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

I just started to notice a small flickering when I have the brightness turned down (RGBLED) the temperture/basiccolour would change. It's not continueously, but it goes from warm/red to cold/blue/green. Nothing though when on full brightness.

I mean, first time I turned down the brightness I noticed it went really red, and then it corrects itself. But now the flickering/changing colours. It's barely noticable. But I just noticed it when on the forum... OMG!

 

I was going to post about this.. about 50% (going down) I see this but as soon you you raise the brightness it corrects.. it's as there's not a balance in the RGB going down (though there shouldn't be to start with due to the nature of the RGB LED's).. I'm starting to thing this may be a driver/software thing.

brightness down {red} [go brightness down 1 more, then up 1] {balanced*}

*by eye

 

Hi, guys.

Somebody said BIOS? We have a firm ETA. Do not hold me to this, because it is still in test and will be until a short time before it gets web posted. Engineers have determined there is not a need for 130W adapters in the new BIOS to overcome throttling, but that's a moot point, because as I stated earlier there is messaging to the front line techs that they are supposed to dispatch 130W adapters when a customer complains of heat with their 90W.

Current ETA is 2/26, barring testing fail. They usually post on Asia time, so look for it late Friday night. Install it, run your tests, and post back how it goes. I will be on vacation from Thursday, returning Monday. I will ask Brad and Todd to monitor comments here to see how it goes. Thanks for your patience.

 

Does "overcome" mean "eliminate", or just "reduce" in this situation?

 

I lost my dang link to the 1645/1647 combined throttling thread. Can someone drop it in here for me, please? Thanks.

 

You test. You tell me.

I have not seen the test data yet. If I do before vacation, I'll give you a clearer picture. I think it will be closer to eliminate if it's not totally. Just a gut feeling guess there. I can't get into why my gut tells me so. Sorry.

 

Here you go Bill

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=458139&page=30

 

Thank you kindly.

 

nvm, fixed it

 

im now an owner too turning on now for the first time to test out. btw, havent even tried it yet, and it attracted my fingers prints. almost as if it attracted them through the box before i opened it, lol.

 

me tooo. fedex just delivered the laptop.. not yet opened it...
Will post more in a few hours from now!

 

Congrats are you gonna do a clean install of Windows 7?

 

im currently checking to make sure all the parts are in there from what i have ordered everything looks good.

did nothing so far on the laptop besides check some settings, and idle on the desktop for about 20 minutes, and my 90W powerbar is already heated (to an amount where i cant keep my hand on it for a long time). thats pretty ridiculous. going to talk to them now about the 130W bar.

 

Can any lucky soul with a 1647 comment on if the machine supports ATI switchable graphics? If so, have you noticed an increase in battery life using the integrated graphics? Thanks in advance!

 

They lied on the tech specs page on the dell site. It actually comes with the PM55 chipset. I spend 3 days on the phone with techsupport telling them this and the best answer they could have come up with this false advertising ordeal id that the HM55 is not supported for the i5

 

So you are saying that switchable graphics has not been enabled for the 1647, correct? I just got off a 1 hr phone conversation with a sales rep who seemed pretty confident that the machine is capable of switchable graphics. I just sent him an email to get a written confirmation. I will update with what he comes back with.

 

The 1647 does not support switchable graphics. They are shipping with the PM55 chipset which does not have the capability. They were (possibly still are) being shown as having the HM55 chipset which DOES have the capability of switchable graphics if Dell was to enable it through the BIOS, which they don't.

So to recap ... no switchable graphics.

 

Can I just ask why everyone always wants to switch out the graphics??? The 4670 is FINE, this is NOT A GAMING notebook. If you need a better GPU simply consider other options!

 

The reason is it's built into the CPU, and by using it (if we could) it would draw less power by bypassing the GPU whereby increasing time on battery use before a recharge is needed.

 

First off, you completely misunderstood his question. He wasn't asking about swappable graphic cards like the Alienware's, but more about IGP (integrated) vs. Discreet.

Like Macbook Pro's have, it allows you to switch to the IGP when on battery to conserve power, since Discreet graphics chips consume more power. The i5 chip supports this, but dell has not used the HM55 chipset in the 1647 to enable this, instead using the PM55 which does not support it. So there are no switchable graphics in the 1647 unfortunately.

Second, I don't know what your definition of a gaming notebook is, but as far as even Dell is concerned, this IS a multimedia plus gaming notebook. It's not a super high end one like the Alienware's, etc., but that's just different classes of a product. This is low-mid-range gaming notebook. I can game with nearly every game out there at high to max settings and get very good framerates.

 

You are right I did misunderstand his question. Seems like every now and then I read about people complaining about the 4670 series. I think its pretty good. I always thought the Studio XPS line was aimed more towards high end multimedia use like Bluray. The "XPS" line was aimed towards gaming. I never heard this notebook referred to as a "low-mid-range gaming notebook" before but I guess you learn something new everyday.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Would the Core i7 chip on the 1645 support switchable graphics?

 

Only the i5's and i3's have a igp built in them period!

 

Well, the i7 620M has it too, but to me it should really be an i5 class since it is dual core.

 

should i feel ripped off? i dont think i feel ripped off but, i chose to "upgrade" the i5-430m to the i5-520m but after reading 3dmarkscores and whatnots, i noticed that the 430m got better scores. is it because the tests are not accurate?

the 520m has a slightly faster clock speed when looking at the specs though.

 

I received a pleasant surprise today, I played Mass Effect 2 for almost an hour and a half without ANY kind of throttling. The lowest multiplier throttlestop recorded was 16, and almost all the time full turbo-boost was enabled (multi x19).

However, I am not a temperature obssesed guy, but the CPU temp reached the 83C degrees. Is this something to get worried? What are usual temps for you guys, while gaming?

 

Thanks to everyone w/r to my switchable graphics question. You are all awesome to take the time to respond.

It is too bad that this great laptop is not capable of switchable graphics. I will not always be 3D gaming on this machine, so for those times when I am not, being able to run on integrated graphics would be awesome to get some extra time on the battery when I am away from a power outlet. Honestly, I don't have definitive numbers on how much difference it would make in battery life, but I am betting that it would help.

 

I'm in the same boat. I had a XPS16 from best buy, but look it back because of the lackluster battery life. I would LOVE something with switchable graphics, as that would allow me (when not playing games - 98% of the time) to be away from the power cord more.

 

fixed what?

 

He probably had something that he was asking for help on. He fixed it himself, so he edited out his question.

 

Any feedback on temperatures? what are you guys getting?

thanks

 

I have a cooler now but before i had it I would top out at around 70-74ish load but now Since i got my cooler I top around 65ish

 

Looks like Dell is reacting to complaints about its EDD delays because two days ago preliminary ship dates for XPS 1647 was March 4th and now it's showing March 31st. At least it's now more realistic. Always better to underpromise and overdeliver.

 

My studio 15 with a 5470 went to 103 celcius, and dell said that was OKAY ... (and I didn't believe them, and returned it), but my GTX 260 goes to 87, and there havn't been any problems there.

Considering ATI cards tend to run hot, I'd be fairly confident with 80-ish temps. I'm no expert, but it seems to me that 85 is a good upper limit.

 

Thanks Texanman and DCx, but DCx I was referring to the cpu.

 

WHAT THE HELL? 103? That's the way beyond the thermal envelope for integrated circuits. I have to assume that your system was in some way defective and not typical of Studio 15s. There's no way that would make it past Dell engineers.

 

WTH?! There is no [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SysRq]SysRq[/url]-key, no [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_lock]Scroll lock[/url]-key and no [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_key]Pause/Break[/url]-key on my new dell-keyboard!!! My old 10" asus netbook has it. But the 16" dell-flagship didn't got it

 

I have never used any of those keys, AFAIK. Maybe nobody else does either....

 

lol, wow. i never noticed it. i never need them, but thats pretty funny

its like they seperated the keys we need from the keys we dont need.

thats why there is a dedicated printscr button now lol

 

If you really need them there is the on screen keyboard

 

"In 2010, Lenovo removed the SysRq key from some of their new laptops."

from wikipedia ofcourse, im curious now to see if any of my programming or debugging that i do needs any of those buttons. i highly doubt it does.



after a bit of research, i dont understand why these buttons werent officially removed from all keyboards years ago, lol. if someone is using a legacy (pre 1980s) system, they can use a legacy keybaord with it, lol.

I knew something looked a little plain about my keyboard, infact, i think the buttons seemed bigger and more spaced out than a regular keyboard, lol.

look on the brightside, atleast, the ESC button is still there.

 

The scroll lock key and pause break key pretty much have no use anymore. That's probably why they removed them. I never used them.

 

well... I loved combo's like [win]+[break] and so on...
also stopping bios pre boot for output review was nice.
I cann't belive, no one but me used those keys.

 

I used win + break all the time.

 

Alt+double click on My Computer is same as Win+Break

 

So, the decoder prolongs battery life? I thought the cpu was adequate ...

 

only learned about win+ break just now. however, i dont think its that important but it is useful regardless ..ill admit that

my french/english netbook (8.9") (..live too close to Quebec) has more buttons jammed onto it than my new 1647.

another thing i noticed is if your totally new to laptops, you will not understand the keyboard, because it doesn't clearly distinguish between keys that need FN or ALT ofcourse, i doubt a total NOOB to computers would jump to this laptop as their first ever computer/laptop experience, but u never know

anyways, i wanted to clarify something, if i have a copy of windows 7 ultimate (good for 3 pc's) (i used it on one desktop so far), is it tricky to get it installed on this dell? i was able to do a fresh install of xp on an acer netbook, but i read that installing the OS on a dell is a bit trickier and i may run into driver issues? im not looking to do it right now, but i just wanted to see how open my options were for when the time came.

sorry if it sounds too noobish, but im actually only a noob when it comes to laptops and its hardware.

i formatted and installed hps, toshibas, ibms, classic dells, acers, asus, even a mac, but i just wanted to be on the safe side with this dell

and ofcourse, i would want things like the dell dock back well, i dont care for themes, just the dell dock, and the onscreen notifcations of when those touchkey buttons are pressed


thanks in advanced

 

So why not install the dell dock and quickset, its available under drivers and utilities.

 

LOL I order one product, and seller ships me two, their loss. Your not obligated to return it.

 

i think many of us have done clean installs of win 7, but using the disk supplied by dell. So not sure if a non-dell win 7 would work, but then again your dell should have come with a drivers disk. So im sure a non-dell win7 used in conjunction with the dell drivers disk should be fine.

You can download delldock for free from http://www.delldock.com/

 

well when your watching a movie or playing flash your still taking up cpu cycles to decode the codec as your playing it, The decoder card runs on .1w or something like that but has enough power do decode certain codecs for you plus flash when 10.1 comes out...

It makes much more sense to use the decoder card in a netbook to play hd and flash but my netbook only has one mpcie slot and I really do not want to be without wifi