Few D830 Questions

Hello, I ordered a Latitude D830 with the following specs:

1 222-7943 Latitude D830, Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.00GHz, 800Mhz 4M L2 Cache, Dual Core
1 320-5301 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD for Latitude D830
1 311-5687 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM for Dell Latitude Notebooks
1 310-8713 Internal English Keyboard for Latitude Notebooks
1 320-5303 256MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M Latitude D830
1 341-4568 80GB Hard Drive 9.5MM 7200RPM for Latitude DX30
1 310-8796 Standard Touchpad for LatitudeD830
1 340-8854 No Floppy Drive for Latitude D-Family Notebooks
1 466-6171 Vista Business, with media English, Latitude
1 310-9149 Resource DVD with Diagnostics and Drivers for Vista LatitudeD830 Notebook
1 310-8799 Quick Reference Guide for Latitude ATG D830
1 310-7956 90W AC Adapter for Latitude D-Family, Factory Tied
1 313-5044 8X DVD+/-RW w/ Roxio Creator and Cyberlink for Vista Basic/Business, Latitude DX20
1 430-2375 Intel 4965 WLAN (802.11a/g/n) mini Card Latitude, Factory Install
1 313-3673 No Resource CD for Dell Optiplex,Precision and Latitude Systems
1 312-0536 9-Cell/85 WHr Primary Battery for Latitude D830
1 312-0067 6-Cell/48-WHr Modular Battery for Dell Latitude D-Family Factory Tied
1 310-9147 US - System Documentation Power Cord, Latitude D830
1 982-7120 Contract - Mail-In Service, 1 Year 24x7 TechnicalSupport, Initial Year
1 986-7697 Dell Hardware Warranty, Initial Year
1 982-3682 Contract - Mail-In Service, 24x7 Technical Support, 2YR Extended
1 986-7688 Dell Hardware Warranty, Extended Year(s)
1 986-4409 Thank you for choosing a Limited Warranty and Service Contract
1 980-1499 CompleteCare Accidental DamageSvc, Lat, 3Yr , 1-800-624-9896
1 412-0357 Soft Contracts - Business Complete Care
1 466-6107 Thank you for choosing Dell
1 462-4506 Purchase is NOT intended for resell
1 310-8758 You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System
1 600-0002 State Environmental Fee for display 15 inches, less than 35 inches

The order date was July 1st and the estimated ship date is July 18th.

Now I've got a couple of questions:

1) The estimated weight for a stock D830 is about 6 lbs. With my current configuration how much weight is going to be added to that stock weight? Is it a significant amount?

2) I am planning to do a clean install of Windows XP (and possible dual boot Vista) when I get this machine. Recently I learned that you need to install drivers in a particular order. I've owned three Dells, the latest being a Latitude D600 and I've never had to install drivers in a particular order before. Why the change? And how will I know what order to install the drivers?

3) My order receipt says:

1 310-9149 Resource DVD with Diagnostics and Drivers for Vista LatitudeD830 Notebook
1 313-3673 No Resource CD for Dell Optiplex,Precision and Latitude Systems

What does this mean? Am I getting a resource CD/DVD or not? Also, will the resource disk have drivers for both Vista AND XP or will I have to download the XP drivers from the Dell site?

4) I've heard that Dell's drivers for the Quadro NVS are not very good at the moment. Is this true and if it is, is there a better driver available?

5) What is my expected battery life with this configuration?

6) Actual Dell ship dates appear to be somewhat to much earlier than the estimated ship date. When should I be expecting my machine to ship?

7) Lastly I just want to know what other D830 owners think of their machine. Any comments?

Thanks in advance.

 

1)Weight: should land somewhere closer to 7~7.5 lbs. rough estimate

2)Order of drivers: should be on the cd/dvd depending on which operating system.

3)Resource DVD/CD: I'd call dell and explain your plans to them, and they should be able to change your order to include both. (the best solution in my eyes.)

4)NVS Drivers: I dont have mine yet...so i cant tell from personal experience, i've heard they work great in xp, not so great (but still doable) in vista. Its sure to change in the coming months as they adapt things a little bit, expect updates from Dell/NVIDIA to fix these issues soon.

5)Battery Life: The NVS 140m will drain the battery significantly faster than the integrated graphics, as will the wuxga screen (more pixels being driven). the 7200 rpm hdd will take a little more juice as well, so i'd expect about 4 hours (maybe). I'm not quite sure if it will be this long...but it should be somewhere in that neighborhood

6)Ship Date: Mine was expected to ship on the 13th of july, but it shipped on the 5th, and will be here on monday (7/9). Itll probably be a little early, not much though.

7)Comments: Not here yet. but i'm sure ill love it!

 

I don’t have a D830; but I’ll try to answer most of your questions to the best of my knowledge.
EDIT : Din't see the above post while I was typing mine.

Weight largely depends on the battery (other configuration differences are negligible). 6 lbs is with the standard 6 cell battery, I don’t know how much the 9 cell weighs more. Since you have ordered both you can make it to be 6 lbs if you want.

I don’t think it is absolutely necessary to install them in a particular order, but in general it is better to install chipset and graphics drivers first, then you can install Sound, LAN and other peripherals.

I’m not sure what that means, anyways you can get the latest XP and Vista drivers from DELL support site, so there is nothing to worry about

No sure which is better, but normally DELL releases a driver after nVidia releases several major versions. And DELL drivers usually lack some features too. The only advantage of using DELL driver is that they are tested specifically for your notebook, therefore less likely to run into any driver issues. You can get the latest moded (so they can be installed on notebooks) ForceWare drivers from laptopvideo2go.com site.

They used to ship much earlier than the given ship date, but lately that has changed after the new models were introduced, I guess they are getting more orders than they can comfortably handle.

 

Yeesh... 7.5 is a bit on the heavy side... is most of that weight in the batteries? (and subsequently something I might be able to take out at times?)

I should have been more specific, but is this an estimate with just the primary battery or with the primary and the media bay battery?

You have a similar configuration, so I sure hope so!

So these are "supposed" to work with pretty much all Nvidia GPU's?

Thanks for the input!

 

Yes they are. Those drivers are directly from nVidia with all the features enabled (with only a moded inf to make them install on a notebook).
If you look at the moded inf file you can see NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M listed under PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0429.So it should work with yours.

 

Alot of the weight is in the batteries, so if you take out one or the other, you'll have a much lighter rig. it also depends on if you're gonna be carrying around your power supply...if you dont have to, dont.

I havent heard much in terms of numbers with the media bay battery as well as the normal battery, but i would safely assume 5-6 hours with both inserted. (guestimate)

EDIT: I have a thread here talking about the LaptopVideo2Go.com drivers...

 

Hmm, if most of the weight is in the batteries, I might consider buying an extra 6-cell... though most of the time my notebooks don't move around too much.

And I will definitely try the laptopvideo2go drivers when I get my machine.

Thanks again for the input.

EDIT: It shipped today, July 8th!

 

Uhh, I looked through the modded inf file and I actually do *not* see NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M. I want to use the laptopvideo2go.com as a source for drivers for my quadro nvs 140m, but I don't see it listed under supported cards. Is there something I'm missing?

 

Interesting.

I initially didn't find it on the laptopvideo2go site, so I did some Googling for [DEV_0429].

Turned up a thread on this board http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=138820 and http://www.driverheaven.net/windows.../134673-forceware-165-01-xp-english-only.html

The second link claims that 165.01 supports the Quadro NV 140M.

Laptopvideo2go's thread for 165.01 ( http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13793) does not specifically mention DEV_0429 or Quadro NVS 140

Laptopvideo2go's 165.01 is 18MB. Driverheaven's is 27MB...

Anyways, I received my D830 in the mail yesterday, though I won't have time to play with it until later today. While it's still straight out of the box does anyone want to know/want me to find out anything?

 

I don't think it'll be 7 pounds. Of course I'm not certain. But Dell says 6 pounds with 6-cell battery and CD-ROM. 9-cell could add a quarter pound or so vs. the 6-cell, and I don't think either the DVD drive or the 6-cell media bay battery will be very much heavier than the CD-ROM. Remember you take out the DVD drive to add the second battery, so it should be about a wash. So I'd guess you're looking at more like 6.5 pounds or so.

 

If you want the Resource CD/DVD make absolutely sure you have it documented in writing before they ship your system. If you call back they will not honor any verbally made agreements.

(You can get the drivers from the Dell website, although it can be a somewhat lengthy process)