**OFFICIAL** Dell XPS M1730 Owner's Lounge, *Part 4*

does reballing the SLI bridge in the GPU helps in longevity of the card? what tweaks to the GPU do I need to do to keep it up n running?

 

Is there a problem with your gpu?

 

Yes no display with lights on..also is there a fix for the keyboard light..

 

Sometimes the keyboard light wont work as the laptop isn't booting properly. When you turn the laptop on press the power button and D at the same time, what does it do?

 

there wasn't any light even when one card was working....

 

Hmmm not sure about that one then

 

wat about reballing of the SLI bridge alongwith the gpus?

 

It's expensive to reball. What card have you got?

 

8800m gtx sli

 

Your better off going on eBay and getting a 9800m gt it's more powerful and more reliable or you could try the oven trick.

 

I'm sure you meant 9800 gtx,cox the GT is the same as 8800gtx...new card is outta question coz i m not in the US..anyways what about reballing the SLI bridge alongwith the GPUs?

 

Hey,

Been a while since I posted in here but wondering if anyone could suggest some SSD's for the M1730? What type of connection is it ect?

Also I want about 512Gb of space so would I be better off getting a pair of 256 or just 512?

Cheers.

 

I would get 2 256 and set them up in raid. Try ocz or Kingston, good drives and cheap. If money isn't a problem then go for Intel.

The 9800gt can handle more stream processes than the 8800 and benches slightly higher. If you live in the UK cards come up from time to time. Reball will cost you about £150 to have it done properly but for that money you may as well get a 9800gtx for it.

 

Guys I need some help.

My M1730 has the works, 4gb ram, 9800m GTX, X9000. I purchased it used and have been battling what I think is micro stuttering from the beginning. On paper it looks great with easily over 14000 in 3dmark06. But the stuttering of the performance makes gameplay irritating. Even the movies in Bad Company 2 are choppy.

Are there any solutions?

 

Turn off anti analysing maybe or go through all your gpu settings to maximise your gpu performance.

 

I don't have AA on. But what settings do you mean in regards to GPU? It has already been overclocked. A standard stable seems to be 600/950/1600. CPU can overclock all the way up to 3.8

As a side note I also have problems in either Vista or 7. I haven't tried XP since I don't have a x64 license. x32 would not allow for enough ram considering one card alone is 1gb.

Is it also possible that the Bios was never updated for the 9800m gtx? I notice that is an option on the drivers/support dell site. Could that make a difference? And how does one update it?

 

Hey guys. Been out of the loop on "the beast" for quite some time now. I am looking to do a few upgrades to my 1730 via ebay parts, but I want to make sure I can first. First of all, I am currently running the T9500 cpu and am thinking of finding an x9000 to upgrade to. Will my motherboard be able to handle it or were the x9000's on different motherboards?

Second, I am wanting to upgrade the RAM in the machine to 8GB. Is that possible?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

*Edit: I know that much better laptops can be bought for decent prices, but trying to keep this one going a bit longer and trying to get a little bit more performance out of it.*

 

I upgraded my t9500 to a x9000 and I'll be honest I didn't get hardly any more performance for the money even in benchmarking. You can easily overclock your T9500 to 3.0ghz by using throttlestop. With the ram you would need to get 2 4gb sticks as you only have two slots also make sure you have a supporting o/s. I have uploaded instructions onto the forum showing how to upgrade the cpu and ram.

To update any bios put the file onto a CD or usb and boot it when you turn on your machine and it should install. I'll be honest when I upgraded to x9000 and 9800 gtx my m1730 just had continuous problems and no matter what I tried I never found a fix.

Most of them come with warranty so you should be ok. The problem is new parts are like gold dust for these laptops now so they cost a lot of money if you can actually get them know so you dont have much options to be honest.

 

I have got my machine back from reballing...now I m confused if the second GPU's fan is running or not as MSI Afterburn, evga Precision x and HW monitor only reports first GPU's fan. The temperature for the second Gpu is the same as the first...I tried using the 2nd gpu for Physx in Mafia II...and it shows 120-150mb usage of the second GPU while the first GPU had 500mb usage. When i try to inspect it through the vents I believe it is running...I'm confused as what to do? When I overclock the cpu to 3.4ghz the fans run at full blast..but how do I make sure the second GPU's fan is running?

 

A production version x9000 runs about $200 used. If you want to risk overclocking, a good unit should be able to get up to about 3.8 ghz. Any more than that and they overheat and get unstable. My max is about 3.8 at 1.4375 volts. That gets me about 3100-3300 on 3dmark06. My coolest with performance is about 3.7 at 1.3500, around 2800-2900. Stock at 3.0 ghz gets about 2600-2700. Diminishing returns definitely. Disassembly isn't hard if you are used to techy stuff like that, just a lot of parts. You have to completely disassemble the body down to the motherboard to get out the GPU and remove the Motherboard to get the CPU. I would definitely recommend artic silver 5 or whatever your favorite flavor of thermal grease is.

9800m GTX SLI cards have gone way up in price over the last couple of months. Back when I purchased my computer earlier last year they were about $250, now they are $400. A reseller on ebay has a bunch of new cards they got out of a warehouse in china (Not new production, but never used). Some of the lot are opened and so they are selling the entire lot as new unsealed, although from what I understand the majority are sealed.

The motherboard is the same for all the m1730's so no compatibility issues there. I once priced out 8gb of ram, and if I recall it was around $200. DDR2 laptop ram is pretty expensive these days. But it is compatible so long as you have a 64bit OS. I decided against it. Even up to around 2010 gaming laptops only ran between 4-6 with 8 gb being a premium.

I purchased mine to run older games that would still be compatible with older hardware. It does that fine, but it is lacking at the higher end of what it should be capable of. A guy by the name of magnus72 on here and youtube probably has the best example of what these should be capable of doing. Overall I only have about $500 into the unit so with the price of cards these days I know I could part it out for more than I paid.

Take a look at the bottom of the laptop when it should be running. You can see the fans through the bottom. You can also take a piece of paper and stick it over the vent over the 2nd fan to see if it sticks from suction. But you could also just get a flashlight and should be able to see it running there as well.

 

The second fan doesn't show up on the monitoring but it does work it's the same thing with all m1730s. They go full Rpm when overclocked above 3.0ghz to stop overheating so dont worry everything is fine.

 

I'm relieved thanks bro, secondly can you tell me how to make a profile on evga prec.x so I can underclock the cards for general use and use a 2nd profile where the default settings would kick in? I'm running the latest drivers and my clocks are at 216/400/100 with idle temps hovering around 45-52Cs..can I underclock it further to lower the temps even more? Thirdly is there any software to adjust the fans speed manually? And is it safe to run the fans at max at all times?

 

I am not sure, since you already appear to be at the idle clocks for the GPU. Even if you were to go below that, I don't know that you would see lower temps, and those temps are pretty low for processing units in general at idle. Probably nothing you didn't already know. But those temps are my normal operating temps at stock clocks idle/internet for the 9800m gtx. Do the 8800m GTX/9800m GT run hotter? My temps never go into the 70's unless I use furmark for extendned periods. Max there is 78

Undervolting might get you lower temps, but that function is locked out for us.

I have not heard of any software being able to control the speeds manually. As far as underclocking that can be done with saved profiles in MSI afterburner as well.

The only issue with running the fans max is that like all machines they have a service life. And that can vary heavily. It would be safe to assume that running at full speed would reduce the life of the fan. That being said, a relative has a very old windows 98 bucket that still gets used daily and they only just replaced the fan a couple months ago due to noise and not failure. Your mileage may vary. I have heard that you can just replace the fans if they die, but I have never actually seen it done.

Are you just trying to lower temps to get more service life out of the cards? If so do you already have it propped up with a cooler? Do you have the latest bios A11? That includes profiles that use the fans a lot to keep the gpus cooler. Under these circumstances the cooling system is quite adequate.

 

Yes I kinda like the laptop alot so I'm trying everything. I'm a console gamer and this is my first gaming laptop, but games running in 1200p kinda look upscaled (Mafia II MW3)..is it due to the lack of high res textures? I'm running it on max.
Coming to the tweaking of GPU, yes I don't want them gpus to die on me. So when I don't feel like gaming,I start the laptop with the home button to disable the second GPU, then run i8kfangui and run two fans at slow at all times, the GPU if the rear is elevated is at 35C's while the CPU runs at 30-35C's. For gaming I overclock so the fans are at max. Is this technique safe? Is the 2nd GPU totally switched off when the laptop is started with home button? Yes I'm on A11.

 

Just leave it all stock clocks it will be fine the only time you need to worry about your temps is when your overclocking. Remember you still need some clock speed for windows Aero to work as well. Fans running full rpm is fine if you dont mind the noise as it will keep all your components cooler. As long as you can keep your temps bellow 80 when gamming your ok. Like spring1898 said a laptop cooler mite be a good addition to have.

And as for mw3 and mafia 2 they are both games that aint much about graphics as the games are both console focused. Try games like metro and farcry for graphics.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'm just going to upgrade to 8GB of RAM and try to snatch up a 9800GTX SLI for the time being. How much of an improvement will that be over my current 8800GTX SLI? I was playing some Diablo 3 earlier, and it was running fine with just a small bit of stuttering. I'm not looking for ultra high tech graphics or anything. Just trying to get back into PC gaming a bit. Have SC2 on pre-order so I'll be playing a lot of that and Diablo 3 with friends. Maybe some SWTOR if it ever downloads.

 

I have just installed 8gb of ram in my M1730 today. Previously with just a few web pages open the performance monitor was showing up to 86% of ram usage. Now its down to a very respectable 31%.
I have previously installed a X9000 cpu and a new 9800M GTX 2mb video card. I am also running a 256gb liteon ssd drive with a 750gb seagate hybrid as my second drive. It seems my M1730 upgrading days are over. I can now sit back and enjoy my beast.

 

That sounds like a nice setup for this beast. I'm debating going RAID ssd drives just because or not. I know SSD will definitely boost performance, but trying not to blow too much money right now. Plus, if I did go SSD, I'd have to start from scratch and download all the patches and updates for games again. Argh!! At least with everything I'm upgrading, the old parts can go into a spare 1730 I have and use it for development. I just need to get a couple of decent cooling pads that this thing won't slip off of.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

 

I would give it very careful consideration before going with a raid system. If you have a hardware failure (other than hard drive), you may have trouble accessing your files in another machine or a usb hard drive caddy.

 

I upgraded my m1730 a while ago also with x9000, 9800gtx, 8gb ram and 2x western digital 500gb 7200rpm drives and for its age it is a very powerfull and good looking machine. I just built a new msi gt70 barebone laptop with an i7 3rd gen ivy bridge 3.6ghz quad core, 16gb 1600mhz ram, 2x ocz sata 3 ssd octane 256gb drives and the best bit a 680MX GTX 4gb GDDR5 and it blows my m1730 straight out the water. Whats even better is after selling my m1730 it only cost me an extra £300.

So before upgrading your components on an old laptop and spending a load of money, have a look at your other options. It was the best move iv ever made on upgrading.

So put it this way you can sell a mid spec m1730 with 8800gtx on EBay for around £500 and then buy for £700 an msi laptop with a 3.2ghz quad core i7, 8gb ram ddr3, ssd drive and 670m gtx and it will be 10x more powerfull than you could ever make the m1730. So it will probably end up costing you £400-£500 upgrading and gaining only small amounts in performance when you can be actually spending less on a new machine and gaining massive amounts on performance and having a more reliable machine.

 

Agreed, if one is only going for the gaming factor, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pour money into the M1730, particularly when newer units are not that expensive. Unique and personal circumstances can dictate otherwise. I just like the system and don't mind keeping it around for my own purposes, and I also spent very little on it to begin with.

On another note, how much did it actually cost you to build that unit? It sounds like it was pretty cheap. 6 months ago a gtx 680m was at least $400 from Sager.

 

So how much do you think I can get for:
x9000
9800GTX SLI
750GB 7200RPM (wd I belive)
250GB SSD C300 Crucial
8GB

It gets around 17000 points in 3D mark 06. I was thinking of selling it but I'd need to sell it for around 1k GBP and I don't think there is a lot of ppl who would buy it. How much did you sell yours for? You might've been really lucky with your sale.

 

Have you ever noticed problems with micro stuttering in your system. That is the main reason I came to this thread. What settings do you run for performance?

At least in US ebay, no one has been able to get that much for a unit, at least not that I have seen. Maybe the UK market is different. It has been rare to see an M1730 sell for about $1000 regardless of what it has in it.

Does SSD and 8gb really give that much more performance in 3d Mark? WIthout them I only get about 15000

 

No it doesn't 3d mark concentrates on cpu and gpu.

I managed to sell my xps just before Xmas for £ 800 I would say I'm very lucky but you could still fetch £600 easy. All comes down to how good you advertise the laptop. Make it sound incredibly good for the price and someone will buy it soon enough.

 

You could say that compared to sager with 680m and i7 at 22,000 3dmark06 yours gets 17,000. Oh wait this is UK sager at 22.000 and yours at 17.000

And then show a link to magnus72 playing on youtube. And then say that his card is the 9800m gt/8800m gtx and that your card is even better with 1gb more vram or some such !

 

It's because 3d mark 06 is so old it doesn't have the programing to use all the 680's tech and it only really uses the cards core clock and a small amount of memory. Try using 3d mark vantage to compare the two cards as it's newer it uses more of the cards tech and allows it to give a better benchmark reading of the cards Performance.

In 3d mark vantage my m1730 with 9800gtx sli and x9000 at stock clocks would bench around 7000-8000 and my msi i7 680mx gtx would bench around 24000-25000 stock clocks.

 

Right, but he is trying to make his machine look good. So sell it like a salesman! Hanging comparatives, all that good stuff.

 

Oh yer I see sorry I miss read the comments. Yer just blag it big time like I did when selling my m1730 and it worked a treat.

 

Hello,

Yesterday one of my fans on my 8800m GTX started to make a different noise, not the noise where it goes into a power up cycle it still does that, but when its just spinning normally it sounds, old/tinny if you get what i mean, maybe its loose or something, any suggestions?

Also if you downgrade the bios to A10, can you change the speed of the fans?

Thanks LeeBurtonXPS

 

Sounds like the bearing in the fan might be going out. If that is the case, the fan can be replaced or disassembled from the unit. Pull the cover off, and then a drop of lube can be applied to the inside/underside of the fan body and then placed back on, at this time you can also see how loose the fan is on the spindle. A little bit is normal (otherwise how could it spin) but not a lot of play. If that doesn't solve the problem it probably is time for a new fan. I have done this numerous times on other laptops and fans but never on an M1730. There are also loads of fans on ebay

I would imagine that the fans and vents have been kept clean?

As far as I know no bios allows for fan control. It is something that dell left out. The A10 bios also runs a lot hotter, due to poorer fan control settings. Use at your own risk.

 

Firstly, Thank you for the response, and yeh thats fine just have to dissemble it, which has become a nightmare because one of the screw heads on the keyboard has stripped but im sure il get past it, is it just an ordinary cooling fan like this >> New Dell Latitude 1730 XPS M1730 Cooling Fan DP/N WW425 | eBay

Or is there a specific one for the graphics card.

Thank you for your help, LeeBurtonXPS

 

I just looked quickly but it looks like the cpu fan. The GPU fans generally are entirely made of aluminum. Better for heat conduction like this one Dell XPS M1730 Video Graphics Card Fan Left YM379 0YM379 | eBay. But make sure that you have the correct side!

A good stripped screw head remover should be able to take care of that.
And try to see if lube will work first, It might save you a few bucks, or sterling. Heck, while you have the thing out might as well lube the other fans too.

 

I have an XPS M1730 and an XPS l702x sitting next to each other and the screen of the 1730 looks quite dark [both laptops on max brightness]...

Is that so with anyone else? Is the screen really so dark on the M1730?

I really need to know as I was planning on using it a lot with big excel sheets but with this level of brightness its just gonna make my eyes hurt. I'll have to skip my dream of having the Beast and jump to a 17R SE...

 

The screen on the m1730 would be considered darker by todays standards, although it was quite nice for its day.
It uses a compact CFL as a back light instead of LED. So the max brightness may improve after turning it on for about 5 minutes. It is also possible that your bulb may be going out if some parts of the screen seem brighter than others. A white background is a great way to check this. It should not be considered "dark" by any means, simply less bright than a modern screen.

You can also increase the gamma in Windows, and adjust other settings to try and squeeze out a little more brightness out of the screen.

Personally I like the screen. I always have good lighting and rarely require full brightness. In my terms the screen is quite adequate

 

Would just like to thank Spring1898, opened the m1730 up and applied some lube (WD40 and Vaseline) hahaha! i was all out of lube but its worked, the fans sound normal! thanks alot!

another question, ive seen a few pictures across the interenet where the gamepanel, screen above the keyboard.. people have modded that, any ideas how?

Thanks, LeeBurtonXPS

 

Unfortunately I have no info on modding the game panel. What would you be looking to mod it as? Since it is a Logitech product, (similar to the screens that were on some of their gaming keyboards) there should be plenty of information out there regarding drivers and apps.

 

Many thanks Spring1898, I was also thinking about the CFL and by your description it seems I will be replacing it soon. Just to make sure, cause I found no confirmation - it is not possible to have a WLED display with the M1730?

@LeeBurtonXPS I used Everest Ultimate Edition [File->Preferences->LCD->LCD Items] to modd the display to show precise clock and temp data. Another program can be FRAPS to show the FPS in game. The panel can be used by 3rd programs to display data, I've used only these two but you may find many.

The software for the Logitech Gamepanel on the other hand was quite tricky for me...The newest software ( Support + Downloads: G15 Gaming Keyboard - Logitech - if I'm not mistaken...) doesn't work so I am now using the Logitech 3.06 version ( Logitech Game Panel Software 3.06)

If anyone knows a better software it would be great to share

veselatakurabiika

 

You are correct on the screen. It is not possible to have a wled with the stock screen. If you are confident in changing the bulb than by all means, although it is a bit labor intensive. It comes as a unit with the panel, and a new bulb will need to be soldered in. Check out a diagram of the unit and you will see what I mean. it is not a complicated job, but more than just techy skills. If you do replace the panel, just remember to get the WUXGA version. there are a few others out there that are lower resolution.

 

HI .i recently became beast user all working perfect except one doubt: well, when i got it i first dissasembled laptop to make sure i have SLI card. In system manager there is only one card present saying nvidia geforce 9800m gt . But since there is double fan card (also both spinning) inside laptop i consider it SLI automatically . Now i'm in doubt because nvidia control panel don't show any option to enable or disable Sli.. how can i be postive if i have single or SLI 9800m GT? Does regular 9800m GT also come in double fan full size pack? OR meabe one of the two GT is gone, and i working on one card only? Gpuz 0.6.6 show SLI "disabled ". Bios show no SLI sign also. BTW games fly with this thing.. also put SSD and its all very snappy... thanks

 

The m1730 only came with 3 different kinds of cards. 8700m 8800/9800 and the 9800m gtx. Only the 8700m ever came in a single card setup option, and while not rare, is much less common than the sli version.
So by default your card is SLI.

There are a couple reasons that your card might not be showing up. One the card is bad, a possibility, but there are a few other things to try.
First have a good set of drivers, they don't have to be the most recent but ones that work well, I have had no issues with the latest drivers from nvidia.

Second, If you ever hit the media direct button, the one next to the power button, that disabled one of the cards. Restarting the computer may not always reconnect it since power never leaves the devices. If that is the case shut down the computer, pull out the plug and battery and push the power button for a few seconds and then plug the battery back in and plug the computer back in and power up. Note: if your motherboard lithium battery is dead this may reset your bios settings.

If this works you may hear the device connect ba'ding sound when you boot into windows. That may be the card getting re-recognized. Sometimes when that happens it doesn't get recognized properly. The fans can go full blast all the time because the second card may start to over heat. To correct that repeat the above process and it should straighten out.

If that doesn't work than we may have to try some other things.