M1330 GFX being replaced. 8400M graphics being replaced with 8600M to put an end to melting problems

The dell website will be updated soon and the new laptops will start shipping within one and a half months.

My source? The manager of dell technical support. I had a go at him asking why nothing was being done (I saw the long thread about overheating and have been following it for a year now, I have a 1330 myself with these problems).

Dell will not offer free upgrades for people with an already functioning 8400. They will only offer it to people whose laptops break from now (within the next couple of weeks) onwards. I told him that I saw a dell press release stating that the 8600 is affected too, but he said that this 8600 was a 'special' release. I am talking through Dell UK here - but he said that the new shipments of 8600 arrived yesterday.

I really am quite surprised and satisfied with Dell that they have done something about this issue. I am sure that Dell are not telling any fibs here because he did bring it up himself and did sound very genuine. On a personal level, I'm quite surprised that the 8600 can fit in the m1330, and what about the battery? Surely that will suffer? And the charger?

Discuss!

Shonak

 

I'm calling this one out..

The m1530 had enough problems keeping the 8600m cool, how on earth is the 1330 going to come anywhere near to that in terms of cooling?

 

This is a lie, either by you, by the tech, or someone above him.

1) The M1330's cooling is not sufficient for an 8400, let alone an 8600.
2) This upgrade would require the motherboard to be completely redesigned and then entirely new units would need to be produced... and Dell isn't having a big batch of new motherboards produced for a laptop that is being discontinued. Especially for warranty replacements, where Dell always uses refurbished parts.
3) The 8600 has the same exact issue as the 8400! Even if it was true, this wouldn't fix anything!

No one get your hopes up... there is zero chance of this happening. Zero.

 

I have noticed that there are less 8600M GT failures on the M1530 than there are 8400M GS failures on the M1330, but I still don't see how the cooling system of the M1330 would be up to the job of keeping the 8600M GT cool. Unless they're going to implement the copper mod in some way...

 

I mean these are good points you are making. I did tell him about the motherboard issue and he said there has been an overhaul. This is the manager I was talking to, and through the 100 hours of phone calls I have ever had with Dell, they have never misinformed me before.

I have the manager's name so I will give him a piece of my mind if he is lying, which I highly doubt he is.

 

I've had Dell flat out lie before, I would love to see some documentation of this change.

The reason there are so many less failures in the M1530 is not because the 8600 is a good (non-faulty) chip, but because the M1530 does not have as insane temperature problems as the M1330 does.

 

Undervolted and underclocked 8600M with DDR2 memory could possibly do the trick.

If something has somehow been deemed viable, whether or not Dell would fabricate new motherboards is strictly an issue of cost difference versus the current board + rate of replacement.

I'm skeptical, to say the least.

 

Can't disagree with you on that. A better solution would be to replace the 8400M with the 9400M. Better yet, update both M1330 and M1530 to the Montevina platform with the 9 Series GPUs. If only that were true...

 

That certainly would be nice. The reason I'm so sure that this is not going to happen is that updating the M1330 to Montevina would be about an equally difficult task to switching the 8400 to an 8600. We know it's not going to happen.

 

We XPS owners can still dream for it, can't we?

 

Or you can bail, like me

 

Interesting... any other info on new/speculative system releases?

 

Sorry to take this offtopic slightly, but what are the insane problems?
I haven't had any problems since I did the copper mod, are you just refering to non-coppermodded m1330's?

Or is it the fact I don't game much, thus don't stress it out enough?

What I'm trying to ask is, if they were going to do this (and I don't for a minute believe they are btw) and they did the copper mod too, would that not be enough to fix the problems? Assuming a magically fixed GPU of course.

 

I am getting a follow up call tomorrow evening (GMT) so I will give you guys an update. I have no idea why the tech manager would lie like some of you are suggesting..

 

Business hype? Lol, after all they have fallen behind HP in sales. Speculative joking aside, thanks for the heads up tho.

 

Yes, I am talking about non-copper modded M1330's insane heat issues primarily. There are two problems really with the M1330, the faulty GPU and the bad design of the heatpipe. While temperatures on copper modded GPUs are reasonable (which is why I first designed the copper mod, to lower my temps while gaming - it was before the faulty GPU issue had even come to light).

The second issue is the GPU. The composition of the GPU's die packaging is not where it should be. I forget if it's the tin level or the lead level that's too high, but either way, over a period of heat up/cool down cycles (expanding and contracting) the die package starts to break down causing the GPU to fail entirely.

Even if the 8600 was magically not a faulty GPU, this would still be impossible. I don't know the TDP of the 8400M GS vs that of the 8600M GT, but I do know this - there was only one 13" laptop that could accomodate the 8600M GT (or was it an M GS?), the LG P300. This laptop had no internal optical drive to allow for the cooling that was required for the 8600M GS/T, and still got very hot. This fact alone shows that the 8600 has a much higher heat output than the 8400. Considering that even a copper modded M1330 gets a little too hot, there is no physical way that the M1330 could accommodate the 8600.

 

@Hep! : Thanks for the info, appreciated.

@Shonak: Probably because we've all come across people in business before who have said things we've wanted to hear, that have turned out not to be the case. I think it's a great idea, but as Hep! has pointed out, it seems like it would be quite a hard mission to pull off.

Time will tell either way

 

Yes. As I said, today I will be speaking to more guys from Dell including the Customer Service Manager. I will confirm more in a few hours.

 

i'll rather they replace it with 9300m or 9400m.

 

It seems Dell Malaysia and Singapore have come up with an interesting new way to counter the faulty nvidia 8400m gpu in the xps m1330 by removing it completely lol. So now it's been left with integrated graphics. Keeping a close eye on this one

 

That's more likely because the M1330 is being phased out. It's common for options to dwindle down as their stocks diminish and do not get replaced on older units.

 

Could be. If that is indeed the case, I hope they phase out the m1730 too... and replace it with something better. Montevina and dual ati's anyone?

 

Slight correction. LG P300 had the 8600M GS. The BenQ X31 had the 8600M GT. Both 13.3 models.

I'm actually curious as to what Dell will come up with after telling the OP that the 8400 will be replaced with the 8600 in the M1330.

 

It's already out, and it's called the Alienware M17.
It's been widely suggested that Dell is not going to be releasing high end gaming laptops anymore, only midrange, and they will push the high end stuff to Alienware.

Close enough, I thought it might be the 8600M GS. Did not know about the BenQ though, thanks for the correction.

 

I noe of the m17. Thing is, Dell doesn't retail their Alienware laptops worldwide. So, in countries such as Malaysia, Dell's flagship laptop still remains the m1730. I'd be interesting tho to see any future developments on this.

 

I think the dell cs agents made a mistake; there is no way dell will make a special edition mb with a 8600 (which still has issues) for the 1330 which is getting phased out anyways.

he will either get another 1330 with the ol' 8400, maybe a 1530 with the ol' 8600 for some weird reason.. or possibly a 1340 with a 9400 or 9500.

i just dont see a special 1330 with a 8600.. not gonna happen

 

I spoke to the manager of tech support - not an agent. He sounded convincing and although technically we don't think it is likely, I'm waiting for a confirmation response from customer service. I am 99% sure however that this is going to happen within the next 6 weeks.

 

From what I have skimmed, I do not believe this has been clarified:

The 8400M and 8600M are both based on the same G84 architecture, meaning, as others have stated, the SAME issues.

Quick reference: http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/10/all-nvidia-8400m-8600m-chips-faulty/

 

I asked him the same question, he said that it was a 'special' edition from a new specification chip released by Nvidia to combat this problem.

 

Sounds like bologna from Dell, but we can always check up on chip details. I really hope there is some new 'fix' as it would be a great alternative for current owners. I, myself, love the 1330...would be nice for them to get this properly.

 

ATI? NO Thanks.

 

Proof right here that the whole thing is BS.
The first place we'd be hearing about this is not through some dell tech support manager if this was true.

 

Well I look forward to what the follow up call brings...

 

I dont see this happening. Its not the first time a Dell employee deceived a customer.

The official dell blog has no such news. They stopped mass manufacturing these notebooks a while ago, they are just emptying out stock.

 

The XPS M1330 and M1530 are gone from the dell UK site.