**Official Dell XPS M1530 Owner's Lounge** - *Part 2*

Hi,

I have an M1530 with the Samsung SSD RBX 128MB. I want to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 64 and am wondering if there is any special erase or format procedure or software i should use prior to the install (like secure erase, etc used for other newer SSD drives) to "clean" the drive completely.

Lack of TRIM may mean this isnt necessary but im not sure.

Also, anyone have any critical issues running 7/64 on this machine?

Thank you for your comments and advice!

 

Dunno about SSD procedure, but win7 64bit works like wonders on this laptop!

 

You could try HDD Erase 4.0, it´s included in latest Hiren´s Bootcd (11.0).

Cheers

 

Hey Guys!

I just Ordered my Studios XPS 16 from dell and i was wondering if the estimated time of arrival Oct 5 a solid 2 1/2 weeks from now. Did you have this same accuracy or did i came early or hopefully not later?

Super Excited
Apple

 

Would someone be kind enough to inform me of the LED backlit screen models used on the m1530?

It would be most appreciated.

 

Usually you will receive your package before the EDD, but not always. I have never waited more than one day past the EDD unless there was a shortage of parts.

 

Apparently the part is: Chimei part number N154C6-L02 with cable N849D, but if you are changing from a CCFL to LED then you need an inverter board. the inverter board can be picked up on ebay.

 

Thanks, + rep.

Is your WUXGA a CCFL backlit one then? The N154C6-L02 appears to be WXGA+

 

I would like to know the answer to this as well.

thanks.

 

The best option is to go through the drivers and update them as is appropriate for the device specifically.

Having said that, one good option these days is "Drivermax" - You could give it a try, free version allows 2 driver downloads / installs per day (and the paid version, everything).. Drivermax is a pretty neat and good program.. though watch out for the drivers and if they are signed and the popularity and such, before going ahead with the install - I have tried this and never had any problem.

Otherwise, I would just update the drivers from the device support pages and it's not that difficult, IMHO...

 

Thanks for replying.. My problem is that at the nVidia site there is an updated driver from my 8600GT.. but on the official Dell site they say there is no update available and the driver currently installed is the latest one. I am confused. Should i update from teh nVidia site?

Thanks..

 

Yes.. and I would do the same for Intel chipset', wireless, ethernet adapters, etc.. it's quiet easy..

 

Thanks.. I have updated from the nVidia site.

 

I need your owners' advice, I'm new to PCs but have the option to buy a used Dell XPS M1530 for $450. The previous owner built it for gaming ~3yrs ago, and says he has never had any issues with it, and only upgraded his hard drive once. Could you guys please comment on the stuff below, and advice me to buy or not buy this product? I've been an Xbox gamer for the past 8 years, and have totally lost touch of the PC market!
- Core 2 Duo 2.6ghz T7800 (4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz)
- 4GB ram
- 250GB hard drive
- Built-in wireless b\g
- 256MB GeForce 8600M GT
- 15.4" WXGA screen (1280x800)
- Slot-load DVD-RW
- HDMI out
- Vista
- Normal and Extra battery
- Carrying Case

For $450, which seems like a good deal, but I need your guys opinion on this hardware for a PC gamer? And is the product reliable? Thanks a lot!

 

I used to love my XPS M1530, but only when I first got it and working. Since then...overheating problem and eventually it won't boot up.

Thinking about getting that motherboard replacement but with the 8400GT graphics instead of the 8600GT, wise move? or will the damn thing still overheat?

 

God I hate my M1530. Overheating has always been a problem. I've gotten Dell to replace the motherboard+GPU around 4+ times. Each time replacing the motherboard *temporarily* resets overheating problems, but a few months will pass by and the M1530 will start overheating again.

Luckily I'm finally purchasing another laptop. I hope I don't have the same problems....

 

8400gt I believe was built with the same faulty architecture which causes 8600gt to overheat. I have changed my TIM and cleaned out my cooling fan whenever overheating started to become a problem. It has served me well and my machine has otherwise been running very smoothly for the ~2.5 years I've had it. BTW I just received a card in the mail informing me that anyone who has had problems with their Nvidia cards in certain systems (including the Dell XPS m1530) may be able to be part of a class action settlement. The info is on: The NVIDIA GPU Litigation - Home Page

 

last week when my AC adapter failed for the 4th or 5th time (m1530 shipped in 7/2008)
I really just wanted a new Adapter ASAP (since the battery's nearly dead, since it still won't charge despite 2 mobo replacements - pretty much everything but the casing and hard drive has been replaced at least once on this machine), but instead, I was told I was getting a system replacement in 15+ days - a new XPS 15...

well, brand new computer... I should be happy right? :-/

the dell rep seemed completely ambivalent to the fact that I have a BD WRITER, and the XPS 15 only comes with the option for a reader. He just kept assuring me that I'd get "like or better"
I think they were really hoping I'd just say "okay, GREAT!" to the exchange and not look into any differences. Not only did I not do that, I demanded they send an AC adapter ASAP so I could AT LEAST backup my hard drive. (they didn't understand why I wouldn't want to ship my computer to dell and have THEM back it up - it's only a week or two lapse in backing up, but still).

After I didn't get my AC adapter OR my followup phone call as promised, I contacted support again. They said "oh, sure, we'll get you your adapter in 2-3 business days (um... thanks, it was supposed to be here 2 business days ago *fume*), and they couldn't tell me ANYthing about the replacement system that's in the works for me.
I, again, brought up the concern of lack of blu-ray burner in the new XPS 15 (because the cost is substantially different, and it's a feature they offer on the XPS 14, but not the 15 or 17)... The guy tried to tell me the m1530 never had the option for a blu-ray burner (um... what? that's funny, my order confirmation says it did. Why would they ship the blu-ray version of roxio creator if it didn't? and how did I burn a blu-ray if I didn't have a burner? )
I asked if I could possibly get an XPS 14 with the blu-ray burner instead of the XPS 15.... he said that wasn't an option (but still couldn't tell me anything about what I WAS getting)...

I'm also irritated that I'll be losing firewire, fingerprint reader (though I "might" get facial recognition technology, he said), s-video, and express card slot...
In addition, the new XPS series is just that... NEW. I wouldn't even have a 1 year warranty on this new system. what if it's as nutty as my m1530 (which has been repaired a zillion times)?

Any experience with this kind of thing? I'd really just love for my m1530 to work like it's supposed to, but hey, I guess it's dell, not dyson.

 

Can anyone suggest a place to sell my 1530 and what sort of price I should be asking.
Specs are:

Intel Core 2 Duo [email protected]
500 Gb HD
4096 Mb Memory
9-Cell battery (4 weeks old - genuine dell battery)
Genuine Windows Vista SP1 (32bit) Ultimate
15.4 Widescreen (1920x1200) TFT Display

I've put an add on avforums but have not had much response. I posted it for £390 + delivery.

 

an update:
dell sent me TWO AC adapters - they arrived today (Tues), despite the fact that I was told I wouldn't be getting them until Thurs.

That's cool, I thought... looks like I can return both faulty AC adapters that I have sitting in my apartment (not sure why I have an extra, but nevermind that...)

however, it looks like they sent incompatible parts - the transformer unit takes a 3 prong connector, and they sent a two prong connector. *facepalm*

still waiting to see what kind of specs I'm offered with the replacement - I have to dig out the warranty and see if I'm eligible for a refund if their replacement offer isn't acceptable.

 

Try kijiji . eBay Classifieds (Kijiji) - Post & Search Free Local Classified Ads. or .ca depends on where you are.

I've sold a number of things on there ..

M

 

My M1530 was my best friend up until 2 months ago when it started over heating and shutting down, now it won't post and. 2.5 years of no issues what so ever , best laptop I've ever had .
As far as I am concerned it doesn't owe me anything with over 2.5 years of rock solid service , Gaming , word processing , Internet surfing , etc ..
A new XPS 15 is on order with an EDD of Dec 8th ..

M

 

FYI, the 2 prong are the newer adapters. The old 3-prong came with my M1530 when I purchased it, but my adapter failed a few weeks ago and I bought a new one. The new one came with the 2-prong

 

Can anyone tell me the PLL number of Dell XPS m1530 with T9300 processor?
I really don't want to open my laptop.

It will be a great help.
Thanks!

 

My old trusty xps m1530 is giving me some high temps on need for speed hot pursuit. I have firmware ver 12. Will version 9 speed up the fan and give me more years of happiness with this wonderful notebook?
Thank you in advance

 

What kind of temps are you getting with yur GPU when playing the game?

ANd please explain what firmware you are talking about? I know they ugraded the BIOS to a12 to reset the fan speeds for the overheating issues..

 

Help needed! The cdrom does not show up in system anywhere. I don't see it in the bios, as a boot option, or in Vista. Any suggestions here? The cdrom is the trayless version. According to the spec sheet for my Dell laptop, I believe, this is the Dell part# (HT141/Assembly, DVD+/-RW..., 8, Slot, 1530 Teac). can anyone confirm, what the problem may be? Any/All suggestions are welcomed. Thxs in advance.

 

Hi,

I have a screen problem with my m1530.

the screen sporadically doesn't light up. when I shine a torch into the screen I can make out the desktop and all the icons, so I guess the motherboard, etc is ok.

so that leaves the inverter and backlight. the inverter product number is K02l115.03

a google search brings up only a few directs hits for this particular product number, whereas there seem to be plenty of the K02l115.0 5 inverters around. my question is if getting one of these other inverters would be wise despite the different last digit in the product code.

hopefully not everyone in the forum has moved on from the M1530. any help would be appreciated. cheers.

 

I had my CD/DVD Drive replaced once after a year, then after another year it plays up every now and again and stops appearing.

You may start seeing an error when starting up saying the hardware in the modular bay is not functioning.

Theres a change you can make in the registry, which is a windows related issue that can also stop it appearing. I can't remember which key you need to delete.

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

As a side note to other posts, I am still running A08 (after 2 years) and never experienced a single overheating issue

I have the 8600M that has the DDR3 memory as opposed to the DDR2 (You can find this out from the model number in the bios)

 

Try an external monitor on the laptop. That's how I have mine running right now and it's been fine for days...

I bought a used one about five months ago. It was still under warranty from Jan, 2009 and I had problems with a green vertical line onscreen when tilted at certain angles.
Dell sent me a replacement screen, motherboard, connectors, etc. I changed out the board, but they sent me the wrong screen (1440x900 vs 1680x1050), so I kept my old one.
Anyway I changed out the board and have been a happy camper until last week. I'm out of warranty now. I tore into this machine and have come to the conclusion it was the inverter or backlight. Bought an inverter, but it was the wrong size. I tried it anyway. Still didn't work and I have the same symptoms as you. External monitor works for me.

Of course I destroyed the screen trying to get to the backlight.

I have a replacement screen from Ebay on order for $152. I'll post my results.


Yes, in hindsight I probably should have bit the bullet and gone with a newer laptop. But now that I have it I actually think it might be a keeper. I'll know once I get the new LCD and try it the end of this week.

P.S. I had a long heart-to-heart with Dell support this morning. I think that the Nvidia deal might be a little overblown. I'm still trying to determine that.

 

It's summer again in the east coast... my laptop is getting... hot.
I will talk to dell about this...in hopes of a new laptop.

But really, this laptop is so amazingly good. It's still running so smooth and it's still beautiful to look at. I doubt dell will give me a new laptop as sturdy as this one.

 

I bought a second handed m1530 and upgraded it quite a bit.

Went from a T7500 to a T9300
From 3GB RAM to Corsair 4GB
From Seagate "crappy" 320GB to Scorpio Black 500GB
From 4965agn to Intel 6300

Replaced the heatsink Rev B. (aluminum) with Rev. A (copper) but swapped the fans, I might change them again as one is 6,5 CFM and the other one is 7,2 or something...

Repasted it with Arctic Silver 5.

It´s been running great for the last 9 months since I bought but the upgrades have improved its performance quite a lot. I might buy a SSD just to play with it...

WEI Scores as of now...

 

Can someone let me know how well this computer will handle a 2nd monitor with 1920 by 1200 resolution?

Or 1920 by 1080, how does that run?

 

Yes it does, watched a MKV in my Samsung 40" 1080p last night via HDMI.

I haven´t tried 1920 by 1200 though...

 

Good to know, thank you.

 

Dell has finally offered me a warranty exchange for my m1530. Below are the build specs. Seems pretty decent. What do you think?

1 U451C 130W A/C Adapter, 3P
2 R609C 125V Power Cord
3 8FCJ5 Mini Display Port to VGA Adaptor
4 MK8CW 64BIT Operating System
5 WY4K8 XPS L502X
6 V4874 Processor: Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
7 K3MTV 8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz (2 DIMMs)
8 HD4KK 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
9 7N17C Blu-ray Disc Combo (DVD+/-RW + BD-ROM)
10 3C4JR NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB graphics
11 M7F7R Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030
12 KWHN4 Documentation
13 F71M6 Shipping Material
14 MX962 No Media Selected
15 7FHH7 Service Software
16 V9KPP Processor Label
17 TD3P3 Information
18 VWX72 Bracket
19 W3HMK Label
20 0VJFK Label
21 GR6PD Service Software
22 DW8YJ Service Software
23 K35WG Software
24 M239M Software
25 XM544 Image Restore Software
26 99RFP Dell Support Center 64 Bit 2.0
27 4WYVT Software
28 61YKY DataSafe Online Backup Software
29 GV0CP Wave Systems Software
30 8GFV1 15.6 inch FHD (1080p) B+RGLED Display with 2.0 MP webcam
31 9RY9V Genuine Windows 7 Professional
32 V5H6X Elemental Silver Aluminum WLAN Capable
33 N96VP Microsoft Office Starter
34 243Y0 9 Cell Primary Battery
35 GRJ9V Internal Backlit Keyboard - English

 

Hi fellow proud owners of M1530s! . I recently ran into a problem with my bluetooth driver. It seems that it's not listed under device manager at all (there's nothing related to bluetooth, and there's no "unknown devices" too, so it's not just a driver problem); and neither in the control panel as well. (there's no "bluetooth" in Hardware and Sound).

I can confirm that my bluetooth is turned on in BIOS while booting up, and it's working perfectly fine while im running ubuntu. So it's definitely a windows problem. I've tried the the suggestion here by reverso, but it's still not detected. Anyone else here have the same problem?

PS: I'm running windows 7 Professional SP1 (build 7601) 32-bit , Bios version A12 11/19/2008.

update :
Turned out that i installed motionjoy and it screwed up the ports. It works fine now after uninstalling the virtual ports in device manager.

 

anyone has a updated list of latest drivers?

 

I'd give Dell my wife's old XPS M1530 and my SXPS16 for an L502x with those specs.

 

After owning the laptop for a little more than 4 years, my M1530 has finally decided to crap out. After being used for school work everyday for 2 years and then being a gaming/media center for the last two, it's served me quite well.

I tried turning it on today and everything turned on like normal, but the screen doesn't display anything and the HDMI port doesn't output anything. Any possible fixes?

 

what u did to get the waranty change i wanna do that too my xps 1530 its so damn hot and turn off alot plz tell me

 

Hi. My dad bought his m1530 last 2009 (forgot the month) but thats not the issue here.

I now have a dead Dell xps m1530 and I really dont know whats wrong with it.

Here is what happens when I turn it on:
I press the power button and I hear the fan firing up. Then the fan stops working and the screen does not display anything. It's not even lighting up. The power is still on but no booting up what so ever.

Here is what I definitely know. The HDD is still working because my brother has a similar laptop. I tried it transferring my HDD to his laptop and it works. I also know that the LCD monitor is not busted because there were times that the laptop came back to life again and I could use it but after I shut it down, it died again.

I don't know if its the memory or the worse the motherboard itself. Can anybody share their thoughts about this?

 

sorry I posted something incredibly stupid earlier! What I wanted to know is can I mix and match ram in my m1530 without any issues? Like for example can I put 2 of Patriot 4GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory Model PSD24G6672S and get 8 gb without any consequences? Because in desktop, this type of mixing is a strict no no. This is why I'm asking

 

Hi, my warranty ended a few weeks ago and my laptop just fell about a foot high off the ground while plugged in and is no longer charging. It still run on the ac adapter and I've already tried a few of the obvious solutions and tried another charger, so now i'm thinking its either the power board or the mother board. I wanted to clarify if the power board can be replaced separately, and if anyone has done it, where did you purchase the part.

 

Hi
I have XPS M1530 and few weeks back I got 2 motherboards replaced at local technician. now my machine has the one with Nvidia 8600M GT and it worked fine till tomorrow.now the problem is sometimes it boots normally and sometimes it doesn't boot at all. I do a trick to start the machine. i connect the power supply and power on the machine and wrap it with a towel for 10-15 mins the machine becomes hot and then I forcibly shut down the machine and allow it to cool down for another 10 mins. after that when I switch it on it boots normally in to win 7 and works perfectly all day long.I follow this process daily to start my machine. I m not able to figure out whether its is a GPU failure of something else. any idea??

 

Has anyone had issues with bad harddrives with m1530?

I know life of hdd varies, but my m1530 from summer '08 has been reporting bad sectors all over the place. I don't know the actual number of bad blocks, but my SMART value in Fedora 15 tells me I have 5706 bad sectors (which could also include reallocated sectors).

Just curious if anyone else has had issues with the HDD. Mine is 320gb 5400rpm.

 

I am also facing this HDD issue. Mine is 160 GB and has developed bad sectors and one day it totally crashed. I used a software 'KillDisk' to format the HDD(low level formatting) . Now its working fine

 

Hello people,

I am facing a No Sound from HDMI Issue.

So far I've tried :

-Installing older Nvidia Drivers (176.44 from Dell)
-Installing older Sigmatel Driver
-Installing newer Nvidia Drivers (190.56, 266.58, 280.26, 285.62 )
-Installing newer IDT/Sigmatel driver from Keyliner's blog

All the above in a XPS M1530 with Win 7 x64 Ultimate SP1. VGA is 8400M GS.

Thank you for your help in advance.

 

Has it worked before or is this a new problem? I know for mine, i have to disable my speakers in the playback devices for it to work.

 

It's my girlfriends laptop and she hadn't even tried to connect it to her HDTV...

I got her an Intel 320 SSD and Win 7 and afterwards i tried to see a movie with MPC.

i also disabled Speakers in Playback devices. i didn't reboot though after doing that.

Which Video/Audio drivers do you have installed atm ?