---> OFFICIAL: Dell STUDIO 14z Owner's Lounge <---

I definitely missed something Who are those people and what issues are they having with W7? I haven't heard of any serious issues yet. The battery life on W7 could be better, but any other issues? I doubt it. Because for me W7 beta is more stable than Vista with all its service packs.

 

Has anyone tried Vista SP2 yet?

 

Does it take special drivers to get the back-lit keyboard to work? I just switched out my normal keyboard and I can't seem to get the back lite keyboard to work.

:-/

Anyone got any ideas? Maybe I need to go back inside and make sure both connectors are still all the way in...

 

[sorry for posting about painting my computer again. this will be last time on this thread. ]

anyway, for those who were interested in the paint job + glowing logo, here are the latest pics.

 

For everyone having issues with the BSOD the new vista updates are causing this to happen you can uninstall them or download the dell update to support the new vista update at the following link it isn't that hard heres the link

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&releaseid=R233749&SystemID=STUDIO1440&servicetag=&os=WV64&osl=en&deviceid=18898&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=7&fileid=336277

 

just bought the 14z from best buy. heck of a deal with a free external optical drive

 

You may have one of the connectors upside down.

 

I haven't had a chance to open mine yet, same deal 699 + tax with free dvd drive. How is yours running? dvd drive noisy? laptop noisy or hot?

 

First, I just have to say that I love this board. I'm so impressed at how helpful you all are, even to novices like me.

Thank you so much for that advice. I did some other research and read about the "system restore" function (which I was unfamiliar with until now) as well. I went to do that and found that there was another windows update dated today in the system restore log. That surprised me, as I received no notice of this update (that I'm aware of) and I did not manually initiate an install of any additional updates. Nevertheless, it was there. So, before I did the restore to remove the last update pack, I decided to completely shut down, let it rest and restart after a few minutes. And, lo and behold ..., no issue. Windows seemed to load in a relatively normal amount of time; no BSoD; and I noticed (on that silly CPU and HDD meter I have on my sidebar) that it wasn't redlining the HDD anymore -- something else I'd noticed since these problems started.

And thank YOU for that information. I can only assume today's update, mentioned above, is this same fix. I'll give it another few tries and, if the BSoD starts again, I'll definitely do this.

If that doesn't work, I'll do a system restore back to the pre-update version.

I'll let you all know how it goes.

Well, I didn't say there were any serious problems .... It's just that, I guess I was lucky because (until yesterday) I had absolutely no problems with this computer running Vista. And I heard people talking about issues with W7 and needing certain drivers and all kinds of stuff that I -- to be honest -- have very little experience with. So, I figured I'd leave well enough alone and stick with what I had, at least until October. So much for that.

I have to tell you, while I don't have the guts to do what you did to "my precious", and while I don't personally need a glowing Dell emblem on my lid ..., you did a really nice job of that. I think the color you chose looks fantastic, as does your glowing logo. I'm very impressed. But still scared to take a Dremmel or can of Krylon to my laptop.

Congrat's on your personalized, souped up 14z. You could go into business doing mod's for people.

 

back from bestbuy! I bought this combo

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat190000050001&type=category

But just went back to store and cried poor, that store is new and not getting lots of businses so they offered me 45 bucks off new studio 14z + free pioneer drive for 650 bucks (add 10% tax yuck) but still crazy deal

 

Wow, that looks nothing short of professional. I might just have to try that on my Studio 15's logo now...of course, using your detailed posts as guidelines.

Rep for you, my friend!

 

i reformatted the thing and its running very smooth. Hd is very quiet, the dvd drive is not too loud, and the heat is nothing too extreme. definitely can't complain for the price i paid (plus rewards)

 

Am I supposed to flip the "Backlit" keyboard one upside down (So the gold things face down?). Right now, I have them facing up because I thought was more natural.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Brandon

 

opened mine and up and running now.. I have had macbook pro's LED, HP's LED , OMG. this DELL's LED is breath taking... have never had such a beautiful screen! so happy with my decision. Once you go LED you can never go back.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...E&N=2010170381 1052939102 1309139889&name=4GB

Can anyone tell me which one of these ram is the one we use here?

my 14z is quiet and runs cool... LOVE IT LOVE IT. T6500 is not the highest end cpu and 3 GB ddr 3 is not 4 gb like most mainstream ones, but it runs very fast and responsive!

 

wohoo..just checked with crucial, this one will do. it was over 400 not long ago!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231265

 

If you're playing music (or anything using sound I suppose) and you close the lid, does the audio stutter at all or does it continue playing smoothly?

I'm curious about how it performs with the computer set to do nothing when the lid closes (doesn't sleep/hibernate/etc). I recently tried out a studio 15 and the audio would freeze for a few seconds whenever I closed the lid. I'm hoping this isn't the case with the 14z.

 

*UPDATE*

Okay, so what I said above ... not so much.

But, this morning I had some kind of note in a pop-up window from MicroSoft. It directed me to this web page for the solution:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/KB973879

Bottom line, according to this, is that part of SP2 causes this problem and you have to uninstall this particular element (KP973879) manually through the uninstall function in the Control Panel.

I followed the directions, and this time it really does seem to have worked.

Keeping my fingers crossed. Just wanted to share, in case this helps anyone else.

Good luck all!

 

You mean running Vista SP2 on the 14z? Yep, installed and runs perfectly fine.

 

I notice that when I try to activate my backlit keyboard by hitting F6. It's like I'm actually hitting the "F6" button and not a button designed to turn on backliting.

What happens when you guys hit F6? Is that the only way to turn on keyboard backliting?

Thanks!

 

Are you hitting F6 all by itself or the combo of "fn(function) and F6"?

 

Okay, got the back lit part to work. I had to flip the back-lit keyboard connector upside down (which seems so ridicoulously unnatural!!)... buy anyway, lol.

All I have to do to activate the back-lit keyboard now is hit F6. If I hit it several times, I get different levels of brightness.

Awesome, simply awesome...

 

Could someone please check this?

 

It has no stutter on Windows 7. I just tested it.

 

I'm actually thinking of redoing the clear plastic part because it looks fine from like 5-6 feet away, but up close you can obviously tell that its a homemade job. I'm gonna call a company that does laser cutting and try and get it cut out of plexiglass. I'll let you know if I'm successful with this.

[Update: I called and got a rough quote on price for laser cut logo at around $80. So yea.. I guess that won't be happening.]

 

Awesome! Thanks. I think I'm gonna order one soon.

 

I missed the whole thing! what backlit keyboard? where do I order it for my bestbuy 14z?

 

Is there a synopsis of the win7 install that people have done? I have the basic install but can't get the nvidia win7 drivers to work. Also, not sure I have the sound and bluetooth set up correctly. Hear clicking noises periodically which I have seen other people post here.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Mark

 

Here is my synopisis of W7 install
Onece w7 is installed I copied the driver files from the dell driver disk onto a jump drive and went through them one by one to install the drivers. The only glitch was that the nvidia drivers adn the camera drivers need to be the newer ones from the dell site.

then I down loaded the fast access and dell camera software from the dell site (not the support site but in your info package that came with the computer there was a software site where you can get the fast access software)

as of now everything is working, no popping sound fast access is working for face recognition and quick set is working.

it all took a few hours to figure out but I guess thats what you get when you are using an os that hasnt been released yet.

 

the site for fast track is smartsource.dell.com

 

Glad you got it working. Makes it feel like a whole new laptop huh?

 

Rus - Thanks. I assume you meqan you installed the Vista x64 drivers from the disk, correct? Just making sure there are not W7 drivers somewhere.

Thanks,
Mark

p.s. I installed Vista x64 drivers for video, audio, chipset, bluetooth and everything seems to be working fine. Do I need other drivers? WiFi and ethernet just worked.

 

yes I meant the vista 64 drivers. the only w7 driver was the quickset ddriver for the inspiron 1545 I read somewhere that it had a windows 7 quickset version.

 

Question about the powered combo usb/esata port: From what I've read, the combo port is supposed to provide power over usb even if the computer is shut down. I just tried this for the first time (actually I only put my computer to sleep on the assumption that if it's designed to provide power when it's shut down, it will also do so when it's asleep) and it isn't working for me. I'm running on the AC adapter, have tried disabling selective USB and can't get it to work. Is there a setting that I'm missing to get it to work? Anyone else try it and get it to work?

 

Krick, could you please re-post a larger picture of a sideview comparison of the 14z to the MacBook? Thanks.

 

I have installed this update, but I still get the BSOD often (usually on sleep).

EDIT: It's consistently the same error that Scootypuff is reporting:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 1000007e
BCP1: FFFFFFFFC0000005
BCP2: FFFFF80001FC6B81
BCP3: FFFFFA60017D5798
BCP4: FFFFFA60017D5170
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini082609-01.dmp
C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-70668-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\WERB9DC.tmp.version.txt​

 

That's exactly what was happening to me.

Take a look at this that I posted yesterday:

Just uninstalling that one little file has worked like a charm for me. My baby is back running like a champ, and no more BSoD. Good luck!

 

Just tried that fix as well, but I still get a BSoD. Some things like sleep mode or ejecting a USB drive will trigger it 100% of the time.

However, the new error is different. Anyone know a fix for this?

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 50
BCP1: FFFFFA6007F0F9A8
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: FFFFF8000208F3B1
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini082909-06.dmp
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-57642-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Temp\WER2F59.tmp.version.txt

 

Well, 3rd time's the charm. After doing a system restore to pre- Windows Update, the BSoDs have (seemingly) stopped. What a hassle.

 

This is why windows 7 rules. so far over 6 months of w7 on three computers as main os and virtually no issues.

 

seconded.

Anyone have pics of the laptop with a sleeve that they've bought for it? I'm looking into them now - want to pull the trigger on them soon, and I wanted to get an idea of which specific ones were loose and which ones fit well.

 

http://www.caselogic.com/13_reversi...leeve/product_detail/index.cfm?modelid=101941

fits like a glove. go anywhere other than the caselogic site and you can get it for $15.

 

Yeah, I never used Vista until I got this laptop, and I hate it. I can't wait for my W7 upgrade disc to come. Any idea when Dell will ship these out?

 

some time after oct. 22nd

 

get the release canidate it works great. but dont forget when you get your upgrade disc you will have to do a clean install you wont be able to upgrade from the rc to final version. What I did is partition my disc so that all my data is on one partition adn the os is on the other. that way when I get the final version all I will have to do is install the os and the programs and the data will be there.

 

has anyone been getting very persistent BSOD'S when under a light amount of load? (such as internet browsing, listening to music, or skype) for some reason i have been getting BSOD's very often, should i re-install vista?

 

Make sure you upgrade to bios A03, dated 8/18/09. Thanks to people on this forum, I bought my laptop the day before, 1st order was upgraded bios A03 then I proceeded to install vista updates. Everything works perfect!

 

really is a03 better? i thought there were issues. can someone clarify

 

A03 fixes the crash. So yes, it's better

 

I don't have pics but Waterfields Laptop sleeve is what I use - the size on their sizes page for dell includes the 14z and is what I have - very nice, high quality sleeve.

N

 

As far as sleeves go, this one was one of the best I looked at in terms of protection and design:

http://www.rei.com/product/763391

Its wave patterned foam interior is similar to the zero shock and the small is designed for wide aspect 14" notebooks and is smaller than most 14" sleeves which are generally too large IMO for the 14z.

Otherwise, a 13" sleeve will be your best bet because the size of the 14z is much closer to a traditional 13" notebook than most 14" notebooks.

I personally went with this case which is sort of between a sleeve and a full bag: http://www.powerpage.org/2006/07/18/. It fits the 14z like a glove, has just enough extra room for a notepad, some magazines, a mouse, the power adapter and some energy bars, and yet is slim enough that I can put the whole thing in my larger unpadded messenger bag when traveling. I don't have any of my own pics handy, but if anyone is interested I'll take some and post them later.