jack but I'll have to re-test that.
4. My LG screen is bright but I have noticed it's a little bit grainy. But I'm over it.
5. Vista sucks.

No issues here that could make me send it back. It's a wicked machine and I love it. I'm just showing my niggling issues.

 

These are my only minor drawbacks for this system. I have been lucky to get a good m1530:

- DVD slot loading sounds like a machine
- Vista (first time user of Vista and think it is a pain all these security questions)
- Fingerprints show easy
- Webcamera - I can be without it
- some questions about my HD - I think it's fine but after reading tons of bad review of this...
- only 3 usb 2.0 (why not 4 at least)

Very happy about my m1530! Has LG screen 1440x900 with vivid colors, can play 720p & 1080p, reformated and Vista runs better, nice looking laptop, if you have it on a notebookcooler the fan will not active as much,
Media Direct can be nice, hdmi (have not tried it).

 

Does anyone have any other issues with the XPS 1530 besides:

- Samsung Grainy Screen
- Audio Jack Hiss
- ****ty webcam
- Touchpad responsiveness

 

Hi,
I currently have the 1280x800 screen for my XPS. Does anyone know how much dell charges for the 1680x1050 screen?

Isaac

 

Are you a Dell rep or setting up a class action suit? Lots of postings on unsatisfied owners.

 

Hello Khalsa,

I have just ordered a Dell XPS 1530 and now Im worried about the above issues.

By the way have you ordered the XPS 1530 or are you planning to do so yet ?

Regards,

Brar

 

Issues with my M1530...

* Samsung screen (Waiting to get something done about that)
* "buzzing" palm rests (3 prong Power Supply on the way)
* Webcam sucks (but I never use it)
* Cheap build quality (bezel around the webcam is very lose and pops right off)
* Vista
* A boat load of problems regarding good video drivers and the blu-ray drive, as well as getting some blu-ray titles to play correctly
* MediaDirect sucks at playing blu-ray discs...
* Wireless networks act up, and don't always connect automatically
* Touchpad, for lack of a better description, sucks.
* My phone has better speakers (Motorola V3xx)

Those are just issues and 'annoyances' I've faced with this thing so far. There may be more to come.

 

my 1530 issues:

+ not enough vents, so don't put this laptop on your lap
+ slightly difficult to open. needs notches to put your fingers under
+ webcam is right where you put your thumb to open which causes me to worry about cracking it
+ no windows xp option (vista is just system hog eye candy)
+ speakers tech is cerca 1995
+ headphone volume is headache inducing at low and deafining at high
+ stop putting sitckers on my machine. I know it has an "Intel inside" and that it came with vista. My computer is not a honda civic driven by a 16 year old who just saw "Fast and the Furious" and needs to slap logo stickers on to prove it. Just a little tick I have.

 

Hey Brar,

ya i just ordered mine yesterday:
t9300, 4gb, 9600GT, 1440x900. I decided to just go for it since the 600 dollar coupon expires on thursday (also used EPP).
Every computer has its issues but for the price I can't complain. I settled for the 1530 since I couldn't justify the 900 dollar price difference for what i really wanted, the matte 15" MBP. In the end it's still a good PC with a good value and warranty. This is my 6th Dell and I haven't had a big problem with them so far.

 

Isn't that what forums like this tend to be about. They'll always give an unbalanced view as people only tend to post when they have problems. Doesn't necessarily reflect the reality.