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

Just get a t9500 it will give you the power and it's cheap.

 

The t9500 is a good option as it has more cache, faster FSB, uses less energy, and will run cooler than the x7900.
The x7900 does run hot so a decent thermal compound and an undervolting process are recommended. Both are about the same price on Ebay right now, so it is up to you. With good undervolting you might be able to get the x7900 up to 3.6ghz and still stay around the high 70's range.

If it was me I would take the x7900

And unless you figure on maxing out all your settings, an x9000 isn't worth it.

But either way you will see a upgrade in performance. Especially with some newer games the CPU on these really starts to become the bottle neck.

 

Thanks for the reply! I will probably pick up what's cheaper then!

 

I found the T9500 run games great the gpu just struggled a little. When I upgraded to the x9000 I couldn't notice any real difference, for the money it wasn't worth it basically so it may be the same scenario with the x7000.

 

Hey guys I'm new here but I dont want to read through 95 pages. My laptop is playing really hot like 90C. Are there any fan upgrades or anything I can do that will help bring this down? Also I am looking to upgrade the CPU and GPU, what are some cheap good options? I'm sure there arent any real cheap options but would like to know.THank you

 

90c is very hot that isn't good. Make sure you have plenty of air space around your fans, they are all spinning and heatsinks / fans are cleared of dust. If you havnt got the latest bios then it would be a good idea to upgrade it to the latest a12 bios, it has much better temperature control. Upgrades is an option but can cost just as much as a new laptop with twice the power of yours. What are your current specs?

 

It's all stock from the factory. I havent done anything to it but maybe I'll take an air can to the fans. I have it on top of a cooling bad and that helps a little. Any link to where I can get the a12 bios? I'm still running the a11

 

You can get all different specs from factory so what is your? If your running a11 then thats a big part of the prob. The update is on the Dell support page for the m1730.

 

I'm not really that computer savvy so where would I go about finding specs? :noob:

Also all I can seem to see on the Dell website is the a11 bios.

 

A11 is the latest Bios for the M1730

 

Found specs: Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz 2.50GHz 4GB RAM Windows Vista 64 bit BIOS A11

 

If you know what you are doing, disassemble the laptop, clean out the dust from the heatsinks and fans, replace the thermal paste. You should drop quite a lot of degrees.

 

I have uploaded a guide showing how to strip the laptop all the way down to removing the cpu if your up for giving it a go to clear out the dust and apply new thermal paste.

Your specs are pretty good for the money it wont be worth upgrading the cpu as thats good enough unless you go for the x9000 but they are silly money for not much of a noticeable gain in performance. You could put another 4gb ram in it as its very cheap now.

I would say whats your gpu but that is very expensive to upgrade as well hence why its cheaper to get a new laptop for the money ull spend and have something a lot more powerfull.

 

Any chance you could link me to the strip down you have of it? I may give that a shot and I guess I would be better off just buying a Desktop a building one up myself for the money. Thank you guys for the help.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-dell-xps-m1730-change-cpu-upgrade-guide.html

Building a desktop with the money is a much better option.

 

What part of your computer is running hot? The A11 bios is quite good at running the fans to keep the unit cool. Have you made sure that the fans are still working?

All the advice you have gotten so far is good to put you back on track. As you say, a desktop is a better way to put the money, and right now M1730's are commanding a decent price on Ebay.
Out of curiosity, what GPU are you running. If you are using the 8700m gt you will see a difference in performance by upgrading, but if you already have the 8800/9800 series you will encounter little if any performance gain by upgrading. But as was stated the cost to upgrade components on this old unit is prohibitive.

The strip guide is very good, there are also youtube videos if you want to actually see it done.

 

I'm not sure if this helps, but here's some info that may or may not have been lost in the mountains of posts over the years:

The main benefit of upgrading to the X9000 was that when overclocking to either 3.2 or 3.4GhZ(IIRC) is that on those settings all the fans went automatically full blast when the system was running. Since the nVidia cards in these systems were faulty and there was a large failure rate many folks had issues with their M1730 GPUs toasting themselves. With the OCing on the X9000 turning the fans up the added cooling was added insurance against the cards cooking. I remember I had to do quite a bit of testing and undervolting to obtain a stable OC on 3.2GhZ, but the peace of mind was very much worth it. I was also brave enough to put AS5 on the GPU cores and polish the heat sinks; that did a bit of good on a system where every little bit helps. I don't know if later BIOS revisions helped with the fans, but I sold my beast in the summer of 2010 as a reference point. Probably shouldn't have done that; I did love that notebook.

 

I upgraded my m1730 a while ago 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.

I upgraded my m1730 a while ago 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.

 

The a11 bios is very good at keeping things cool without an overclock. It also depends on the cards themselves. The 9800m GTX's rarely go above 70c unless pushed.
But defintely, with the other cards a good disassembly and the AS5 is probaly the best way to go.

What I have found to be the main advantage of the x9000 is that it can be overclocked with stability up to 3.8ghz, or 3.7 with an undervolt for lower temps.

On a slightly different topic, has anyone here used the Sager np9262? I was thinking of making that my next tinkering project?
Just wondering how it compares to the M1730

 

It's better on the cpu side of things but gpu and other specs it equally the same. The biggest down side to it is the design. It's very thick, heavy and in my eyes just ugly. The m1730 def wins on the design front but if that isn't an issue to you then the np9262 is the better machine for the main reason it being able to use a quad core desktop cpu instead of a mobile core2duo cpu.

 

Looking for bios download for Dell Nvidia 9800m sli GTX. I think I messed up my bios by saving the first bios on to the second bios. Since i did this and flashed it. i show a reduction in benchmark scores from 14K to 13K in 3dmark06. Please email bios to [email protected].

 

Has anyone heard the theory that the motherboard in the XPS M1730 makes the graphics card damage? That is what I heard from the serviceman after my second video cards replacement...

 

No he doesn't know what he is on about its due to overheating

 

Nope, it's not the motherboard. It's a design fault in the GeForce 8000 and many of the GeForce 9000 chips. I'm rusty on the details now, but the crux of it is that heat cycles gradually cause certain parts of the GPU to fail, which results in them not working any more. It's an nVIDIA problem, and affected all laptop manufacturers using their chips in 2007-2008 (technically it affects desktops, too, but many of them stay cool enough consistently that it wasn't as big of a deal for desktops). I don't know if the 9800's on the M1730 are affected, but the 8700's and 8800's certainly would be, and I'm pretty sure the M1730 is one of the laptops whose warranty for video cards is a year longer than the standard warranty for everything else as a result of this flaw and lawsuit.

 

Yes . I know . I had 8800 for four years , and 9800gtx for two months only . I wonder how long another 9800gtx will stay alive .
I expected that in 2013 , they give me graphics produced after 2010 for exchange. Without a known defect.
As you can see I was wrong.
In addition, they claimed that the motherboard damages the graphics , and it will be no more exchange . As long as I do not buy a new motherboard from them ( about 350 $)

 

Is it really that much thicker? I haven't seen one in person so I have nothing to base it on. I thought they both weighed the same though, or close to it.
How would a quad core q9650 3.0 ghz compare to a core 2 extreme clocked up to 3.7 or 3.8? Again, I was under the impression that speed was king over cores in games, particularly those that these old computers can run

That is interesting, as all the 9800m gtx cards I have seen run very cool, less than 70c nearly all the time. I am wondering if it could be other component fatigue. As long as you are running the a11 bios there should not be any heat problems with the 9800m GTX

 

It's a bit thicker yes and it doesn't look fancy like the xps. The cpu is a lot more powerful in the sager, first of all it isn't a mobile processor and second just check the benchmarks.

If it was the case that higher speed was better than more cores then they would be bringing 10ghz processors out instead of 8 core processors. Also running an x9000 all the time anymore than 3.4 ghz wont do it much good, I know you can do it to 3.7 but it's only stable long enough for a benchmark or an hour or so of gaming.

 

I meant specifically in regard to gaming applications, but I guess that nowadays the utilization of more threads is becoming prevalent.
I would also agree that overclocking higher gives diminishing returns, although for my unit 3.7 is quite stable at 1.350 with temps oonly around 69-72. 3.8 is also stable but that requires 1.4375 and as such the temps go to the mid 82-87c. I have seen others who were able to maintain the undervolt for 3.8 to keep coller temps, but that doesn't seem to be the norm.
It is worth noting that both those voltages are lower than the 1.4750? (I can't remember off the top of my head) bios set 3.4 overclock.

I never had much luck overclocking my 9800m GTX (which was new unused from less than a year ago), I ended up getting lower scores in benchmarks. And stock it got around 14400. Maybe my power supply is not putting out as much anymore, or maybe it is just old.

If I could find a maxed out Sager NP9262 for the right price I might give it a whirl for a while.

 

why dont you just keep the money and sell your xps then buy yourself a nice new up to date machine thats more powerfull, lightweight, looks better and reliable?

 

Oh I already have a modern machine. I just like to tinker around with old machines and tech. It gives me a hobby to do when I need a break from life.

 

Oh fair enough, why not get a low spec sager for very cheap then and upgrade the parts yourself. It would be a lot cheaper and ull enjoy doing it aswel. The sager is a lot easier to work on than the m1730.

 

The problem with the low spec sager (assuming that we are within the same parts time period of the M1730) is that the parts are even more expensive than the M1730's parts. I might be able to find one cheaper of a slightly later generation, but that would be so close to the G51 JX I used to have that it wouldn't be fun.

I guess the best way to put it is that the M1730's were so plentiful that their parts are the cheapest for what they give. I got my Maxed out M1730 for $400, which gave me a laptop that could do almost anything when properly tweaked.But is quite limited in upgrading, and would have been much better if it could support quad core processors, but maxed out overclock 9800m GTX's can perform similarly to stock GTX 280m's. Any laptops that use the 280m's or higher, be they sager of Alienware are significantly higher in price, more than the price per performance of the older M1730's, and the newer ones generally have more expensive parts and less availability.

The newer Sager notebooks also ended up using the original Core I7 processors all the way up to the Nvidia 400 series, which has kept the price of the processors high.
And the main reason for my getting the old bug was to be able to keep playing older games that didn't like the latest and greatest hardware.

 

I regard my M1730 as a modern machine. I bought mine last June. I upgraded from an Inspiron 8200 (2002 vintage). The Inspiron 8200 still works ok - I just wanted something to run Windows 7 on and I always wanted a M1730 but could never afford one. I don't play game I just use it for general usage and I love the screen and facilities on the M1730. The only thing it lacks is USB3 which I solved with a pci express card albeit at a lower transfer speed rate.

I expect to get about five years usage out of the M1730. I have a second M1730 for spare parts. Like Spring 1898, I like tinkering with computers. I find the M1730 relatively easy to work on and fairly simple (except for the screen). I have already stripped mine down about four times for upgrades and replacement parts. One thing I really hate is the Dell technicians who have worked on the machine previously and their usage of power screw drivers and the stripped threads they leave behind. To date I have managed to repair all their sloppy handy work.
I am very particular with my machine and try to keep it in as new condition.

 

They are definitely fun, but they are something of an entry level gamer, which is what they get used for a lot around here,
Or as a specialty item for those who collect or like to tinker.
I wish I could coax a little more out of it, but I have pretty much figured out the max that it can do.

 

Hey guys,

Long time no see. I was wondering, anybody still on XP?

I am having trouble with the 304.79 driver, and the second GPU keeps downclocking for some reason and it might have something to do with the crappy driver that I installed some time ago. Yea, I know, XP is obsolete, but since I was too lazy to switch to 7 or Vista, I am *still* looking for solutions. So... what drivers are you guys using, stable and good, performance wise?

 

For the most stable using XP you can try the 197.15. These were very stable for overclocking the 8800/9800. Newer drivers don't necessarily help for XP and even Vista.
You might be hurting yourself with XP and the 9800m GTX eating all the recognizable ram.
As far as downclocking, it sounds like the second card is having a driver failure while the other card is still running. I imagine that you might see a stutter and then performance is not very good after that point but is about as good as you might see with only 1 card running? This is common when overclocking to the max; one card will fail while the other continues.

 

Yes , I'm . Currently I'm on NVIDIA DRIVERS 266.58WHQL . But 275.35 with modded inf works fine for me too ( with minor problems with The Witcher and Moto GP 08 ) . Also 270.xx for quadro were recommended by some users .

 

Actually it would be kind of interesting to compile a list of good drivers with achieved overclocks.

 

Hi all,

I guess this question has been asked a thousand times. My 1730 seems to be getting really slow, I was considering reformatting the system and trying to take it back to factory spec. Then getting a gtx 9800 sli card and a 9000x processor and fitting 8gb of ram - I reckon I can do this for about £700, the question is - is it worth it? Will this give me a reasonably fast gaming laptop, or am I better chucking that £700 into a new 17 inch monster. I know the machine is old, but wondered how a op spec 1730 would perform with today's games, I am nota huge FPS player, more into strategy/adventure. Would it not run skyrim, at a playable level. I travel a lot, so a good 17 inch laptop is a godsend, any advice would be appreciated. Also was there an issue with the power packs? I keep getting an error to connect a dell power pack to the computer when I boot up. I am away at present and when I get home I'll post my specs and ask advice on the best way to improve it?

Cheers,, sorry for the long post

Otto

 

The answer, in short, is that at this stage of the game you are better off going toward a new system if you want performance for gaming. The answer would be different if you had an emotional attachment to the M1730 and liked it as a unique piece of gaming history. But if you want a good system then it is not worth putting the money into it.

The m1730 can be tweaked quite a bit in order to perform for modern games individually, but it is far outclassed by pretty much anything above the GTX 460m, and very far as soon as you hit the i5 - i7 series, and modern ram. The M1730 is a fun system, but for high end gaming it stopped being a really viable option about 2 years ago and has slowly been going down hill from there.

Now from what I remember things are more expensive in the UK. But Stateside you can get an Asus N56 with the gtx 650m (underclocked 660m) for about $700 or 500 sterling, that will outperform this system quite a bit and take advantage of the new tech. That is less than what you want to spend to upgrade the M1730.

If you want to enjoy the graphics of RPG's and MMO's then definitely get a new system. Games like SWTOR and Skyrim and STO can be played with a maxed out M1730, but the graphical enjoyment would definitely be lacking when running them at either a lower resolution, or lower graphics settings.

I don't know what clevo/sager resellers you have in the UK, but again stateside, a decent NP9170 can be configured for around$1400-$1600 with the i7 and the 670m up to the 7970m respectively. Either card will give you good performance with potential for overclocking


Lastly, yes occaisionally the power supplies would die on these units, that could be why your performance has gone sour, because these units will not go to their max unless they have a full 230W available.

 

Wow, it's been a very long time since I checked this thread! Great to see people are still rocking the m1730's

Mine is now out of warranty, I think i've had the graphics cards replaced 3 times whilst in warranty (it ran out in september just gone) so it's a timebomb now until they go again!

I noticed performance was really slow and sluggish then realised I've been running this laptop now for 4 years and never formatted or re-installed windows. So, upgraded to win 7 and everything is all nice and quick again (just general use, web browsing etc).

I really like the laptop and as i don't game all that much now i can't justify spending a lot of cash on a new gaming laptop, yet i still want one that's capable of playing all my steam games.
Just read a previous post about MSI laptops, might have to see what I can sell this beast for and look into one of those. To be honest though, if it wasn't for the worry that the g/cards might fail I'd happily hang on to this one.

 

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice. Since I use my desktop for most of my hardcore gaming, and most of my PC games are a couple of years old, I reckon I will fight through on this for the time being, plus its a bit of a project. The advice on here is really great and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with it. My first question is though - where can I buy a new power supply as it sounds like the old one is temperamental?

I keep getting the message - connect a dell blah blah blah, Though it still runs the computer.

Cheers

Otto

 

The best place to get a power supply is ebay. In America there are plenty, in the UK, I think it might be more expensive, unless you could contact a computer store to see if they have any from an old system that died.

It is very much as was previously said. There is a lifespan to the parts on these systems. They are good, but not the best built, and the flaws get exploited after years of hard use that these systems see. 7 years old for a laptop is a pretty long lifespan. All of these systems see parts fatigue at some point in their lifetimes. Sometimes it gets staved off from parts upgrades, but eventually it comes to a point (different for each person) where it is not worth putting any more into it.

 

I searched and ended up with this section...


I have a xps m1730 with t7700 cpu and memory DDR2 677 I am using A11 bio on motherboard

I searched and seems like it is possible to upgrade cpu to Intel Q9000 (only $70 used)

I know for sure I could upgrade to T9500 or X9000 but how about Q9000?

I searched and seems like it is possible for me to upgrade DDR2 667 or DDR2 800

But how about DDR3 1066?



Since m1730 is old notebook by searching internet does not give me good answers....






Stop receiving emails on this subject.

 

The X9000 CPU will fit in ok. You will pay about $200 for one on the secondhand market. The quad core CPU wont fit.

The ram can bed upgraded to 8gb DDR2 800 will work ok but the computer will down clock it to 667mhz. DDR3 ram won't fit.

 

That's what I taught from begining... but when I searched I found this as well so I am not sure...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...730-problems-dell-replacement-issues-103.html

xps m1730 with T9600?

 

The quad core does fit its just the motherboard doesn't support it and upgrading the mhz of the ram is a waste of money due to the board not supporting any more than 667mhz either, to be honest you wont even notice the difference between 667 and 800 so I wouldn't worry about it.

The best thing you can do about your cpu is upgrade to an x9000 or if it's a bit out of budget just settle with the T9500 which is still pretty good.

Also in that thread they are talking about a totally different laptop, it's about a laptop he is getting to replace his m1730 hence the title.

 

Thanks all your help

x9000 is still around $200 on ebay... I will just get t9300 as it is only $40 or t9500 for $80...

 

Nothing really to add except that the Extreme processors tend to garner more attention if you plan on selling the laptop in the future. Even though stock performance is the same, the hype of the extreme and potential for overclocking that you can give the unit when selling might make it worth while to you unless you plan on keeping it indefinitely. But I dont know if the x7900 is still in the same price range as the T series

The X9000 isn't all that much better (in most cases not worth the $150 over the T9x00 or the X7900) unless you are planning on overclocking to 3.8 on a regular basis and want low temps at the same time.

I seem to remember the x7900 being able to do 3.6 at around 74C, and 3.8 at around 78-82C unless under extreme load. I will have to remember the voltages I used to run. They are around here somewhere among these papers... I will just post them if I find them.

Ha, I actually found them right away.

X7900
3.6 Ghz OC via Throttlestop at 1.4125v temps around 74C
3.8 Ghz OC via Throttlestop at 1.4375v temps around 78-84C

X9000
Up to 3.7 Ghz OC via Throttlestop at 1.3500v temps around 68-72C
3.8 Ghz OC via Throttlestop at 1.4375v temps around 82C

Bios Overclock is 1.4750 for the 3.4 Ghz OC, which makes them run hotter than they have to.

Temps may go higher under extreme load.

 

To save some money I'd go for the T9500, it's a very good processor for the m1730 and it isn't far off the x9000 as it can still be overclocked using throttlestop or sumin.