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

You sure its 'sleep' and not 'hibernate' causing your issue?

Maybe things have changed, but Hibernate has never worked right since it was introduced. I don't have a windows 7 machine in front of me at the moment, but go into power options, edit your power plan, look for hibernate and change the default of 360? or something close to that to 0.

Then see your machine works correctly if it does you can re-enable sleep (sleep should be default for lid close). Hibernate occurs after sleep + idle for a few hours. On my 1640 you can tell what mode it is in by the circular light on the hinge (sleep it blinks every few seconds, hibernate it turns off).

 

i would hope (and expect) some resolution to the AC power issue so people can better assess the capabilities of the notebook.

 

Its definitely not hibernate, its one of the things that the tech guy tested. I changed the settings so that the close lid was set to hibernate, and the laptop woke up just fine, but did of course take a while to wake up and windows gave the usual resume message on screen.

 

What GPU drivers? Try going to Dell's or trying the Mobility Modded version. GPU drivers were notorious in Vista for butchering sleep mode.

Hmm...Kung-Fu Panda guy: try without the adapter.

~Ibrahim~

 

Okay... now it looks like I've really borked up my system tonight.... and will be forced to do a clean install of Win 7 unless I can restore my MBR to the Win7 MBR. Long story short: GRUB2 does NOT work well with some aspects of Win7 Professional x64. So, I deleted the linux partitions, and would like to restore the Win7 MBR. I loaded the Dell Win7 rescue discs, did the startup repair until it said everything looks great, but I still get the GRUB2 prompt when I boot off of the drive! Argh! Looks like I'm learning the hard way with Windows 7....

My question for you guys is this: What is on the two hidden partitions (Dell 40MB partition and Recovery Partition) and can I delete these since I'm forced to do a clean install? I'm assuming the recovery partition is Win7 recovery, but I don't seem to be able to access it since my MBR is pooched. Any suggestions????

Thanks.

 

Hmm...40MB partition, I think, contains Dell's diagnostics. You can't just wipe the Linux partition and restore Win7 to that? The recovery should still work; I think it runs off the PBR, which may not be pooched.....

~Ibrahim~

 

Okay... looks like I was able to repair the MBR. I've done this tons of times with WinXP, and it's easy... just wipe out the linux partitions and then use the rescue disc to reset the MBR... not problems. But it seems that Win7 is acting differently when it comes to re-installs and resetting things like th MBR. I had to run the win7 startup repair mode several times until it told me that everything was okay (even though it wasn't, still was booting GRUB2)... I then cleared the MBR running the command 'bootsect /nt60 d: /mbr' at the command prompt available in the win7 repair disc. Then I ran the Win7 repair utility one more time and it finally recognized that the MBR was not set correctly and neither was the SYS partition. Long story short, it seems to be working now... I'm a bit surprised that Win7 was more than happy to let GRUB2 control the MBR and even the repair disc didn't want to discover anything different. I just need to check if all the strange bugs have disappeared now that GRUB2 is off the machine.

Your assessment of the 40MB partition makes a lot of sense. I was originally thinking that the diagnostics were kept in another part of the CMOS memory. As for the recovery partition, still not sure how to access that, or what it's true purpose is.

I might end up nuking and redoing this install anyways if it's still acting funny, but I'll keep the two hidden partitions... hmm... might have to sleep on this.

 

Not sure why but I got blue screen of death twice trying to watch the HD trailer of Alice in Wonderland on youtube. I did end up getting it to play but still concerend on why I got it in the first place.

 

Yes it is a little scary when you switch SATA operation in the BIOS to ATA. The problem is in the Windows registry, and fortunately it's an easy fix. Once you change the setting, you'll be able to boot into Windows in ATA configuration, and it'll download the drivers from windows update.

You need to open up the registry (type 'regedit' in the start menu search in case you didn't know). Here are the keys you are interested in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\pciide

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStor

Depending on the drivers you have installed, you may not see 'iaStor'. Each of those will have a 'start' value. You'll notice that the 'msahci' one is set to 0, while the others are set to 3. You can change them all to 0 if you want, but the pciide key specifically is the one that lets you boot into Windows in ATA operation.

Ack! Ok, I re-read my post and want to clarify something that is probably obvious, but I'd hate for someone to mess it up. It's fine to have more than one 'start' value set to 0. So if you wanted to switch between ATA and AHCI operation, you don't have to go back into the registry and switch one to 0 and the other to 3. Just leave them both at 0. I don't know what would happen if you set them all to 3...probably not something I'd wanna figure out. You can read more about this discussion here.

I don't know if this will help with the primary issue you were having, but maybe it'll help.

 

seriously, is going on with dell? mine is getting replaced already too.......

 

To get to the Recovery Partition you need to tap the F8 key at boot up and choose Repair Your Computer option, this will allow you to restore you computer back to the way that the factory sent it to you.

Below is a link that explains the steps:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?docid=362066

 

Grrr.. I hate you so much right now..

On a serious note , Congrats Man.. Please do update us when u actually do receive it.

Wonder when we will receive it..

@anky1645

Dude any updates on your purchase??

 

I have the BD Burner.. For some reason i cant watch a BD disk with powerDVD. I did the update everything Seems good and it just doesnt play. it goes to the loading screen, and does nothing. The computer works fine while its doing this.. any ideas?

 

Hi there.

On my XPS 1645 all DVD are stuttering while playing, only way to avoid it is to unplug the laptop from the power module to have it run on battery. Would that be connected to the throttling issue or could it be something else ? Point is that I see no reports of problems for watching DVD, main talks are about gaming and CPU multiplier.

I have the Blue Ray player / DVD combo.

 

if you updated the Bios then it wont work! so its time to reinstall your whole system! i had to do the same, now the software is uptodate i dont have anymore issues..

 

I indeed burned in the A02 BIOS. But what 'updtodate' software are you speaking of ?

 

@kaushikpai

I'm getting ma core i7 too.i've too ordered it at the bangalore outlet too.
mine was delayed to 18th dec for a day and suddenly it showed EDD as
10th dec with status as Manufacturing build completed. i just hope ma laptop's alright.

 

Hi

On what Date did u order your system?
What are your specs?

And did u speak to someone after which ur system's Manufacturing Build got completed miraculously??

Sorry for a lot of questions..

Cheers!!

 

I hadnt tested my blu ray ROM drive before today, but I have since tried 3 different disks, with 2 of them I get the error that 'PowerDVD DX cannot play back the protected content, Error code = 0122'
And with the other blu ray nothing happens at all, I hear it spin up and go quiet for over 5 mins yet no sign of it playing. The error that finally came up was 'There is no disk in the drive or your disk drive does not support the format of the inserted disk.'
Any suggestions welcome, however because of my other issues with this machine, im still pushing for a complete replacement but I wont hear back from dell until the 'relevant department is open on monday'

 

What goes into the UWB and WW slots on the bottom of the Studio XPS 16? Does anybody know the part numbers and are these parts available to purchase and is additional software required? If interested where to purchase parts?

 

WW is the WWAN slot, not sure about the UWB slot though.

Some WWAN cards on ebay are http://shop.ebay.co.uk/sis.html?_kw=DELL+WIRELSS+5520+/+Merlin+EU870D+MINI+PCI-E++WWAN+CARD although you may be better looking for the WWAN card that the dell mini uses.

EDIT:

After a quick google the UWB slow is your bluetooth, strange that yours doesn't have bluetooth since I thought it came standard?

 

Thanks for the info. I also did a quick search and found the bluetooth card from Dell for $29. Actually, when ordering my computer I unchecked the box for bluetooth because I don't know what folks are using it for. So anyway what does one use the bluetooth capability for on this computer besides a bluetooth mouse or keyboard?

 

Hmm, maybe a phone or a printer? There should be a list of common bluetooth devices on the internet.

 

Awesome, thanks! I'm guessing that the only way to reach this recovery partition is if you can actually boot off of the drive... which was not going to help me the other night. I might do this anyways... my install seems slow now since all these troubles started.

Argh... that Bluetooth isn't even offered for the i7 in Canada for whatever reason. For the 1640 we can get it.

 

yeah, us Canadians get screwed over. Apparently, there are no '820' i7 processors available (that's a lie, you can get it on the US web site), there's also way more savings available.
Bah... damn you Dell.

 

really, are you serious? Canadians cant get the 1645 with a i7-820? WTH?

 

they may be out of stock for a bit, i have one.

 

I managed to get the i7-820 as well. I noticed it was only on the dell.ca website for a week at most. I ordred my 1645 on October 14th and receievd it on October 29th.

 

Just talked with a Dell Tech guy and he told me the frame skipping and stuttering on the 1645 while using the stock 90 watt AC adapter and playing intense games like Crysis is due to the 1645 overheating with the additional juice coming into it from the AC. He also told me that substituting a 130 watt adapter for the 90 watt adapter to try to eliminate the problem is a short term fix because the 130 watt adapter will feed too much juice into the 1645 which will eventually fry the computer.

Does anyone have any facts or educated opinions to dispute this Dell tech guy's answer on the 1645 power issue being discussed here?

 

thats crap. my temps for gpu were in the low 70's after crysis for an hour, and cpu around 77. i can change adapters, or go to battery, and the stuttering stops immediatley, before the temp can even change a degree.

 

got my 1645 wed after about a month of wait. run okay for last three days, went to turn on today and got green tint to whole screen even in bios.. kinda thinkin maybe rgb wasn't the way to go, being in its infancy yet.. given that games are mostly unplayable on ac power im thinking im goin to return for refund and look elswhere, maybe envy.. specs are 720qm, 6gb 1333mhz, rgbled, 500gb, bluetooth...

 

Is anyone eltse having major issues with PowerDVD? It wouldnt work B4 so i did a factory reset and still it wont work.. not for bluerays or dvds, i have been able to play dvd in wmp... The only things i have done are update the bios and update the Powerdvd as it requires you too b4 you can play a blu-ray.

Much appreciated.

 

Power DVD DX is crap. try and find a copy or PowerDVD 9 somewhere. ^^

 

Can it be integrated into Windows media center?

 

I'm holding off on installing any games for a few weeks (don't need the distraction right now) but this thing has still managed to act up on me. In the 4 days I've had it, it has frozen randomly 4 times. Everything stops, the cursor doesn't move, buttons are all nonresponsive. The only thing that works is a hard restart.

Can someone tell me how to go about trouble shooting? I haven't installed anything out of the ordinary (firefox, malwarebytes, auslogic disk defrag, Avast, Itunes, winamp, etc.).

fwiw, when I go to event viewer, the last event after the shutdown is:

Activation context generation failed for "c:\program files (x86)\microsoft\search enhancement pack\search helper\searchhelper.dll".Error in manifest or policy file "c:\program files (x86)\microsoft\search enhancement pack\search helper\searchhelper.dll" on line 2. Invalid Xml syntax.

but that took place about an hour and a half before the freeze.

 

Yeah, I got the hunch when the update for the diagnostic (which on Dell's site is OLDER than the one I currently have, lol) was about 38MB.

~Ibrahim~

P.S. @nick

Are you using it on a bed? Watching a 20-minute show on Hulu with the vents covered up did that to me, temps were in the upper 70's.

 

Interesting, mine has done this also several times I also havent done anything unusual. The only thing we have in common is firefox.

 

Temps, temps, temps. Get Real Temp and get it to log the temperatures. Run it and then check it after it freezes to see how high they got.

What GPU drivers?

 

wow, although it is sad there are lots of issues i am glad i am not the only one...
dell is sending me a new one in 10 or so days, we will see if the new one is screwy too?

 

Wow, i'm impressed. How did you convince them, was it any particular department, and what were the issues you had with your machine?

 

I searched, but could not find..
Can someone post their Windows Experience Index
and list their components, please....

thanks in advance

--Jerry

 

if you mean, will windows media center use the powerdvd direct show filters to decode your blurays etc, then yes. this is just the full version of powerdvd, the first time ive ever seen DX is shipped with OEM systems. so it will function as DX did, but with more functionality.

once you install powerdvd, open it, right click the video widow, go to settings>Video tab and then make sure this box is checked.



ofc, if you have Nvidia or Intel onboard, that will read Interl Clear Video, or Nvidia Purevideo/CUDA and not ATI Avivo.

once youve done that, click the advanced button on the tab youre still on, and set up your deinterlacer to use hardware if you can.



the above steps will ensure you are using hardware acceleration and decoding if you have the right video card, meaning the smoothest possible playback, due to very low cpu usage, even in the highest action scenes.

once youve done this, these settings will be used in most apps that you may use, like MPC-HC, WMP or Media Center, as they are the decoder settings as well as the powerdvd app settings. ^-^

 

Processor: 6.9
Memory (RAM): 7.4
Graphics: 6.7
Gaming graphics: 6.7
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9
Base score: 5.9 (Determined by lowest subscore)

Studio XPS 16 1645 Merlot Red w/ Leather Accent
Intel CoreTM i7-720QM
4GB DDR3 1333, 500GB HDD
ATI 4670 1GB, RGBLED Screen
BluRayROM, Windows 7 OS Label

 

People have mentioned the i7 version of the XPS 16 have improved the heating issues. I wanted to know what was it that they did. Was it a chassis change, or software/hardware?

 

Wow I feel bad that many of you are having so many issues with your SXPS 1645 as I have the same model and I have not have any of these issues. As as I stated before I have been running it for 3weeks @ 10-12 hours a day doing all the normal computing and I have no complaints at all.

The only thing that I have done different is reformat my hard-drive and I have not installed any of the Dell software at all and use the programs that I want to use as long as they are compatible with windows 7 and It works perfectly, I hope that this may help somebody else. Good luck to everybody that has an issue any I pray that it all works out for you guy&gals.

 

I got the same WEI but with (no improvement w/i7-820QM and 8GB RAM):
i7-820QM
8GB DDR3
500GB HD (we would see a significant performance increase with the SSD)
ATI 4670 1GB
Full HD 16 RGBLED
CD/DVD
Windows 7

 

Well the inside has a completely different layout, there is no northbridge, I believe a larger heatsink and fan. I'm using it now, and it is toasty warm (almost uncomfortable even though its on a tray). But it only ever gets this warm on the underside, the touch pad, keyboard and wrist wrests are always cool.

Here's a pic of the inside I found posted earlier:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=41619&d=1260027106

 

I wouldnt worry, the test doest really stress anything that much, and probably isnt capable of testing more than one core.

Also, I've got a feeling its not testing how much memory or how efficient it is, but simply what speed it runs at, explaining our equal scores.

 

specs in sig

 

How do you get Real Temp to log temperatures?

Funny, when I was about to post this reply (I went to move the cursor to the Reply button), it did it again. I had just looked at Real Temp trying to figure out how to log the temps, and all the temps were in the mid to high 50 C range.

GPU drivers are modded Catalyst 9.11.

I can't do anything to induce the freezing, and the Event Viewer doesn't show anything within half an hour of the freeze.

The funny thing is the last rep I dealt with has called me every day since I got this asking me to call/email him back to let him know that I got the computer and everything is OK. I'm going to write an email tonight or tomorrow explaining how disappointed I am in both their customer service and the apparently defective product that I waited two months for