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

Can someone recommend a good DisplayPort to HDMI connector. Has anyone tried it and does it transmit audio?

Thanks
Nikolay

 

I buy all my audio/video cables and adapters from monoprice.com. Their prices are very affordable. They might sell something.

 

continuously? ive seen it got 2700 but maybe for a second or 2.

 

I have my 1645! Huzzah. Infact, I'm typing this post on it. LOVE the screen and the speed. So much better than my 3 year old Acer laptop I'm considering doing a fresh install of Windows 7 though... so much Dell software pre-loaded. I have to say... I really appreciate the lack of gaudy/bright LEDs and indicators. A definite good design choice there. It's a small thing, but my Dad has a newer Acer laptop, and it has a huge blue LED that wraps around the keyboard!

And for those that care, it came with the 130W powersupply... bios is at A08.

 

Win7 does a pretty good job of removing program "bloat" when you do an uninstall. I'd recommend going through Add/Remove programs to get rid of all the Dell crap, then if you still think it isn't performing at it's best do a full wipe.

 

Sweet, thanks for the tip. That sounds like a much better solution. I imagine I won't be pushing this baby anywhere even near its limits, so perhaps I'll save the complete whip for a year or so down the road

 

Nope your are correct...that is peak, not continuous, I've seen 26xx for several minutes, but the 2700 was only a brief peak.

 

I've been chatting with ikjadoon about the pics he took and he kindly provided a link to the high-quality (8M) pictures which I started looking at today.

You need to look at the high quality pics as some of the letters/numbers on the chips/mobo are very small.

http://www.transferbigfiles.com/58f...66dbcb1?rid=YyhLPPlsSKrPvNRg8et/Kg==#download

I've found few which could have been it, but after googling them I don't believe they are the PLL. I'm still going through the pics but hoping someone who has more experience can pick it out faster/sooner.

The link expires on the 24th.

 

Are you all talking about peak speed? I hit 2790 all the time. Things to check: in win 7 if you are running 'balanced' power profile make sure you set the processor max and min under advanced to 100%. What I did is make the 'balanced' profile my high performance profile. I set it all manually and make sure all the settings reflect high performance. So now if the laptop is unplugged, the quickset app sets to power saver and balanced when I plug it back in.

Also, check your speeds with CPU-Z so you can view the QPI as well

 

Yes i was talking about peak speed, I checked all the power setting and they seem good for max performance while plugged in, looked at a bunch of my past logs...found one a bit higher at 2768.5

 

sometimes cpu-z and the turbo boost gadget dont report the same speed for me.

 

Finally bit the bullet on an Outlet 1645 here in the UK, took a week to turn up.
General specs of laptop:
Hard Drive - 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Memory - 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
Processor - Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
Optical Drive - 8X Slot Load BD RE (Yup BD writer which is what pushed me over the edge)
Monitor - Full HD Widescreen 16 inch RGB LCD (1920x1080) W/2.0 MP
Battery - 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Color - White High Gloss Finish (Ok we can't have it all)
Video Card - ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 1GB
Wireless Card - Dell Broadcom 54g (;-( Intel 5300 now on order)
Blue Tooth - Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module (2.1+EDR)
Generally very pleased with it, significantly faster than my Studio 1535 though it turned up with A02 bios and 90W adapter.

Rang Dell today to request the 130W and it's still not automatic! I was told I could only have one if I was suffering issues, fortunately having researched well I just told them that I was suffering from slow down and flickering in newer games and slowdown when compiling across 4 cores. Helpdesk guy put me on hold and went away, then came back and said I could have one.
Had considered Vaio F or Envy, but got this for significantly less!

 

Hi from Italy,

i had changed 2 times the RGB screen of my studio xps 1645, and both screens have a little space between the glossy cover and the two grey borders from which comes out the screen light.

I want to know if everybody else have this problem, or if it is the normality.

thank you

 

Bump. Has anyone else tried finding it?

 

I don't really trust CPUZ/CPUID since it says my i720QM uses ~55 watts when in normal use and spikes up to ~63 watts. Since the speed is a calculation of power consumed I can't imagine it would be correct.

Intel tells me the i720QM's TDP is 45 watts.

Either that or CPUZ/CPUID includes other values as part of the "i720QM processor."

 

TDP does not equal power consumption...

 

OK I see I was wrong. The TDP represents the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate... when the CPU is running at a an arbitrarily high usage.

It's kind of funny how it's so easy to find the TDP doing an online search (for wattage) but the number is so useless to everyone outside of the 'designing laptop cooling systems' business.

So I guess this means that CPUID is correct, and my i720QM can spike up to about 65 watts or so. Also, CPUID says my battery wear level is 8% but the laptop is less than a month old. Should I be concerned?

 

Never seen mine spike to 60W. At most it's at 55W and I assume that's when turbo was on. All cores/threads in use it sits at 45W.

 

I double checked, and it seems as though the application itself never shows values over 55.04W for me. However, the graphs it generates does.

Also, it only shows me values of 15.34W (idle) and 55.04W (any user activity at all).

The graph below is from CPUID Hardware Monitor Pro (trial) 1.08.0, with the computer running the quad-core application "Resident Evil 5 Benchmark Version."

 

Strange... my 1645 came with the 130W adapter and A08 bios...

Oh, and I completely agree with the price... I looked around and couldn't find anything even close (in terms of specs) to the 1645.

 

Why would you need this? the laptop has hdmi built in? And both the Displayport and HDMI transmit audio. Why would you need a displayport to hdmi connector when you can just go from directly from HDMI to HDMI?

 

nikolay,

Try this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...deo+Devices+++TV+Tuners-_-STARTECH-_-15158133

good luck.

 

Thanks.

Can someone tell me how to downgrade my BIOS. Previosly I was able to do so, but now I am not. Software states that I already use current or newer version and does not allow me to downgrade.

I need to do so, because for some reason my BIOS fails to save changes. After turn off the values are being reverted to its default state. A local dell tech guy told me, that this is known problem and I need to downgrade my BIOS and upgrade it again afterwards. But I can not downgrade .

Thanks
Nikolay

 

I'm wondering if there's any alternative to the Cyberlink PowerDVD DX. I find it very annoying how when I play Blu-Ray movies I am unable to click on menu items and I am forced to use the keyboard. This is very annoying with the new Avatar blu-ray disc, because for some reason the menu items don't highlight when they're selected, so I just have to guess where selection is and hope I hit the button I want.

 

Nikolay,

Check this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450888

It should have all of the info that you need.

Dan

 

Hey guys. I'm back, I've been busy and therefore have lost touch with this amazing forum
Anyway, i'm back, but sadly with a problem - my comp has started to hang. Before, it hung only twice while using office 10 and once on a random occasion, that was OK i mean I wouldnt expect it from this machine but whatever, now today, it hung. TWICE. Once, I was looking at a pdf file when I get an alert from MSN and it freezes and once again, when after waking up from sleep mode, it hung. I had to HARD RESET Luckily I was working on One Note and did not lose and work. (Thank God). Any Guesses on what the problem might be ? Pls Help !

 

Do you have the Creative X-Fi Sound software installed? If you do, remove it. It was nothing but bad lock-ups for me. Then update your sound drivers with the new ones off the dell support site.

 

ohh seriously ? Dell like shows off the creative sound blaster thing :/

 

Marketing at it's finest....

 

Anyone had this issue:

During 20% or so of battery left: no particular program open, but the screen flashes a few colors and then goes black? Usually removing the battery fixes it, but sometimes just restarting is fine. However, every time this happens the BIOS resets and I know this bcause the "Wireless" key is set to BT Switching Only, but if it resets, it gets set back to All Switch.

Bad mobo?

~Ibrahim~

 

Hey guys, question about getting your battery adapter replaced. Are we now required to send our old 90w back? I super lagged it on getting my replacement. And the representative that I called said I'm suppose to send it back in the prepaid box when I receive my 130w adapter.
Thanks.

 

Yup, they need it back. I just hand the 90W back to the DHL person in the box that the new 130W adaptor came in.

 

OK, the update appears to be "IDT 92HD73C1 Audio" dated 4/5/2010 version 6.10.0.6267 A18. I did this update per the instructions and now show two drivers in Device Manager for Sound, unfortunately I didn't look at Device Manager before the update - should there be two drivers as shown or should I remove "ATI High Definition Audio Device" - see attachment (what do others show in Device Manager for Sound - do others show two drivers "ATI and IDT" or one driver?).

 

Did you remove the X-Fi ? I dont know, i'm a little hesitant removing it. and as for the Audio drivers, if your getting proper sound, there are no bad lock ups, why mess with the system ?

 

I did not remove X-Fi and have had good sound. Although, I have had an occasional lockup. I downloaded the new driver from the Dell Support site and followed instructions to update the driver and all seemed to go well. But after the update I looked in my Device Manager > Sound and see two drivers (IDT and ATI). I guess both are supposed to be there but not totally sure?

 

I have not done the update yet and have two audio devices one from IDT and one from ATI so I think all is fine with yours!

 

yeah and if all's well, its ok

 

I believe the ATI sound driver is for outputting sounds through external speakers when using an HDMI cable.

 

CAn you guys open up hardware monitor an tell me your FULL charge capacity of your battery?

my designed is 7650mWH while the full is 6934mWH. Sucks that its not to its fullest ,could probably get me another half hour or so.

 

can u tell me how to check it

 

download and open hwmonitor
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

 

7804 is my full charge capacity - it is rated 7800....

it is liked that you have already experience some battery wear that some users were reporting in earlier in this thread and the throttling thread.

 

wow . really? i didnt come across any of that. My rating was like that when it was brand new too ( 1 month ago) i just never really said anything.

 

Yea, the two of them are supposed to be there. I believe the ATI one is for outputting sound (that one, I believe, is usually updated with your GFX/video driver). There is actually a newer IDT driver now, if you'd like to install it. Go to this thread, if you want to get that one. It's 6.10.0.6272.

@Goodwood8. Although I get what you're saying ("why fix it when it ain't broke"), newer sound drivers can fix certain bugs that older ones had. Just because you don't notice the bugs, that doesn't mean they aren't there. Also the newer drivers can use less computer resources, as it's been further optimized and such. Usually it goes the newer the drivers the better, but we all know that that's not always the case...

 

i ran hw monitor and i have the computer listed in my sig...however it only shows temperatures for two cores...shouldnt i have 4?

 

mine says the full charge capacity is 7200...

 

theres a lot of complaint regarding the battery wear on sxps 1645.. hugely due to heating problems and heat vent design..... hey its al right pp.... i have been using my lappy since 3 months and battery wear is 29.9% (Total charge capacity decreased from 7650Mwh to 5360 Mwh)... another 10% in a month then i'm gonna get it replaced...

 

I just got my XPS 1645 6GB 820QM RGBLED etc etc but temps are quite high on the bottom of the notebook and I havent even played yet, just copying tons of files from my external hard drive.

Not sure if I should have taken the i7 620M ???? I heared its a drop of 15 degrees. Would that also help the touchpad temps?

Im not sure, I like this laptop. I heared with the new graphics cards the temps will be much lower, with 57x ati series?

what do u guys think?

 

See my signature for the configuration of my laptop. I've played games for hours and have never had a hot touchpad. Where is the harddrive located in this laptop? If it is below the touchpad, then that might explain your hot touchpad. Idling (browsing the web and writing this message) my core temps are averaging around 53C and harddrive is 37C.

*edit: perhaps my lappy was doing something in the background... my temps are dropping now... average about 46C

 

I think 540M and ATI 5xxx is the way to go. Save a good bucks from i7-620M, plus less heat and consumption for a laughable loss in performance. Here.

The bad thing is nobody knows when (or if) Dell is going to upgrade the GPU anytime soon, and there seems to be quite a severe shortage of RGB screen atm. Too bad because Dell might lose me as a potential buyer here