Dissapointing E1705 Need Some Help

My Dell Inspiron E1705 just arrived today and so far I have to say I am EXTREMELY dissapointed. I did a fair amount of research before I went ahead and ordered this system which kind of frustrates me even more.

The basic specs are:
1.83 GHz Dual Core Duo
1GB RAM
100 GB Hard-drive
256 MB ATI Radeon X1400 (****TY HYPER-MEMORY)


I tried really hard to get this with the 7800go but Dell claimed there were no longer offering it with this system. But I still figured that the X1400 would be a decent card as its 256MB.

So far IE has frozen a couple times which im not even that concerned about because I use Firefox anyways. But still things shouldnt be freezing on a fresh hard-drive.

The big thing is when I installed Madden 2006 and went to go ahead and play it. The graphics were great on the start-up and in the game, I have no problem with them, impressed actually. However, THE GAME IS LAGGY. I figured for sure this Notebook would be straight to run games like Madden 2006 like a normal PS2 would.

Hopefully there is something I can fix to get this thing running right, drivers, settings, SOMETHING. Please let me know what if you have any suggestions or know what to do.

Thanks

 

Well, I got the same one today, with the same specs basically.

I'm incredibly happy.

As to your problems, here's a tip. Delete EVERYTHING that's not-essential. McAfee is rediculous, anything that you dont need including the dell ****, get rid of.

It will be MUCH smoother. Took me about an hour to clean it off, but it's awesome now.

 

I agree with the previous post, while it should not be causing instability issues, Try getting rid of all that garbage first. Good place to start

 

Yeah, I've been deleting alot of this not needed ****, Man they really load it up. After Im done Im going to give Madden another try. Are your games running good though? Not lagging at all?

 

I'll try it tonight, once I get fraps I can really do a framerate test as the one in game (counter-strike source) is kind of shaky, at least that Ive found.

 

Hi, I can offer you a little advice as i recently bought a system with the below spec (arrived 1 week ago) from dell outlet.

2.16Ghz T2600 Dual Core
2 Gb Ram
100gb 7200rpm hitachi hard drive
Geforce 7800 go 256mb
1900x1200 WUXGA Ultrasharp display
9 cell battery
Built in Bluetooth
Windows xp pro

I wouldnt go as far to say that i was disappointed with the system, I found it difficult to wipe a huge smile off my face for most of the first few hours.

However it is in my opinion and many others that a reinstall of the OS is essential. I noticed freezes and slow operation at first too I also ran superpi and 3dmark05. After a reinstall i noticed huge improvements in normal operation and obtained an amazing time of 1 minute 11 seconds for 2M. Before the wipe it was 1 min 18 seconds, so quite an improvement.

You have a well spec machine I wouldnt give up at the very least get rid off all the **** dell put on better still go with a full wipe and install os.

The only downside with your system is the graphics, I wouldn't have bought a system with that card as it is a huge downgrade from the 7800 geforce. This is why I lurked around dell out let for a month and finally nailed my system at an amazing price too.

Its up to you what your requirments are, if it is to have the option to play the latest games id consider waiting for the 7800 to come back in stock or even the 7900 to be put in, many think this will happen eventually. Still check the outlet sites i still see the occassional one go through with a 7800 card in.

 

if you're going to game (which puts all the components of your computer to the test), you have to do a reformat/fresh install of XP. you can't expect any serious gaming performance until you do that and get some hacked drivers for the vidcard.

 

E1505 core duo 1.66GHZ IGB X1300 SATA5400RPM
No freeze since I recieved it(4/7).
Clean installed without even looking at the default installed OS.

 

Yeah I knew that not having that 7800go was going to screw me over but I just wanted to get a laptop pretty quick, I couldn't wait anymore so I talked myself into thinking that the x1400 would be decent.

Anyways, I'm going to do a reformat right now and put on Windows XP Media Center Edition then see how Madden runs, Ill post back in an hour or two and let you guys know the results.

Thanks for thel help so far, I love this forum

 

Don't PANIC! There is hope!

It's not your new laptop causing the problems, it's all the junk software they install at the factory. You know it's junk software when people don't want it when your giving it to them free, so why do they even bother creating it in the first place? Who knows.

One thing seems to be the standard though, the junkier the program is, the harder they try to make it to uninstall and the more determined they are to make sure it's always running in the background and eating up your system resources. The harder they also try to make it for you to find where on your computer it's getting started from each time you boot up.

The old place they use to try all the time was in your programs menu inside the "Startup" folder. First thing I do is go in there and delete everything in under my user account and under the "All Users" section.

Next I hit the registry for some safe registry deleteing under all the variants of rhe RUN Hive in there, this is the main place they stick these stupid programs that run constantly in the background eating up all your system resources. None of them need to be in there, all are safe to delete out of there and even if it's an app you want to keep, just start the app yourself when you want to use it, no point in having it always running in the background out of your sight.

Next I then set my registry up to actually disable these programs from in the future ever being able to load themselves into my registry and run like this. If you can follow about 3 lines of simple directions you can do this safely with no harm and a much better responding system.

I could type the instructions for doing all of this here, but there's a better place you can go where they already have the directions for you, including pictures...

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/876/

They have miles of information on that site you can spend a little time checking out, just don't go to crazy with some of the tweaks they have there or your likely going to have problems, remain focused on what your trying to do, get rid of the garbage apps. You'll find the information as well as to where in your registry to go and delete the values entered in under RUN here...

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/109/


After you've killed all the ways these apps try to start themselves, reboot, then go in and uninstall all of them from your Control Panel "Add Remove Programs" list. The reason I stop them from being able to start first, then reboot is because the uninstall process will go much faster if your on a fresh boot without them starting this time. It will also make for a cleaner and less trouble if your uninstalling apps that aren't currently running in the background while your trying to uninstall them.

Some of the newer apps now that it's common knowledge where to go and get rid of these things from starting at boot up have found additional places in the registry to load themselves in at startup from. AOL is a prime example of some of the worse Stickit_Down_Your_Throat_Ware that loads itself all over your computer in very sloppy fashion. To get rid of it and all the garbage that comes along with it just do a web search for "removing AOL" and you'll find plenty of info.

Kill that Antivirus software as well, myself I'd completely remove it (good luck if you have McAfee, it loads itself all over the place as well and makes a real mess even after uninstalled). At best, at least go into it and turn it all off, only starting it by hand when you want to check your email or download questionable files.

I still think Anti Virus Software does more harm than any virus your going to get. Most of the viri out there everyone is so terrified are usualy either so poorly written or so poorly delivered to you that they end up not working anyhow and do nothing. The Anti Virus software on the other hand always running and checking stuff in the background, just eats up a tremendouss amount of your system resources and can extremely slow things down.

Removing Anti Virus Software can give you bigger, more noticeable Sytem improvements than upgrading your Video Card and adding in an extra Gig of RAM and better still, it's free to remove the ****.

 

I'm not sure if you have already gotten rid of the Dell ****ware, but for that you may be interested in trying this program:
http://www.yorkspace.com/2006/04/38

I posted about it in a news post about a week ago.

Chaz

 

Alright, I did a complete reformat and put my own fresh copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition. So I then downloaded alot of the drivers I need along with my video card drivers. I installed Madden and went to go see how it ran and its actually ****TIER. It like skips whole frames it's ridiculous, I can't believe this. I'm about to go download 3DMark and run it, Ill give you guys the results. But if you have any suggestions in the meantime, let me know.

Thanks

 

Alright, I just ran 3DMark2001. It's the older version where a 10,000 is average maybe even a little below these days. A good score would be 15000 and a great score would be 20000. I got a ****ing 9259.

I'm about 3 seconds away from taking a piss on this P.O.S. and sending it back, this is so **** frustrating. If you guys have any other ideas or suggestions let me know, otherwise I'm sending this garbage back to dell.

 

JDamron, did you follow the Dell reformat guide?

 

I put a fresh copy of Windows on so I don't get all that Dell garbage. Really the Dell reformat Guide has nothing to do with it. I installed all the drivers I need including the ATI Video Card Drivers. I dont know man, my mind is kind of set that this thing is just a piece, I've been messing with it for 2 days now.

 

also, you might want to try different video drivers. the omega drivers seem to be fine for the x1400 (omegadrivers.net)

 

I actually put those drivers on before I ran the 3DMark. Does anyone else have a X1400 in the Dell E1705? Im just wondering if yours is as ****py as mine and what type of bench scores you get.

 

I have an e1705. I'll run benchmark tests tonight for comparison. Something else to consider: what speed is your processor actually running at? I noticed that even when plugged in mine was throttled back to 980MHz. It wasn't until I did some tweaking that I was at full speed.

 

That is the Dell quickset for ya! I had to do the same thing on my I9300 it was running at 800Mhz.

 

how would you go about tweaking that?

 

Yeah, how do you check what speed its running at and then overclock it?

 

Read this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1345980&postcount=11

 

will check it out. thanx.

 

there's something you're missing because i can run HL2 and Doom3 on my x300 128 meg card with no problems at the recommended settings.

 

I agree with drumfu - it looks like something isn't right. If you don't install the drivers/software in the correct order, or if you omit a crucial driver, things will go awry. That's why I asked if you followed the guide.

 

I know that there is something wrong too. Im trying not to give up hope but this is just so frustrating getting a new laptop and dealing with this. My desktop has less specs than this with a 128MB 9500 Radeon and its runs Madden even decent. Its a little laggy which is why I wanted to get a laptop with better specs and this thing should definately run it smoothly like a PS2.

Well just to sum things up this is what I've done so far.

1. Reformat (Windows XP Media Center Edition) - This wasn't Dell, it was my own copy.
2. Downloaded Dell Drivers including ATI Drivers
3. Downloaded Omega Drivers
4. Downloaded RMClock for my processor

What else can I do? Dell has the ****tiest support in the world, 90 percent of them dont speak English correctly and for some reason I have to pay for "software" support.

I dont even know anymore. This is wrong.

 

Sorry to keep on this point, but did you follow the guide and install the drivers in the correct order? Have you flashed your BIOS to A01?

 

Don't worry about it man, I noticed you asked that before. Actually I didnt follow that guide at all because I put my own copy of Windows on here.

 

Ok, no problem. The guide isn't for the Dell restore disk, it covers installing Windows. Here's what I recommend: Review the guide and download the required drivers/software. Download the bios update. Flash your bios, and then follow the guide for installing Windows and installing the drivers. I'm almost 100% sure your system will then behave and perform as you expect.

 

Yeah, the guide is golden... especially knowing that the notebook software HAS to go first, and the chipset HAS to go second...

kegobeer... A01? My e1505 has A03... are the BIOS for 1705 and 1505 different?

 

Ok, what exactly is this guide? Where do I get it?

Thanks

 

X1300 dell driver 3Dmark05 1302.
It might help if you tell us the order you installed the drivers.
If you think it doesn't matter, for sure this is your problem.

 

Yeah I just installed things manually at random points. So I'll reformat it again and do this the right way. Thanks for the help, let me know how to do this.

 

Here you go... http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=42340
It's a sticky on this page... I reinstalled without following it, and bad things happened.

 

I was going over that guide and I can see some areas where I might have a problem. Im just going to go through the guide step-by-step. God bless those of you that are helping me by the way. Im going to contribute to this forum as much as I can even after my laptop issues are resolved.

So below Im going to create my own mini guide and follow this off of my other computer. Let me know if you see anything wrong with it as I made comments next to alot of the steps.


1. Before You Begin
------------------
1) Back up any documents or files that you would like to keep including email, music, internet favorites, etc. No problem

2.) Get a copy of XP (use 1 of the following options)
Order the XP CD when you order your system ($10)
Call Dell and request it I don't have this right now, but I do have one coming in 3-5 days. Do I have to wait for it or can I do this without it?
3) Call Dell and request the software CDs
Some CDs are automatically sent with your XP CD including a driver disk and an Applications Disk which contains Dell software and junk software
Cyberlink PowerDVD (DVD decoder/player) and Sonic RecordNow must be requested separately. The CD there sending me should cover this.
4) Get the most important Drivers I can get these off the Dell website.



2 . Drivers
------------------
1.) Use the Dell Driver’s Disk that came with your XP disk I dont have it.
2.) Copy the driver’s folder from your hard drive. I could but there probably messed up anyways so I'm just going to get them off the Dell site. I'll cover them in a second.
3.)Before you reformat, download and save your network driver (wireless or Ethernet) I will do put this on the CD with all the other drivers. Here is the Guide List:
Applications – optional software and Sonic updates.
Audio – required if you want sound.
Chipset – required for all systems; Ricoh driver is for SD cards on some systems.
Communication – required for modem/dial up connections
Diagnostic – optional
Display devices – only if you have an external monitor from dell
Flash BIOS – required
IDE/EIDE – depends on what hard-drive you have. If you have 5400rpm hard-drive, then you'll most likely need a driver from this category.
Input Device – required to help with touch pad controls
Network Device – required if you will have wireless/wired connection, or Bluetooth
Removable Media – Optical drivers (CD/DVD drive), USB media, etc. Most CD/DVD drives will have a driver here.
System/Configuration – Notebook System Software is required, others are optional
Video Driver – required for your LCD/graphics card
I have everyone of these drivers I need on disks.



3. Partition
------------------
I'm going to delete all of the partitions except the Media Direct one and put the copy of Windows XP Media Center on one partition.


4. Step by Step Guide to Reformatting and Installing XP
------------------------------------------
I'm just going to do the regular steps here.




5. What to do after the Installation of XP I will follow this step-by step
------------------
Install the drivers (see drivers for required drivers)
The first driver you should install is Notebook System Software, followed by the Chipset driver. After that install the remaining drivers.
If you only downloaded your networking driver, you'll need to install this first, followed by the Notebook System Software, Chipset, and then the remaining drivers


Run Windows Update and download/install current updates


Check the device manager (Right click on "My Computer" --> Properties-->Hardware Tab--> Device manager) and make sure that all devices have a matching driver. If any device has a yellow checkmark, then it does not have a driver. Recheck the driver list above and make sure you downloaded everything that is required.


Install any additional software that you want


Optimize your laptop (see How To Optimize a Notebook Computer) Will do

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


7. I will do also.



Alright, Im going to get started on this in about an hour. I'll come back here before I start to see if you guys posted anything. Thanks

 

Good luck, hope it goes well!

 

Do I need the Recoh Chipset Driver? Or do I just solely install the Intel Driver? Call me a noob because Im not even sure what an SD Card is, I know its used for memory or something and I've heard of them but I'm not sure.

 

Here's what you need:

System software
Intel chipset
Video drivers (x1400 if that's what you have)
Sigmatel Audio
Touchpad
Conexant Modem (if that's what you have)
Broadcom LAN (if that's what you have)
Intel 3945ABG (if that's what you have)
Ricoh SD

Install in that order. You might also want to flash your bios to A01, and install the quickset software.

 

the ricoh driver is for the multi card reader.

 

Alright, I just got back to working on this today and I went through all of the steps. I've yet to try Madden yet, I'm about to that now. I'm a little concerned about an error message that popped up after I installed the video card driver and restarted, it reads:

cli.exe application error
The application has failed to initilize(error code 0xc0000135)

something like that. If you guys know what this is let me know, thanks. In the meantime I'm about to try out Madden! My fingers are crossed right now.

 

That's an ATI catalyst driver error. In order to run the catalyst control center, you need to install .NET 1.1. Run Windows Update and install all of the updates, and then install .NET 1.1 and all of the .NET patches and you will be good to go.

Or you can uninstall the catalyst control center.

 

I've been busy all weekend pretty much trying to not even think about my laptop. However, on Sunday night I did get it up and running and it was playing Madden fine!

But today I discovered something. I went to play Madden and it was going really slow lagging to the extreme. So I was thinking, whats different from today to last night? The power supply. So I plugged it in and then ran Madden and it was fine. Is this normal guys?

 

well, when running on batteries, it's likely that the fan won't turn on as often. if this is the case, maybe your computer was overheating a little when you weren't on the power supply.

 

don't game on battery. your cpu, vidcard, soundcard, and business card all potentially have performance caps in place for when operating on battery in order to extend battery life.

 

so dell has software that limits and conrols the processor speed? why have i not read a single thing anywhere on dell's site, or in any reviews about this? is it a flaw in the software and that other program is needed? or is it just a setting gone wrong.... now that i think about it, maybe his was running at a lower speed because as he said, it was on batteries. so how do you access this thing?

 

My Toshiba has power management software where you can set processor speed, screen brightness and few other things when running on batteries.

 

Yep.. like esotericia and others says.. reinstall is the best opttion for optimize the performance of ur laptop. when i first got my laptop, it runs in the process @ 75 processes which is stunning to me. and there'were a whole bunch of ****py software came with it. I dont' even spend time to look @ its software of dell.. after 1hour of checking my laptop ..I reinstall everything.

 

pretty much every (notebook) computer has these features. there are both hardware and software solutions. they are available built-in from intel/amd as well as additional software controls via the notebook manufacturer; dell has their own, ibm has their own, etc. etc.

 

Dell has a app called Quickset to manually control this, and your windows control panel for Power will do the same if you dont have quickset installed. I re-installed XP Pro since MCE was running kinda ****py and re-installed quickset since I actually like the app better than the windows settings.