**The Official Studio XPS 1647 Intel Core i5/i7 "Owners' Lounge"**

haha nice any chance you can post me a link to that ?

 

Here you go Link $1600.00

 

I read a good portion of this thread, but missed the last few pages. What do you mean "integrated chip"? It doesn't use a socket? It's soldered onto the motherboard or something?

AFAIK, it's just another CPU chip, just like all the ones before it and thus is user-replaceable.

~Ibrahim~

 

Ye im sure I have been told possibly on here that the chip is souldered on ? am I wrong? sorry if I am, I dont want to be giving false info.

 

There's 2 versions of 620m, bga and pga. I don't think dell will use the embedded one on laptop. Anyone with 620m can read type on cpu-z.

 

I know the GPU is soldered onto the motherboard (at least for the 1645) so no replacing that unless I'm very much mistaken.

But the CPU (as per Wikipedia) on all XPS 16s is use a socket, thus is user-replaceable. Someone can check, but don't know if anyone wants to open their new baby just yet.

@yejun

Ah, didn't know that. Oh, yeah, I forgot CPU-Z reports the socket. I was thinking for a moment that there was a replaceable socket, but Dell themselves like soldered the CPU onto it.

~Ibrahim~

 

Were did you egt the money for that ASUS lol its awesome! Were on the net can ou get it for $1600 ?

 

Lol its cool I believe you Im not the brightest lightbulb in the bunch. However it can be upgraded to the i7 quad cores can it ?

 

Maybe you are right, both 620m version are embedded.

 

Exoticpc.com

Free shipping and no tax helped

 

That asus does look promising, although it looks heavier and most probably has worse battery life.

What is the battery life like on these i5 models? Could I conceivably play an entire movie in HD, with the 9-cell?

 

I would assume, if the chipsets are the same, the i5/i7-duals can be upgraded to i7-quads.

There might be some BIOS differences that set the voltage which may cause issue, but a cross-flash shouldn't be impossible.

~Ibrahim~

 

Yejun, after doing a bit of research, I don't think "embedded" means what we think it means. Have a look at this post.

Also, if you reference the i5-540M product page, down the bottom you will see the BGA1288 version, and it's not embedded. As you probably know, ball grid array CPU's can only be fitted to the socket, by melting solder balls, hence the name.

So, for all the Arrandale CPU's used in the SXPS 16, they could either be fitted by pin grid array (PGA) or soldered by ball grid array (BGA). With this information in mind, my money would be on Dell using the BGA socket for all of the CPU's in the SXPS 16 because the BGA CPU/socket is over 30% smaller than the PGA. It also offers other advantages discussed here in the Wiki article.

So if you really wanted to be sure, all we'd need is a i5-540M owner to post up his socket from CPU-Z. If it's BGA, then we know that embedded definitely does not mean it's soldered to the board, and it means what's mentioned in the post linked above.

 

anyone have any ideas to improve the cooling on this laptop ? I just tried running it withoug the plastic exhaust and it improved cooling by 6 derees .. of course it's not an option to leave it open all the time.

With plastic off : 10 mins of prime95 : highest core at 60, other a 55

with plastic on : 10 mins of prime95 : highest core 70, lowest at 65.

I've bought a Zalman nc2000, i hope it will help my temps...
Gotta hate the exhaust position on this laptop ... other than that is it ever great !

 

Let's move away from the term embedded, then. How about user-replaceable? That, in the end, is what we care about.

BGA, from what I see, is NOT user-replaceable.

@jovani

Knocked 20C+ off my load temp by changing my thermal paste on my 1645.

~Ibrahim~

 

It may be just me, but a soldered socket cpu would seem like a bad choice on dell's part. As you fry a motherboard, you take the cpu + gpu with it. Would be an expensive part to have to throw away each time a mobo malfunctions. That and manufacturing shortages could pop up a lot as mobo's would be locked to processors etc, doesnt matter much for the gpu as the 4670 is standard on all.

may just be me though :-/

 

@ikjadoon: If you had the 21 days to send your laptop back would you ?

 

meh, my 1647 with i5 540 and RGBLED screen is arriving this week

Probably too late to ask them to change it to a WLED screen. Yeah I'm gonna be playing games like WoW and Dragon Age on it.

What if I played the games with a LCD attached to the laptop would that improve the performance? Sadly I wouldn't be able to enjoy the RGBLED screen...dell is really giving us a lot of unnecessary stress

 

Although the RGB screen is probably gorgeous it doesnt make up for the throtteling it causes.

 

Hi guys I updated my ATI drivers from AMD site, and know when I right click it doesnt have the Catalyst control panel option anymore.

Can anyone help me out ? As to how to get it back or were it might be located.

 

well see if it is in the control panel if its not...you might want to completely back it out... use driver sweeper in safe mode after you uninstall it if you have to uninstall it... it takes care of the crap left behind!

 

Not a chance in the world. I don't play games and my i7-720QM doesn't throttle even with full brightness on the RBGLED. Others have different situations and just because it works on my system gives NO right to Dell to "not fix it". But that's been established.

I have Blu-ray, HDMI, DisplayPort, best laptop screen in the world (as far as I've seen), 1080p, fast SSD, 6GB of RAM, quick bootup, it's perfect. And now I have low temps, too!

~Ibrahim~

 

Its in the list of programs installed but theres no option for it in the start menu or even a .exe in the computer/program files

 

If dell gave me a SSD for free, I would probably keep my xps as well.

 

@fluffyuk check control panel to see if it is there....if not then uninstall and use this http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/ (use the zip version then you dont have to install it) in safe mode to remove the remains...then grab new driver and install...

 

Any of you have tried Windows 7 XP mode ? any luck... for me it says Virtualisation is disabled but it's enabled in bios. Weird.
I've also pinned down my BIOS Jamming issue, the bios jams at 3/4 when the 1394 option is enabled.. maybe i have a defective chip ?


I already tried thermal paste, dropped like 10 degrees off of it .. i guess im just a little crazy about temps... because i know what they do to computers !
My desktop (now sorta useless except for gaming) has the Thermaltake Armor case with 4 fans... Hopefully the Zalman helps the temps ?

 

The driver sweeper keeps freezing (Not Responding) when I try to remove ATI drivers. Any Idea?

 

True dat. I'd think anybody would.

But that wasn't something I "got" from the capture process. That was a failed hard drive and a talk with a manager.

I think you're right, yejun. I'd probably still be pretty angry at Dell except for the upgrades.

@fluffy

Yeah. I take that back. If I still had my original 1645 (without these "free" upgrades), I think I might return it. Only thing that would stop me would be the RGBLED screen. That would be a tough pill to swallow.

Run Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode.

~Ibrahim~

 

I sorted it, got Catalyst contrler back. Phew!

And I got a good deal with mine the same system comes out at roughly$1350 without shipping and handling I think. I got mine for $1099 delivered.

So I dont no anywere were I could get the same deal, so thats the only reason im keeping mine. Do you agree in keeping it or do you think I should strike while the irons hot ?

I got the discount because the original quote I got was incorrect and I was told some bogus info so she dicounted the system I wanted.

 

everytime i tired to get a discount the person was like NO YOUR FAT NO DISCOUNT.... even twice i was like o well i guess im not getting a dell and no joke the person said ok have fun

 

Lol ye they have really cut down on discounts, I was saing in another thread that reps arent allowed to give discount like they use to I remember when you could get a bag anda free mouse with every purchase. Try that know and they will call your bluff if you say im not buying.

And managers can only give $100 (or so they state) and even then you have to have a legitimate reason for needing the dicount.

 

Not really true. I got the sales rep (on the phone) to knock off $175 from the price that I configured on the web, and that web price was already a Black Friday special that was $400 off of the "regular price".

Les

 

Did he/she say give me 2min ? Or put you on hold for a min ? Becasue thats one in a million reps ARENT allowed to do that, they have a maximum of $50 to get the purchase.

 

Of course he put me on hold so that he could "talk to the manager". My guess is that, during that time when I was on hold, he went and got a cup of coffee. I have no idea what their maximum is, I just know what I got, and the maximum might well be higher than that.

Les

 

Exactly he had to talk to the manager. reps cant give you the discount The managers limit I was told was $100. My point stil lstands though you had to get it off the manager. 90% of people wont get that kind of discount.

 

Who cares is money off something your going to buy anyways ... bdw what extras come with the xps

 

Like free extras ? Not much dude. A sleeve to keep it in thats about it.

 

That's so weird you guys saying that. When I ordered mine up last week I got a $350 discount but that was including my EPP discount. I just kept telling my rep I'll order another day and she kept putting me on hold and coming back saying I can take $100 off and so forth. Finally I gave in. Maybe it depends on which rep you get. Do they make any commission off of the purchase?

 

They dont make and instant commision, but they are measured on sales stats. And most likely get bonuses for seller of the month or something.

And ye it does depend on which rep and if they are willing to help you out. It also isnt the rep that gives you the discount its the manager so you need a good manager too.

 

My sales agent offerd me $80.00 off last week with an upgrade to a 9 cell battery

 

cool , you have returned you XPS though havent you ?

 

Interesting post, waiting for update

 

Call the Music City/Jaguar Sales team guys. They can net some sweet deals.

Regular Dell number +2169173/2169174 extension.

~Ibrahim~

 

I must say that reading about all the negative issues is somewhat depressing. It would be nice since this is the official owner's lounge to read good things about the upcoming notebook I am getting. I think the throttling issues are a bit over exaggerated. I mean supposedly one person has confirmed it to throttle right? I would wait for at least 5 people to confirm it. Its just annoying to read all these negative posts about the SXPS 16. I understand people are going to have some negative things to say but every post seems negative. I think this is a really great notebook as its been number 2 on this site for quite some time. I am sure there are positive things to say about it

 

Haha you are right, but that is how it works. People have the ability to see the negative aspects more than the positives, I guess thats how we progress

 

The only thing I hate about when dell messes up orders, is that you have to wait another 15 days or so to get your product. I just hate waiting for things.

 

Someone is in DENIAL!

 

Hello guys,

I was wondering about the ability of the 1647 to run Adobe CS4, most of the time I'll be running 3-5 apps of the master collection aside.

I was looking for an i7 before, especially for rendering HD Content (both video and 3D apps). But I'm not a huge fan of heat and the batterylife didn't sound too promissing.

I was planning on the i5-540, for the switchable graphics could proof in handy in the future (when just surfing or documenting).

Any thoughts? I appreciate it, thanks

 

Do the i5's have switchable graphics I know we have gone over this, but im sure someone had the PM55 chipset which is the same as the i7 (which apparently doesnt have switchable graphics).

 

None of the Studio XPS models currently support switchable graphics.