1420 Is Here!! Pics Momentarily

This is a free neat little program.
http://www.webtree.ca/newlife/printkey_info.htm

 

You know... that's a lot of programs you've installed to check stuff for us. lol

 

He can't take pictures while he is benching...


Phobos, while you were running the benches did the laptop get loud? was it very audible?

 

you can mess with NHC and the brightness thing should be easily fixable.

as for your temps. that 74c i saw early seems wrong. id be more inclined to believe the mid-50s temps.

 

That doesn't work during running the tests though And yeah I've been using a computer for...over 20 years. Know all about Kutarl Plus V.

 

I never detected a change in the sound coming out of the laptop.

The DVD drive is MUCH louder than the fan ever gets. With my ceiling fan on in the office here I cannot detect any noise from the computer at a normal distance. If I put my head to the side of the computer I can easily pick up the fan as a low pitched wooshing noise.

Last night I ran Orthos for a while and I didn't hear the fan speed increase or decrease ever, and the temperature reported by i8KFanGui got as high as 77C.

 

That was my first thought as well but CoreTemp, i8KFanGUI, and NHC all ready basically similarly (all within about 5C) whereas Speedfan consistently is 15-20C lower.

 

If anyone's curious I'm currently in the process of installing WoW. After that I will install Half Life 2.

 

I'm going to try and take some gaming video with Fraps.

http://www.fraps.com/

I used Fraps long ago when I was into more hardcore computing stuff but as my interests have leaned more toward the cars and motorcycles that has waned a bit.

 

If you have WoW on your desktop you can just copy the folder to your laptop and it will work. No need to reinstall it.

 

Hrm...Well I've already spent a buttload of time installing it, I'm doing BC right now.

And as a bonus I think I've got the Fraps thing figured out for video.

 

Yeah, you can copy it... i've done it before. But since you already made it so far... why stop?

 

I didn't, I just let it finish. However I did go ahead and copy all of the patches over, rather than redownload those.

 

Ok WoW seems to run just fine at 1280x800 with most everything maxed (I turned antialiasing off, anisotropic filtering to one click from max, turned distance to one click from max, and turned off soft shadows). I get 35-60 FPS according to Fraps (VSync on). There are times however where the game will have distinct hiccups, where the action on screen freezes for a second. Mostly in combat when I cast spells or perform actions that haven't happened before. I imagine this is due to loading from the hard drive.

Half Life 2, the little bit I played, seems to perform better than WoW. I have everything maxed save antialising and anisotropic filtering. I turned AA off and AF to 2x. I didn't notice any distinct hiccups yet. This is probably due to the loading process that dumps most everything for the area you are in into memory ahead of time.

I'm going to take the laptop, battery, case, and power supply to the place I use locally to ship things and have them weighed on a certified scale.

 

Oh yeah, I also timed the boot process just now with a stopwatch on my XPS (Virtual Stopwatch 3 if you're curious).

I hit the start button at the same time as the power button on the laptop, then did a lap when it got to the Microsoft loading bar, then stopped at the login screen, then started again from hitting enter on my password until the desktop was fully loaded.

Power Button -> Microsoft ||||| bar: 16.48 s
Microsoft ||||| bar -> Login screen: 23.62 s
Login screen -> Fully Usable desktop: 1 min 4.47 s

 

that bootup seems to take a little while. i usually average about 30-35 seconds with vista installs. But then again, i dont install much in terms of "start-up processes"

 

Well, if I didn't include the time to get the sidebar open it would be literally half as long to get to a full desktop but I used the fully loaded sidebar as my benchmark of usability.

 

Here are some weights for you, determined by a certified postal scale:

Laptop without battery installed: 5.1 lbs
9-cell 85 WHr battery: 1.04 lbs
90W power supply: 1.06 lbs including cables and cable strap
Belkin sleeve case: 0.62 lbs

 

I'm going to do a normal-usage to me battery rundown test now. I'll be here off and on, gaming off and on, writing off and on, and off off and on, for the next few hours.

I will be using the same Virtual Stop Watch 3 to do the timing that I used to do the boot timing. I will be running the timing from my desktop and basically I'm just going to go until it makes me turn it off.

 

anyone know the 1420 8400gs can play lost planet use 900x600 ,how many fps ?
it is because i want to buy it ?

 

Don't know but there's a demo, I'll download it while I'm typing.

 

It's a major PITA to get Lost Planet running. First it told me that I was missing a DirectX DLL file. Ok, so I went to Microsoft and downloaded the correct latest version of DirectX and ran that. Took forever, for some reason I was only getting like 20 KB/s on Microsoft.

Then I went to start the game and the screen goes dark, then comes back and tells me "Invalid Display Mode 1280x720" and promptly quits. So now I'm searching to try and figure that out...

 

Ok it seems that the "Invalid Display Mode 1280x720" is related to old video drivers. Now the question is, do I want to update mine or not...

 

I updated my video driver to the latest from Laptop2Go and it STILL gives me the stupid Invalid Video Mode error. No wonder people say this games is a POS port.

 

Don't bother with the demo it's a major PITA to get working and the performance is absolutely dismal...Many forum posts say the real game is MUCH better performance wise. A screen at the start of the demo indicates that it is developmental and may not work properly.

 

Ok so...I just did a battery rundown test.

Conditions were:

Modified "high performance" power scheme (no processor slowdown, no hard drive shutoff, no screen shut-off)
Wi-Fi on
Bluetooth off (because I usually keep it off)
LCD at full bright

How did I do it:

I began by browsing the web and drafting my Inspiron 1420 review. I did this for a while, and then I did some more browsing. I downloading some goodies from my desktop, I downloaded the Lost Planet demo, I downloaded updates to DirectX, I updated my video drivers, I played Lost Planet a bit (but it sucked and was unstable and hard to install/setup so I have already deleted it - I may try the full version as they say it's much better than the demo), and I played Half Life 2 a bit.

I got down to 5% (where the computer was apparently set to automatically stand-by but I didn't know it) in 3 hours, 16 minutes, and 29 seconds. My battery meter indicated I had about 15 minutes left.

Now keep in mind this usage pattern and setup was a great deal different from the person who got 5 hours out of his 1520. He just was web browsing with the screen at 50%. I am going to let the battery recharge and then I'm going to set to the battery life scheme (but to stay on) and then set iTunes to play and find a complex website to auto-reload every so often to simulate a lazy day of web browsing and see how I do. I imagine I'll get double the life easy.

 

Forgot to post this earlier...This is the HDTune run I ran...

 

This thread should be renamed to Phobos's 1420 ongoing review...great job so far

 

+1.... I keep coming back just to see what new stuff hes posted...

 

the 1420 is really nice. what pisses me off is the fact that I have to reinstall vista once my 1520 comes in to ensure that all the bloatware is destroyed. did you do that phobos?

 

Just curious...

After all this, is your fiancée still your fiancée :laugh: ?

-LQ

 

Unfortunately, the manufacturers of PCs in this day and age simply provide "restore CDs/DVDs", not the retail disks.

As a result, unless you have the retail disks, you need to remove this "crap" yourself.

In my case, I am going to triple boot my 1420 (Redhat Linux, XP and Vista). Although it can be a pain, there are lots of ways to remove the bloatware.

Once done, I suggest you make YOUR OWN restore disk (e.g. Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image etc.)

-LQ

 

but someone mentioned that it comes with vista DVD? isn't that true phobos?

 

it indeed comes with the vista dvd. i got my 1420 today and the first thing i did was reinstall vista to get rid of all the crapware.

 

Thank you so much for confirming that! I can calm down a bit now. I will be doing a re-partition and reinstall as well.

 

Out of curiosity, how did you reinstall Vista?

Did the restore disk ONLY include Vista or did it also include the Dell utilities and associated partitions?

My old Dell restore disks from previous systems would restore the system to the state is was when it left the factory, including all the associated junk and hidden partitions. With a retail disk, you can really start from a clean system.

I guess I will find out soon enough when my 1420 arrives (it is in build now).

-LQ

 

so reinstalling VISTA will completely take care of the bloatware -- but won't we still have the useless partitions? like the Dell Media drive?

 

yes, but you can partition the drive to one big partition.

might as well anyways once vista is on.

 

Did you have to reformat first? I hope not.

 

Me second that.

 

I booted my laptop from the DVD drive with the Vista Restore Disc, and reformatted the C drive. Don't mess with any other drive or Media Direct won't work afterwards. It got rid of all the junk and the other partitions are still there since I only did the main partition (C). There was also a DVD with all the Dell Drivers and Utilities and also another DVD with Media Direct that will probably re-partition your hard drive to include a Media Direct partition incase you completely reformat the hard drive.

I assume you can reformat the other partitions but I myself did not. I personally like the Media Direct feature.

Yeah...that's the point to get rid of all the crapware.

 

Thanks for this.
I never reformat my last laptop, i know so little about things like this.
Is there a step-by-step on how to do this and what to do after the laptop is reformatted. What i mean by after, like is there certain CD's you reinstall first.

 

No I didn't. I did on the e1505 that we got for my fiancée some months ago, but that was from the Outlet. In ordering my 1420 I specifically selected "No software" wherever that was possible. The only things it came with that I didn't want were McAfee trial and Google Desktop / Toolbar, both of which I simply said no to the EULAs and they deleted themselves. Google Desktop still left an entry in the installed programs list though so I uninstalled it from there too just to be sure.

I don't have any processes running on this computer after those uninstall actions that don't show up on my desktop that was a clean install of Vista from a Microsoft provided, not Dell provided, install disk.

 

I was given this thread as a guide to use to do a Vista clean install (it is based on the e1705 and e1505): http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=109447

In addition to the Dell branded Vista disk the computer also came with a disk to reinstall the MediaDirect software. I'd imagine this would allow you to nuke the partitions and in the end come out with a still fully functional system. I don't plan on messing with the partitioning though because I don't want to be on a trip somewhere and have something get hosed up and not be able to fix it with a quick reinstall from the built in software - I don't have to worry about that with my desktop though so that's why I followed a different nuke it and forget procedure there lol.

 

Oh and just let me say I really appreciate all the positive comments.

I am actually compiling everything from this thread into a review as per moderator Goren's suggestion which I'm planning to submit to the site here. Should be entertaining. So far it's four pages long and I haven't even arrived at uninstalling the first-boot pop-up software yet lol.

 

Ok and today as I mentioned I'm going to do a more low power usage battery rundown test. Going to set the performance to max battery (with auto hibernate after so many minutes turned off in case I get up), screen at four clicks from full dark (it's 7 clicks from full bright to full dark so 4 is on the bright side of 50% and then I'm going to continue writing. I am going to run iTunes in the background and I'm also going to run something like the CNN website on Firefox in the background with a 10 minute automatic reload interval, simulating me taking a break and seeing what's up in the world every once in a while.

 

We appreciate all the things you are doing and trying to provide all the answers to our many questions.
And thanks for the link, i added it to my bookmarks.
I choose No entertainment software pre-installed and No ISP.
So i'm hoping there won't be a lot of bloatware.

 

yes phobos has been very helpful. im just trying to decide if i wanna stick with my 1420 order, or get an outlet 1210 and build a desktop for the same price.

if you all have comments, theres another thread for it on page 1. thing thats getting me is 2 machines is better than 1

phobos, what are the dimensions of the trackpad? just curious how much bigger my MBP is to that

 

This is all a big help phobos. I too appreciate the insight and makes me long even more for my 1420 to arrive.

There was a first look/review of the LoJack here some weeks ago I believe. I know that typically you won't have any active engagement with this program running on your system, but any feedback or opinions you may have would be great.

 

what exactly is Media Direct?