XPS 1730 problems, slow computer.

Hello forum, if this thread is posted in the wrong section I'm so sorry, and feel free to move it the correct section.

I'm having some problems with my XPS1730 at the time, and find it to be really slow and lacking, compaired to what I believe it was before.
While I can't say for sure that it was much quicker and better before, I do however believe so.

And the main reason I believe so is that my old "real" computer was runing world of warcraft on highest, and if I used twice that money into a laptop that was 1year newer and only managed to run it on low settings with 20fps I would have returned it right away!

I got this computer 2-3 years ago from the dell web-shop when I moved out of my country to study at University, and so far I would say I'm not very happy with the purchase.

Games I play:

World Of Warcraft: 1920x1080 everything on the lowest possible setting, having between 12-20fps out in the world, around 20-30 in arena.

Counter Strike 1.6: Usually 100fps on 680x460, but after some time of playing it plummits down to 50-60fps, for quite some time.

Call of Duty Black Ops: 1280x1024, everything on lowest setting, around 20-30fps ingame, sometimes plummits down to 1-5fps for a 10minute periode.

Specs:
Nvidia GeForce 8700M GT
2x 2048 MB Nanya Technology DDR2 @ 333 MHz
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T8300 2,40Ghz
Windows 7, 32bit
High Power Usage, does find the Adapter in bios after changing my MB & Adapter a year ago.

Drivers:
GPU - 258.96
PhysX - 9.10.0513
Bios - A11
Intel Driver - 8.2.0.1014, A02

3DMark06 1280x1024 (Demo version) :
Score: 5335 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score: 2258.0
HDR/SM3.0 Score: 2017.0
CPU Score: 2115.0
GT1 - Return To Proxycon: 18.09 FPS
GT2 - Firefly Forest: 19.55 FPS
CPU1 - Red Valley: 0.67 FPS
CPU2 - Red Valley: 1.07 FPS
HDR1 - Canyon Flight: 17.77 FPS
HDR2 - Deep Freeze: 22.56 FPS

3DMark06 Processor info:
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8300
Processor clock1140 MHz
Physical / logical processors1 / 2
# of cores2

Temps:

Idle:
CPU: 47c
GPU: 51c
Memory: 51c
Chipset: 55c
HD: 40c

Peak:
CPU: 94c
GPU: 75c
Memory: 72c
Chipset: 74c
HD: 52c

Using I8kfanGUI for fan control, always Force fans to high speed while gaming.
I'm using older GPU drivers because of the Adobe Flash bug, and that I could not use the Nvidia-Scaleing feature on my extern screen on newer versions.

I guess I should be getting Windows 7 64bit again, to use all of my 4Gb of ram, however did not have it available last time I "fixed" my computer, but I had the same problems with 64bit.

I guess my main question should be:
Should my computer only get 5335 score on 3Dmark?
Secondly, if not, what's wrong?

I see others getting like 15,000 score on 3Dmark also with a M1730, while they do have a 2.8Ghz, and SLI, it can't be that much difference?

Thanks for reading-
-Apluss

 

To fast reply to your questions, well a single 8700m GT is not enough for your gaming needs. Even a SLI 8700m GT cant quite deliver a good performance, go figure one.

So in short, yes, 5k points in 3dmark06 is what you should expect. The 8700m GT is an old card, with low specs, similar to 9600m GT. Infact, the 3dmark score of that card, is somewhat comparable to yours.

15k mark, like my score, is achieved with a different cpu and gpu. I have a 9800m GTX Sli setup overclocked plus an x9000 running at 3,8ghz. Thats the configuration i use to achieve 15k under windows 7 and 16k+ under windows XP.

So, if you really want to see your "beast" delivering good performance, you have two options:

- Upgrade to a SLI gpu card (either 8800m GTX/9800m GT Sli or the more powerful 9800m GTX) and upgrade to an extreme cpu like X9000, which can be overclocked to 3,4ghz in bios or even further using throttlestop

- Install Windows XP and ditch Windows 7/Vista. Your performance will get a good boost in both performance and response, delivering almost 1500+ points more in 3dmark06 and maybe more playable framerates.

This said, consider that a single 8700m GT is equivalent of an intel GMA HD, althought a bit better. Its a crazy thing to expect a good performance specially at native resolution, even SLI 9800m GTX can have some issues, althought its the same card known as the rebranded GTX260m.

 

Thanks for your replay,
While I'm not saying your wrong in any way I found it strange that I would not think about returning a laptop for $2794.91(todays currency) when my 8-10year old computer ran World of Warcraft better,
considering I only played WoW at that time, and that I bought a "gaming laptop" for that price not being able to play 3years old games with bad graphics with the lowest of settings.

I wanted to install Windows XP on it, but when I googled it back then, I read about tons of people having problem with it, maybe I should try to install it after all. Do you know if it is as easy as just doing an clean install like you usually do when installing an OS?

I don't think I will bother buying anything new to this computer, when I can get a computer runing wow on max for less then $1110.

Sorry, I know I'm a little negative, just thinking about the purchase is making me a little angry, not well spent money, dell should not allow the buyer to choose from bad hardware if it is supposed to be a good gaming computer

Any tips to make it better/fast would be awesome.
I have also read about people getting their cpu downclocked when the temp. goes to high, I would guess that temp is 90c on my computer, is there a way to turn that of?

 

I cant compare exactly your performance vs your old desktop if you dont tell me what kind of hardware it is.
There are two points to take in account:
- your cpu is slow in these days, specially with such low clock speeds and cache. Any desktop cpu would be better than it as the mobile cpus arent quite comparable to desktops. Nowadays the gap has shortened but some years ago it was big. So prolly your desktop althought "old" can quite deliver a good performance
- the m1730 was meant to be a desktop replacement only when the hardware was maxed out, or almost. As far as i understand your versions is a really basic one, it doesnt have sli, plus it have one of the weakest gpus ever made, with only 256mb and a low shaders/bandwidth count.

Xp is fine on xps, if you read my sig im dual booting, windows 7 and xp.
Didnt had a single problem and xp actually is more fast than 7 in games.
My advice is to switch to xp, then to lower details and resolution to get playable framerates.
I would guess that WoW will run ok at 1280x720,medium details, no AA and no AF, with dell drivers.
You cant really use newer drivers because the bugs never got fixed (flash bug, bsod, instability) as the 8700m was quickly discarded by nvidia and dell.
In fact the base system after a while the xps launched was a sli 8800gtx setup, which is roughly 3 times faster than 8700m.
Im sorry you spent a crapload of money, but every 8700m user felt the same way.

 

Thanks for your help, I have installed Windows Xp (non-dualboot) it increased the 3DMark score to 5500 from 5300, its an improvement,
as well that it feels faster then W7 in general, and I like WinXP better as well, I went for the 32bit again as I read that the chipset was 32bit, and 64bit OS would not help much, and that WinXPx64bit had tons of flaws and bugs.

I'm sorry I did not mean to take the rage out on you in any way, it was ment for dell and myself, hehe.
If I knew putting 10% more money into a super expensive laptop would make it a beast I would have done it back then for sure, but thought that since the components was listed it was decent hardware.

I have yet to enable ACHI again, currently running in ATA, from my research it does not affect the computer speed very much, but I'm thinking of getting ACHI again.

Another fun thing is that, I have maybe used my DVDroom two times the past 3 years, since I install Windows with a USB memory stick each time,
but my DVDroom is not working, kinda strange since it have almost not been used and I don't really move my computer around either.

I have yet to install the BCM2045 drivers, witch I believe is Bluetooth, haven't really used it on this computer yet, dunno if I will bother finding them.

There is a PCI device driver not found in the Device Manager, witch I can not figure out what are?

Can't find any Dell Power Management program for XP either, but believe it is currently on High Power Usage.

I will try to install the Dell drivers for my GPU, and run some tests, currently using 266.58, seems to work fine with flash etc.
EDIT: On the Dell site there is no 8700M GT (non-SLI) drivers to be found for XP, so I guess I will be sticking to my 266.58 for now, if no one comes with a better one.

Still have the downclock"overheat problem, think I need to clean my computer, hehe.
Saw a drastic drop in Idle temps when installing WinXP, down to 45c.
However still often goes into downclock while playing games and runing 3DMark without forcing the fan speeds to High. Last 3Dmark it peaked at 94c.

Also my First fan on high have around 4350RPM, while my second fan have 2700RPM, is this normal or is something wrong or "unclean" with my second fan?

- Thanks for reading
- A+