**The Official Studio XPS 1645 Intel Core i7 "Owners Lounge" - Part 2

I've a problem with my 5.1 audio system.

If I put the black jack (rear speakers) in the first space (where usually there is mic) i don't receive any type of signal, but if I put the jack in the second space all working fine.

In the IDT audio panel I've tried any type of possibility, but I don't found any solution


THX

 

As I am not at my laptop at the moment, I can't recall the exact details, but I believe there is a option somewhere in the IDT audio panel for "jack monitoring", you might want to try turning that on. I can't recall the order of the plugs, but I think the first plug (closest to the front) is for front left/right (normally headphones), the next is for rear left/right (normally a 2nd pair of headphones), and the last (normally mic) is center/subwoofer. Though I might be off in the 2nd and 3rd jack, I recall the order being a little strange.

Also, if you are in the IDT audio panel and in the right section (the one that has an image of the 3 plugs), if memory serves, you can click on the plugs in the image directly to configure what you want them to be.

Hope this helps, otherwise, if I remember when I get home, I can figure it out then.

 

The first two from the front are for headphones/speakers.
The third hole is for a microphone.

Do you try to see if anything works in the first slot, maybe it is dead?
Or maybe it just isn't compatible with your equipment.
Although if by "first one" you meant the one closest to the USB port - than this is for microphone - and that is why your speakers don't work.

Hope that helps.

 

Just for clarification, while the plug closest to the usb ports is for a microphone, the IDT software can detect when you want to use it for a 5.1 speaker setup, and will configure it as an output instead of an input. I have done this myself, so I know it works.

 

All "holes" works fine
If I chiose 5.1 system the microphone hole don't work, but in IDT panel there is "rear speaker" selected....


Another question.
I MUST installa XP on my XPS, where I can find ATi drivers for 4670?

 

I'm pretty sure that you would have to mod some fairly old CCC drivers so that they will install for the 4670m.

 

I've got a problem here. My 1645 laptop has a built in monitor of 1920X1080 and I recently bought a HDMI cable to then I can hook my laptop to my external monitor of 1920X1080. It's a LG Flaton w2353v and I've completed installing the drivers and then rebooted. When viewing my screen from the external monitor, the full screen isn't in use, leaving a black border around the picture about an inch wide. This isn't part of the bezel, the monitor isn't showing the full picture even though when I check the screen resolution, it says 1920X1080. If anyone has any insight as to why this is happening, I would love to hear it.
Thanks,
Spike

 

Go into the display settings for your TV in CCC, and adjust the 'overscan' setting.

 

Perfect. Thank you so much!

 

Having the same problem. Can you help me with this? I went into the Help contents and can't seem to find the overscan setting. I go into desktops and displays and it shows both my display, I have it on extended. I click the triangle on the external monitor and don't see the options needed to do so as described in the Help contents.

 

hey, guys just needed a bit of help. kinda dumb question, but, still,
how actually does the SXPS know of the wattage (90W / 130W) of the AC/DC adapter connected to it. I mean does it have some communication protocol over its power lines to talk with the adapter or anything else ?
thaks in advance.

 

@reas

It can definitely tell...go into your BIOS and it will tell you what wattage you've plugged in.

Some sort of communication protocol, for sure.

 

Center pin in the power lead carries an id code

 

I was asking, HOW does it KNOW ? i know it must be using some comm protocol, but, what protocol and if anybody knows about it.

@SkyWraith: thats a start, thanks. yeah, now i see the center pin is the +19.5V terminal and the outer is the GND. do you know the IDs of the the adapers and it's format ?

 

In your ATi Catalyst Control Centre, click on Desktop & Displays and then right click on the one you want to change the settings on. I'm not at my laptop at the moment but there is a dial in one of the tabs which controls the overscan. You want that value to be at 0%.
Spike

 

I highly doubt there's any kind of 'communication protocol'. Much more likely, it just measures the amps that the adapter is capable of, and uses that to calculate the wattage.

 

The adapter has resistors and transistors in the circuitry which limit the power draw to what it's rated for. The PC can figure out the amount of energy coming in through voltmeters and ammeters built in to the system.

 

I was thinking on that line, but, this process is completely instantaneous i.e. 130W shows immediately in the BIOS as soon as I plug it in. or in other way, that means the laptop needs to nearly short the terminals to determine the peak Amps at a particular voltage.
I was actually thinking of using a 12V LeadAcid battery to power a DC/DC converter to drive the lappy.
It's a new laptop & I'm kinda cautious. If power measurements happen the way you suggest I think the laptop would blow cause LeadAcid batteries can easily deliver tens of amps when shorted !

@spike53 - yeah I get that, but, i'm talking about identification.

 

I'd have to imagine that is exactly what it does. I should be able to measure amps near instantly, so it's not like it's shorted for a long time, though I'd recommend against hooking a car battery up to it .

 

@seeker_moc

Haha, right: it's probably something like that. I consider that a form of a communication protocol!

@reas_seammes

But, right. I seem to remember from our throttling discussions that the BIOS limits how much wattage you can have. So, before the BIOS updates, you could plug in a 210W PSU (and the BIOS identified it as such), but the system would still throttle, only providing 90W.

But, that was only tested using Dell PSU's...I'm unsure whether that limit is still in place for non-Dell PSUs, i.e. your lead acid battery, lol.

~Ibrahim~

 

The potential consequences aren't worth it...I'm with seeker on this one, I recommend against it.

 

hey guys, good news. found exactly what I needed. There is in fact a protocol. The chargers use a MAXIM UniqueWare™ Add-Only Memory chips to store the ID info which use a one wire communication protocol to talk to the laptop Though used in the PA-10 & PA-12 adapters, I'm pretty sure they are also in the PA-4E (maybe some different chip of the same line)
Time to take my hack box out & get going looking for a dead PA-4E
I case anybody has a dead 90/130W adapter of this series could you please look inside & tell me the exact part number on the chip.
@E.D.U. @meeker moc @ikjadoon & everybody else concerned - Don't worry I'm not a risk taker, I'll put a current limiter in the DC/DC converter ! If I find the plan un-stable n potentially hazardous to my laptop I'll abandon it till I get a job n can afford blowing up the laptop
Inside the DELL AC Power Adapter - A mystery revealed | The Laptop Junction

this person has even been able to extract some ID info, check out
Re: Dell PA-10 ac adapter center pin - Dell

 

You know, I shouldn't say it, but, I informed you guys thusly.

Good luck!

~Ibrahim~

 

Is it possible to upgrade our graphics cards to the new AMD Radeon HD 6970M card or atleast something better than the 4670? And if so, where do we get to buy the card (US)? Lots of people saying we can't upgrade. Does it have to do with the chipset and the mobo compatibility??

 

i think it's precisely that, on top of the GPU being soldered onto the mainboard.

 

Space limitations probably won't let you put the HD 6970M card in this laptop. Also, it may not be compatible with the mobo and as daver160 said, the GPU may very well be soldered to the mobo.

 

I can assure you that the GPU is indeed soldered onto the motherboard. Also, the system BIOS only contains a VBIOS for the 4670 and 5730, and even if you replaced one of them with a 6xxx VBIOS, it probably wouldn't work.

 

Wouldn't the VBOIS be loaded onto a RAM chip on the graphics card? I know that's the setup for desktop hardware. The mobo should be compatible as long as the connectors are compatible. Hence since it's soldered on, the connections can't be swapped to be used with another graphics card. From experience, that's how I've found desktops to work. Correct me if I'm wrong and this doesn't apply to laptops.

 

It's not like that on a laptop. There is no VBIOS directly on the card. It is packaged in the regular system BIOS, and the GPU accesses it at boot.

 

hey guys, do you notice any flickering on this site?
Test Screen

I have windows 7, RGB LED Screen...

 

That site flickers for me (WLED screen, Windows 7)... not that it likely matters, as it is likely meant to test something for the rgb screens

 

nope, I don't get any.

 

Could u tell me what ICC profile you are using? And well I need some people with RGB Screens to test this. But thanks anyway guys for letting me know.

Seems like the only difference in ur config is the graphics card.

For future reference, please name:

• Resolution
• Windows
• ICC Profile if any

 

I get plenty of flickering.

1920x1080
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Default/none

 

Mine flickers as well

1920x1080
Windows 7 Home premium
Default

 

ok, cheers guys, so its diagonal lines causing that. I just wanted to know if it happens for all us, guess thats normal..

 

I get no flickering with my RGB-LED at 1920x1080 on Windows 7. I am using this color profile: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...-16-1080p-rgbled-settings-55.html#post6569442

 

I don't flicker as well, so I don't think you can conclude that it's normal. I'm on an RGBLED (1920x1080), Windows 7 Ultimate 64, 130w adapter and I've been using THIS PROFILE (Thanks to mark.carline) pretty much for as long as I've had the system. Best profile I've used and I highly recommend it. Note that it does take some getting used to, as with anything new. Installation instructions are HERE for those who need them (Thanks to iata).

 

Please could some kind person explain the numbers - 1645 47 etc.

What number are we up to now and how old is it?

Thanks

 

It's all based on the CPU in the computer.

1640: has a Core 2 Duo.
1645: has i7 Quad.
1647: has i5 Dual Core Processor or i7 Dual Core Processor.

1640 is the oldest, but continued to sell alongside the 1645, and 1647 for a very long time. The 1647 is only slightly newer than 1645.

And these are my guesses-
1640: October 2008
1645: October 2009
1647: December 2009

 

ICC Profiles for RGBLED here...

Mine's set to 55% brightness (achieves 160cd/m^2 roughly).

Display1_1 is set to a white point of 6500K

The other file (slightly longer name) is set to the native white point

They should both work very well for colour managed applications...

Of course, if you have your own calibrator (not all displays are equal, even if they are the same design), that would be much better!

cheers,
dave

 

haven't yet tried any different profile, just the default that came with my laptop.
I'm on 1920x1080 WLED
Win 7
Default

 

Hi everyone...
Its been bothering me since days now...i have a 1645 i7 ati 4670 6gb ram....but the performance of my laptop (especially for graphics intensive games...) is worse than studio 15 laptops...a mere15-16 fps for nfs hot pursuit 2010...and even worse for bc2.....one of the issues is that i am unable to update driver for my graphics card and also i am unable to access 'catalyst control manager'......i know i am not being specific in stating my issues but even i am a bit confused regarding this...if you think i should further give detailed information regarding this issue ...please let me know...any help would be appreciated...

 

Easy one (hopefully)...

This is the starting point...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/521990-bios-modding-gpu-oc-fun-profit.html

I highly suggest you use the 800/900 overclock found below or the 750/900 in the initial post (the instructions have been removed from the initial post above for the 800/900 and there are extra steps so you will have to ask for guidance so I suggest that you use the next solution, the 750/900). The 750/900 is found in the initial post (or you can ask seeker_moc to make you a custom 800/900)...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...modding-gpu-oc-fun-profit-22.html#post6952440

and this will help a ton in terms of how overclocking, changing the power supply, removing the dust filter, and adding an external cooling fan made a significant difference for me (I installed the 800/1000 but it doesn't work correctly for a lot of people plus I removed the dust filter from the bottom plate directly below the fan and use an external cooling fan. Also, if you have a 90W power supply, you might want to test for throttling and get a 130W power supply)...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...modding-gpu-oc-fun-profit-31.html#post7067509

and especially this for installing the CCC update...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...es-studioxps-1640-45-47-a-23.html#post7105753

and make sure you have the latest CCC update from...
ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver

All of the above should have you covered. Good luck.

 

So, just to report my personal experience, my SXPS-16 (specs in signature) runs everything wonderfully for me (Starcraft 2, Dawn of War 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2 ... wow I play a lot of "2" games), with no modifications, overclocking, or anything. It is incredibly hard to diagnose why a system might not be performing as expected, but there are definitely a few basic things to get out of the way:

1. What is your Windows Power Plan set to? It should be "High Performance".
2. What is your Catalyst Control Center Power Play setting? It should be "Max Performance". (I see you mentioned that you can't access the CCC, this is not a great sign, but I remember I had this problem myself and am just trying to remember how I solved it)
3. Is the area clear around the bottom and sides of your laptop? If you can, play on a clean, flat, rigid surface.
4. I'm assuming you are plugged in (as opposed to running on battery), because gaming on battery isn't a good idea.
5. Are there any programs running in the background or in your system tray that aren't essential?
6. Latest video drivers should be installed from here: AMD Graphics Drivers & Software ? Download the latest drivers for your graphics products

On to your Drivers/Catalyst problem: If you go to the control panel -> Uninstall a program (AKA add/removed programs), do you see "ATI Catalyst Install Manager"? If so, double click on that, hit OK, then choose "Express Uninstall All ATi Software". That should clean your system out fairly well of all ATi stuff.

After that try installing the latest drivers using that link above, or this one if you have Windows 7 64-bit: http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/catalyst_mobility_64-bit_util.exe

Finally, if you can get the video drivers to install correctly and access the CCC, then we can go to the more drastic measures. Also, I do find that cleaning out the dust filter is essential, but only in preventing bad performance from throttling... if you are experiencing bad performance immediately when you start playing (and not a few minutes into gaming), then I think we need to look elsewhere for problems first.

 

I've recently been having some troubles with the machine spontaneously shutting down while gaming. Over the past couple months or so, its average running temperature has been slowly increasing. The machine now idles between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit (as reported by Core Temp). If I run several applications the temperature soon reaches about 150 degrees Fahrenheit, and increases far beyond that whilst gaming.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether this system (or all Dell laptops, for that matter) have some kind of auto-shutdown feature under extremely hot conditions. During gaming the system's temperature will reach above 180 degrees. Shortly after this point it will briefly hang and the hard drive activity will go through the roof. Then it un-hangs for about a second or two (without any audio) and then shuts down.

The whole shutdown thing doesn't feel like a crash to me - Windows appears to know about it in advance (because it seems to do a lot on the hard drive just before the shutdown). Finally, the screen shuts off, but the computer's main LED lights (power, wireless switch, previous song, stop, etc.) remain on for a few brief moments before they (and the fan as well) stop and the system fully shuts down. It feels just like when I shut it down manually... except it does it spontaneously and in a couple of seconds.

I basically have just three questions, then.
1.) Does the Studio XPS 1645 automatically shut down if it reaches dangerous temperatures?
2.) Should my computer really be this hot (about 138 degrees Fahrenheit while idling, upwards of 160, 170, or even 180... although it usually shuts down shortly after passing/reaching 180)?
3.) If it is not supposed to be this hot, what can I do to fix it (hardware fault, or the more-than-likely need for a cooling pad)?

I should make it clear that the machine did not always function in this way... it has only done this for the past several month. Games that it could previously run for hours will only function for 10 or 15 minutes at most before the computer shuts down.

Thanks for the help... I would really like to get this computer working the way it used to work (especially with the release of Portal 2 in just over a month!).

EDIT!
In case anyone wanted my technical specifications:

Intel Core i7 Q820
6.00GB DDR3 RAM at 1333Mhz (2 Dimm)
Win7 Home Premium 64-bit
ATI Radeon 4670 (video card)
500GB 7200RPM Hard drive
15.6" 1080p WLED LCD Screen
Blu-ray combo drive
9-cell battery
Bluetooth module

 

1) Yes
2) It should idle somewhere between 120 and 135F. Max temps of 180F are normal, though it shouldn't go much higher than that. It should throttle itself down starting around 185. If it goes above 195F you may have issues. It shouldn't shut itself down completely until you hit 200.
3) NA

Also, I responded in Fahrenheit because that's what you used, but if you go to a computing forum, 99.999% of people use Celsius (even us Americans) for temps, and Celsius is always assumed in terms of computing.

 

Okay, I'll use Celsius in the future.

My computer used to throttle at high temperatures, but not anymore - either it's running full speed, or it just shuts down. I don't know if that makes any difference, but I wanted to be clear that I haven't noticed it throttling since it started this shutdown thing. I have not used any applications to reduce throttling (I heard about a few but figured they'd be a bad idea for the computer's health).

I have the original AC adapter that came with it when I purchased it in December of 2009 (I think it's the 90W one).

 

You really need to call Dell and have them send you a free 130W adapter. It's not worth troubleshooting further unless you can rule out your power adapter as the main problem. The i7 8xx CPU and 4670 GPU can pull over 90W at full load easy.

 

Hi, what is the max RAM capacity of the Studio XPS 16?
Are there only 2 RAM slots?

If the Studio XPS 16 can support more than 8GB RAM, and if 8GB RAM sticks existed, could it then be 8 + 8 or something?

I know people say all you need now is 4GB for the average user, even though I've experienced extreme lag (not gaming, not photoshop, not engineering programmes or software simulations) with Windows 7 and 4GB DDR3. My old laptop was from the "stock 256MB" era, i.e. 2004/2005, so the 4GB is 16 fold that, and yet a brand new (laptop I had) comp with i7-720QM and 4GB and Windows 7 is slower than that PC when it was brand new (XP, 256MB, Pentium Single Core 1.5GHz) in normal use (eventually upgraded to 1GB after a couple years).