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

There are just 2 slots. And yeah, the prices suck, they'll come down though just wait. There aren't too many brands making this type of memory yet.

 

I just got a 1640 delivered today finally. If anyone is curious about the quality of the base 1600x900 display, it's outstanding!

 

Thanks Eblock.
I will wait till they come down in price for sure.

 

Ouch, this sounds very painful.

Yesterday, I rip and converted to HD Divx a salt water fishtank blu-ray so I can use it as a screensaver took about 30 mins for a 6GB file, compressed down to 900MB. This is only about 30mins video.

Imagine when you have to do this for every video, can be a pain

not sure if anyone here is interested, there is a free giveaway by WinX
http://www.winxdvd.com/giveaway/

 

Thanks max420, I will try it tonight..
But, my issue was not that it does not play, but its just darn slow loading every pre-chapter prior to the movie. For Kung-fu panda, there is about 5 pre-chapters and took about 1 min each sitting there.

 

I am beginning to wonder if it is the BD drive.

Have you asked to have it swapped out with a new one? It's worth a shot.

 

Note that I mean simply rip, not re-encode the thing. It takes me about 20-30 minutes to rip a blu-ray disc, I just remux only the Title containing the film and remove the foreign language tracks, and stick it in a MKV container. Usually ends up taking 15-30 GB but thats what terabyte sized drives are for.

 

Hello,
I've been following this thread since I ordered my XPS 16 (Due for delivery Dec. 28th). Many posts in this thread are beyond my knowledge or needs, but still helpful and educational. For us more "basic" users (are there any out there?) it would be helpful if someone could give suggestions on:

1. what useless software (bloatware) to uninstall & how, I read somewhere that a clean install of Windows 7 took processes down from ~68 to ~50, but for my purposes I don't want to do a clean install, just get rid of crap. I've done this with XP and improved performance but am hesitant to mess with Windows 7.
2. What useless processes to disable and how?
3. What are the essential upgrades> drivers, firmware, etc. and where to find them, dell site? manufacturers site?

I just want to maximize my user experience (boot times, etc.) & I realize these things depend on individual preferences and uses, but an outline of the MOST usless things would certainly be a great starting point for an intermediate user to do further research. Thanks in advance for any help. If you have specific recommendations based on specific configurations, here is mine:

Studio XPS 16 Notebook
Intel CoreTM i7-720QM (1.6 - 2.8 GHz 6M/8 threads)
6GB, DDR3, 1333MHz 2 Dimm
15.6 inch Wide Screen 16:9 1080p Full HD WLED LCD, W/2.0 MP, XPS 1645
Dell Webcam Central v1.4
Facial Recognition
ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 1GB
500GB 7200RPM Free Fall SensorSeagate Hard Drive
Obsidian Black High Gloss Finish with Leather XPS 1645
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Windows Live Search,Multiple User Interface
DELL WELCOME,Software Dimension/Inspiron
Dell Dock Consumer
PC-Restore, Dim/Insp
Dell Support Center Software 64 Bit 2.0
Dell Connect 2.1
DELL-DOWNLOAD-FLAG
DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP,XPS 1645
Windows 7 Label
Integrated 10/100 Network Card
ADOBE READER 9.0 MULTI- LANGUAGE
BluRay Combo Drive
MOD,SW,RXO,EZCD,10.3,DE,FI
Cyberlink Power DVD 8.3 Blu-Ray Disk Playback
High Definition Audio 2.0 with SRS Premium Sound
Intel WiFi Link 5300 802.11AGN Half Mini Card
McAfee Sapphire MUI, 15-Month
9-cell Battery
Microsoft Works 9.0, English For Inspiron
2 Year Limited Warranty
Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus At-Home Service, Extended Year(s)
Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Plus At-Home Service, Initial Year
Banctec Next Business Day In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis , 1 Year Extended
Banctec Next Business Day In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis , Initial Year
Soft Contracts - Banctec
Warranty Support,1 Year Extended
Warranty Support,Initial Year
Thanks for choosing Dell!
LoJack Theft Recovery Service,XPS - 1 Year DHS
LoJack Theft Recovery Softwarefor Laptops, 1 Year
2GB DATASAFE ONLINE 1.1 FOR SDO/DIM/INS/XPS
DATASAFE ONLINE 1.1 2GB
To activate your online backupaccount, go to Start, Programs, DataSafe Online
S and P Drop-in-Box Marcom forDHS Notebooks
Dell Software,Napster-link

By the way, total cost w/ tax, shipping & after cashback=$1520 (US) Thanks BING!

 

Hey! thats awesome thanks for the link..

on a side note what do you guys think a 256GB SSD (samsung) is worth on the open market?

 

eBay has all 256GB SSDs for around £360 buy it now although I've seen one on there for £400. Dell are actually really nice in putting the SSD at such a price.

 

Call them, complain about all the issues you've had with the laptop, and demand a complementary upgrade for your trouble.

 

There are only 2 laptops I have ever seen to have more than 2 DIMM slots, so not sure why you're upset.

 

TODAY I CANCELED MY ORDER. I'm SORRY BUT DELL was PLAYING GAMES WITH MY PATIENCE. AFTER WAITING FOR MORE THAN A MONTH AND A HALF I WAS TOLD THAT MY ORDER WAS DELAYED AGAIN. I'M SO SORRY I SPENT SO MUCH TIME (PROBABLY ABOUT 10 HOURS IN TOTAL) TALKING TO AND WAITING FOR DELL REPS. I'M SO SORRY I SPENT SLEEPLESS NIGHTS READING FORUMS ABOUT RGBLED CALIBRATIONS, POWER BRICK ISSUES ETC. I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS LAPTOP BUT CANT DEAL WITH DELL ANYMORE. I WILL WAIT WHAT VEGAS IS GOING SHOW IN JANUARY. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR ORDER FOLKS. I STILL BELIEVE XPS16 IS A NICE MACHINE

 

I totally understand your pain dude, im in the same boat( delays and cancellations)
Now you can rest, sleep and maybe turn off your caps lock

 

If someone could answer these questions from the previous page that would be great. I'm in the same boat as him except with a delivery date of December 25th.

 

i am slowly falling in love with this laptop. although there some issues, it is overall a great machine and i think once i get the screen sorted i will be 100%. technically it is a step down from my old 1730, but it games almost as well and is so much lighter, i really am diggin' it!

 

I ordered mine on cyber Monday and its estimated delivery date was december 30th but it is already in the packaging stage so I hope it will arrive sometime this week.

 

I also understand your pain. What I don't understand is why Dell with all it's computer wizardry can't contact a customer and make a running change to an existing order's BOM w/o cancelling and and issuing a new order. All that's bad enough but to place the customer's new order at the end of the line blows my mind (what's with that process, totally chaotic and unreasonable). Then after the computer is finally received if you call tech support with a hardware or configuration / setup question they try to tell you that you need to buy a software warranty contract (what's up with that, no integrity). So far, knock on wood, I really like my XPS 16 and it meets my expectation but it was hell getting it (I am bitter about the run around with the order process and generally sour on Dell as a company over all this). Rest assured I will never put myself trough this again (there are other computer manufactures out there that can build and sell me a quality machine w/o all the aggravation). On my first order Dell waited until the estimated ship date and then cancelled and reissued a new order (when I put good hard earned money down to buy something I don't like to be screwed around with, lied to and deceived). Dell knew they had issues so why didn't they simply come clean and communicate the problem or even cancel my order earlier and reissue sooner so the end date would not be so far out (I guess they screwed with a lot of us and I bet the result will be reduced future orders).

 

Short answer to your implicit question: It happened because Dell is a giant bureaucracy with many departments which serve the same functions, poor internal lines of communication, a vastly varying quality of employee (tending towards incompetent -- though I have talked to a few very nice and helpful people), not to mention inconsistent and wrongheaded internal policies.

 

well, you could post a screen of you install, i removed my bloatware, and dont remember what it had, also, some of it is useful, so it depends on what youre using your comp for. i use foxit reader, so i took out adobe, my g/f loves adobe, so i left it in hers, etc.

or, you could join the irc chat in #NBRsupport on irc.p2p-network.net


just download irc, if you dont have it, connect to the server irc.p2p-network.net and join the channel #nbreview, by typing "/j nbreview" without the quotes, and myself, or yarbo would be more than happy to help you with any of your notebook/software configs or issues.

"The most popular shareware IRC chat client for Windows":

http://www.mirc.com/

if you're using firefox try this for irc:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/rt-messaging/chatzilla/

for help:

http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html

 

Can someone tell me about the following specs for the Dell XPS Studio 16 (the one with the i7):

1. Weight
2. Battery Life
3. Ability to install Linux with no issues

 

1) About 3.5 kg or so i think? wouldnt like to carry it round all day, but would happily take it on holiday in a rucksack, but would leave it in the hotel.
2) untested
3) Currently running the new Fedora build, installed fine, although getting the wifi to work was a bit of a fiddle (google for a fix)

 

I get about 2 hours while working at intensive tasks, if im just listening to music or doing somthing simple 2.5 - 3

 

Blu-ray update:

I was on with Dell support for another 15 minutes yesterday. They call as promised. They told me that "many" customers has issues playing blu ray one way or another. So, I told them my work around. They took notes and got the supervisor on and later informed me that they escalated the case to Cyberlink about the issues and expect a patch/fix and/or new version in about 1 month.

Cheers.

 

Nice... do you use slysoft? And how do you get the right languange? I tried it and copt the mt2s file over and it plays, but in french instead of english for kung fu panda.

 

1) about 6.5LBs
2) 2.5hrs normal use
3) no idea.

 

Good work.. thank you

 

A number of folk speaking about doing clean installs as soon as they open the box - Is my lazy approach of using a combination of add/remove programs & msconfig likely be much less efficient? Whilst I will do clean installs later, mucking about with drivers etc on Day 1 lacks appeal but if it's going to make a noticeable difference I could be swayed.

Cheers

 

Apparently Dell is better at not putting as much crapware on PCs nowadays. However, I think most people have gotten into the habit of wiping and reinstalling fresh because there used to be so much bloat installed that had crappy uninstallers that didn't fully uninstall the program and would leave traces all over your computer. My favorite (read: drove me bonkers) case of that was a preinstalled version of Roxio. Didn't know it was there for a while, then I right clicked on a disc drive...it loaded Roxio. On a right click. Sigh. So I uninstalled it. Next time I right clicked on the drive, it reinstalled Roxio, and opened it.
I bet you can guess how long it took me to wipe the drive and fresh install?(Actually, far too long. I was lazy.)

 

Does anyone know of a media player other than VLC and WMP that I can use for playing Blu-Ray using the 1645? I have the Blu-Ray burner and it works great (not burned yet though) for playback, I just hate the UI of WMP and VLC is the only other one I can think of, which doesn't look any better.

 

Has anyone managed to get Bing cashback from Dell? I don't see Dell listed on Bing.

 

Currently fighting with Bing about that. I ordered when there was still a cashback link, but the cashback has yet to even appear as pending in my cashback account.

 

Yes, my Bing account is showing $575 cashback pending. Ordered on 11/27.

 

My Bing cashback did not show up within 2 days, so I had to email them. I now have $355 cashback pending, but that is not 20% of my order. I did have some extended warranty and accidental damage coverage on the order, so Dell must have taken that off the price to calculate the 20%.

It better go through. I don't see why it wouldn't.

If you have not got it pending in your account past a few days from the order, send Bing a email.

 

As of now the CB on the SXPS 16 has been reduced to 5%.

 

I do not thing the extended warranty and accidental damage are excluded. I ordered, for example, 2 years of accidental, and my BCB was within $9 of exactly 20% of my pre-tax subtotal. I can't explain the $9 difference though.

 

Yeah, it was within $15 of my pre-tax total, so I didn't question it. It just seemed odd how they arrived at that number, which makes it seem like Dell actually reviewed the transaction for the Bing cashback. If it was just Microsoft reviewing it, they would have just looked at the invoice and taken 20% of the pre-tax total.

 

I have a weird audio issue, In IE, i heard a dull faint sound when clicking links or sometimes nothing, audio works fine for other applications. I checked mixer, don't see Internet explorer listed, I think it needs to be for audio to sound right?

Just a strange issue, wondering if anyone else has it?

 

Yeah, some links will make a faint click when clicking them.

Not sure where the concern is there.

 

Regarding Bing cashback, I did receive it but had to e-mail microsoft and send them my invoice, but ONLY because I had to complete my order over the phone due to browser issues. However, they posted it quickly and were very helpful and fast. Also, the cashback for the computer build and accessories I ordered were posted seperatley. This may explain some issues I've read regarding the amount not being 20% of the pretax total. You may need to contact them and send an invoice showing the accessories total. Hope this helps and yes, 20% expired, its now 5%.
Thanks to the poster who provided me with links to help with the setup/killing of bloatware, but a general outline of useless tasks, processes, startup programs and some overall guidance on setup (power setting, screen settings> Not RGB etc.) and needed upgrades, drivers, etc and where to find them would be greatly appreciated. Again, I understand it is user preference but some guidance would be great. For example: If you kill xyz process abc won't work but is not needed unless you want/use efg or killing startup xyz is not needed cause you can start it when you need it. I understand this would require a bit of work from ya'll but it seems there are many experts in this forum that could provide this info much faster than I could search it out. Lastly, it doesn't have to be extremely specific but would be a nice guide for further research so I could then make my own decisions. Thanks Again everyone and best of luck with your machines
Mickey

 

Just a quick followup regarding useless processes. I only want guidance on the out of the box computer. I want to clean it up prior to any extra installations, incuding Office, printer, wireless mouse etc. Basically, kill Dell's preintalled useless stuff and disable uneeded startups & processes on out of box unit. Thanks for any help

 

That's not an issue, it's a feature! Go to the Sound control panel and look at the Sounds tab. The sound selected for "Start Navigation" is what sets the click sound for Internet Explorer.

 

I use arcsoft totalmedia theatre and its been great. It plays all the mt2s files on the blu ray disc.

 

Dell corporate tech support (internal), knows about the Cyberlink PowerDVD 8.3 update that totally hoses Dell's OEM version of PowerDVD. If you push hard enough, you may be suprised at the results, before Cyberlink catches up.

 

Thanks, I did that - don't see IE or Messenger listed! Just got IM from Messenger, no sound?

Weird. Maybe it is the theme I'm using the Windows theme with the logo on it.

 

Hey Alemaker, I must be misreading your sig. Why did you get a Blu-Ray drive if your screen is only 900p? I am not even sure 900p is possible on the 1645.

 

1600 x 900 is considered 900p (by Dell, at least )

 

Yup- 900p means 16:9 resolution at 1600x900 , already tried 1080 and it was givin my eyes issues. Long story short, 900p isn't a usual config from what I see on Dell's website, was a special order. , and Blu-ray looks awesome on it-just got done watchin Night at the Museum-Battle at the Smithsonian-nice

 

The "Start Navigation" item is listed under the "Windows Explorer" group. See if you can find it. I don't have Messenger installed so I can't comment on that.

And yes I believe a theme can alter these sound selections.

 

Hey WS! I thought that you would like it. I am waiting for the i7 to become available on the business side. Cheers