New Dell Studio 17 announced (Studio 1745/47)

Has any one looked at the Acer Aspire 8942G range? i7-720qm, 18.4" 1920x1080 LED screen, HD5850 GPU, 2x 640Gb hard drives, 6GB or 8GB RAM, BluRay, 802.11n, Bluetooth.

I am leaning more and more to cancelling my Dell, as maybe getting one of these. Ok, so there is no back light keyboard (which I really wanted and had on the Dell) but that is no show stopper...

 

This is what "Dell Bill_B" has posted on the 1645 forum after the conference call with engineers

Re: S-XPS 1645 Throttling Info. and Updates

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Now for my promised update and answers to the questions I had gathered before the call. Studio 1747 owners, we talked about your throttling issues as well and will share details on your threads. We expect to see the final fix for you sooner than the 1645/1647 owners.

Firstly, let me talk about what I am not prepared or will not talk about first.

Killawatt findings- We use different tools and methods to measure total power draw the system takes from the AC adapter, so I will not be addressing any questions or counterpoints based on findings derived from Killawatt meters.

Japanese replacement AC adapters- there are some factors involving 3-prong to 2-prong adapters that we currently do not stock, so you folks may be waiting for the additional time it takes to design and get line of sight to parts supply. Sorry about that.

Now for what I can talk about.

We will get into our benchmark findings in a little more detail on Direct2Dell at a later date. We plan to pull some specific posts from this thread and address them there in detail.
The A-rev of BIOS A07 went to test today. Once it passes testing, we will web post it. We will begin the process of sending out 130W adapters at that time. We will take NBR and DCF members to PM and get yours to you, so you do not need to call in. We will let other users know when the Direct2Dell post goes live how we will be getting them their adapters. It may or may not be a proactive replacement. The adapters will be the slim models and not the bricks. General sentiment is it should be proactive, if at all logistically possible. We do not have an ETA for factory cut in for A07 and the new adapter (in other words, for the orders that have not shipped yet). We will post details on the ETA for factory cut in when we get them.

The questions I had from the NBR community that I was able to get answers to:
1. Is this for all regions? yes. Depending on regulatory requirements per country, the timelines may vary.
2. What about 1647? We will need time to look at closer. Component and chipset factors are different and need a seperate investigation. I am sure the timeline will be a little quicker than it was for 1645.
3. What about customers who bought their own adapters? This really was not a question for the engineers to answer. Among the non-engineers, there were 2 different opinions. We will discuss the question tomorrow and get back to you on this one.
4. Will the bios officially allow the use of 150W adapters too, since laptops with RGBLED and i7-820 (like mine) are more power demanding of a WLED+i7-720? Or 130W will be the only choice? 130W is the only adapter needed. You can use a 150W if you like, but it should make no difference.
5. Can the customers have better release notes on bios and driver updates? The engineer could only answer for this platform, but he assured us he will take this question to the team and do his best to make sure the notes are more informative for the next BIOS release.

One more thing: I brought up the exhaust vent question. This will have to be opened as a seperate service request. I will get that in the works. We had the same problem with Studio XPS 1340. We wound up designing a new exhaust vent cover that fixed the problem by pointing the exhaust down. On my test 1340, I just popped the cover off and ran around with a gaping hole there until I got the new cover. It worked as a temporary workaround, but it was a little goofy looking.

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Last edited by Dell-Bill_B : Today at 06:12 AM. Reason: one more thing

Sounds promising. Thanks Bill!

I take this back.....read update below:

 

sounds nice
but it sounds like this is all about the 1645
hope the same goes for the 1745/7... i wouldn't be surprised if they let us stay with the 90W adapter and just give us a ty bios-update like A05 which tries to make power management a little bit better
let's hope for the best

 

It looks like only the 1645s are getting the 130W power supplies. 1747 is just getting a BIOS tweak.

Read Dell Todd S on

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19310587/19649168.aspx

Is anyone convinced?......I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

 

It's BS since the only slight difference in power draw would be the ATI 4650 vs ATI 4670, which is fairly negligible. Basically Dell is full of , once again. Heck, for all we know 17.3" BG+R screen is more power hungry then 16" RGB screen. Oh yeah, forgot about 2nd HD.

 

Well, at least you know for your own sake of mind it is a $25.00 fix via eBay for a 150w PSU (PA-15) or you can go with a 130w.

Dell has halfway decent pricing atm for 720 equipped Studio 17's with 4650 new:

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/core_i7_systems/fs.aspx?refid=core_i7_systems&s=dhs&cs=19

But they do not have B+RG or Bluray drives as an option at all.

 

Dell seem convinced they can completely sort the throttling issue without a 130W supply. This will be great if it is truely the case but I would have been much more reassured if we had received the same promise as the XPS1645 users. This is why I'm interested in your post vidguy. No throttling on a 130W power supply with BIOS A05........ was this with Throttlestop or without it?
If it was without it, was this an impression you had when gaming or did you make measurements?
Thanks

Edit:

I've just noticed that in the UK, BIOS A05 has also been replaced with A06 which kind of makes my question irrelevant.(Unless you've already got A05 and want to hang onto it.) Does anyone know if A06 is the promised BIOS that will cure the throttling issue or just some in between tweaking? Release notes would be a wonderful thing!

 

Hi there, this is Eric from France, I just wanted to let you know that the A06 Bios is out on Dell's French website !

I'll install it right now.

So far I don't have to complain about any issue with my 1747, except for the hot PSU perhaps ? Performance-wise it works great. I mostly use ubuntu anyway, and then windows 7 for some gaming.

I am far from convinced that a user could experience throttling, even with a heavy use (I don't mean using stress tests, but merely demanding applications). I don't know whether full load on both the CPU and GPU is achievable through normal use, but I doubt it. So maybe you shouldn't worry too much about thottling, as it only seems to happen under extreme conditions that are not representative nor achievable through regular use ? I'd be more worried about PSU temperatures or 7-beep errors (easily fixable but just should not happen).

I have the 1080p screen, i7 820QM, 6GB of ram and 1To of HDD (2 drives). I replaced the first HDD with a 64GB SSD and the laptop runs like a beast.

I hope the A06 fixes some/all bugs, but I won't ever notice anyway.

See ya !

 

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19310587/19641450.aspx?PageIndex=35

does not sound too good :

 

It's a fast changing world..... Like Ricco29, I've just found the answer to the question I posed in my edit above only 2 minutes ago......... AO6 seemingly throttles more.

Perhaps my question to vidguy about unthrottled performance on A05 with 130W is relevant after all. Incidently does anyone know where you can download previous BIOS versions from if you don't like the " improvement" !

 

I remember reading posts about german users bricking their laptop when attempting to flash an older version of the BIOS.

When the A05 was out, then removed and back again, I tried to flash the "new A05" version and it just wouldn't, the Windows utility telling me the current version was already the latest. I guess trying to flash an older version would behave kind of the same.

I still managed to re-flash with A05 with the DOS utility, thought, so i guess it would be feasible to flash any version you like with the dos utility, at your own risk.

 

Anyway you won't find older bios versions on Dell's sites, you will have to ask the user community to see if someone kept them. Maybe you could find them on drivers sites as well.

If I were you, if you really want to revert to an older version, I'd first investigate to find out whether it is safe to do so.

 

Thanks, I have A05 Bios. Throttling is my main concern so I don't think I'll be in any hurry to load up with A06, especially if going back to A05 may be problematic. I'm assuming A06 is not the BIOS only solution to throttling mentioned by Dell-Bill and Dell-Tod elsewhere and that this solution will come later. I still have my doubts about enabling both the i7 and gpu to run at full potential on 90W but I'm happy enough to go along with the assurances for now. (Does this make me naive? Surely Dell would not be foolish enough to further estrange their existing customers by promising a solution that then turns out not to work....if only because this must be becoming pretty evident to a significant number of potential new customers................????)

 

Try here:
http://ftp1.us.dell.com/bios/

 

Hi guys, I'm on the fence on getting a laptop. Does the studio xps 16 provide anything the studio 17 does not? I checked and I can get everything the xps 16 has for a lower price. The only difference is the screen from what I understand. Thanks for your time.

 

This forum details the throttling of the i7 under heavy load experienced by many users. Users of the 1645 also report the same throttling issue. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=446193&page=237

Dell has promised fixes for both. The big difference at the moment is that 1645 users seem to have been promised a new BIOS and a 130W power supply whereas Dell say they are confident they can fix the 1747 issue with a BIOS fix only and that the supplied 90W adapters are adequate. Read more here:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19310587/19612534.aspx?PageIndex=36

 

Thanks Manco

 

Sorry. I forgot to mention I *was* using throttlestop to force the multipliers.. that's the only way,

 

When my order for a 1747 was recently cancelled without warning or explanation, I replaced the order with a very similarly spec'd Alienware M17x (minus the blu-ray drive which doesn't seem to be available) and it apparently ships with a 240W adapter?! Same CPU, same RAM, similar video (4870 instead of 4650), similar 17" LED screen (1920x1200 instead of 1920x1080). I'm sure the silly lighting effects draw some power, but that's a pretty huge discrepancy in power supply size. Wonder why they are so hung up on the 90W adapter? Can't be that much difference in price for a 130W adapter.

 

Maybe Michael Dell can explain for us...about halfway through

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSsJKpT0d8Q&feature=related

Dell Energy Smart = throttlegate ????

 

Just found this Studio 1747 at bestbuy.com...... strange thing is........ IT HAS BLU-RAY!!
Strange how you can get that option there but can't build one with it

BestBuy Studio 1747

 

very very strange, but a good sign it may come back.

 

Well mainly because, the lighting effects, mich stronger cooling, also the Alienwares is basically a Desktop class card using much more power than a mobility designed 4650. And the Alienware needs that type of power supply because some people might opt for CrossFire or SLI graphics which is double the power drain.

 

In addition, the M17x has to be able to support 2x GPUs each pulling ~55-60w/ea on top of a potential 55w CPU (920xm), which they do not offer for the Studio 17 1747 (but with the PM55 chipset and 720/820 support most likely supports it, but would require a 130-150w PSU).

 

Anyone else noticed this 'problem?' with their 1747? Just the other day I started noticing on bootup, the screen activates to display the dell logo but does so all distorted for a second, then shows it fine.. Ive never noticed it before, and I havent done anything with anything, it just started happening.. I wouldnt have thought anything of it, until I saw it happen while using my os.. Booting into windows7 I see a similar 'effect' just before windows desktop displays (when it says logging on blah blah).. And it happens while using the os too, regardless what I`m doing/not doing, for a split second it just randomly but rarely shows a messed up version of whats on screen.. I have updated my bios to A06 but still does it, but I know it wasnt a bios issue, ive had A05 on for ages..and its a new problem. Hardware failing?? Hope Dell dont charge anything to repair with my 1yr C.A.R only policy

EDIT:- It seems to be a heat issue, as Ive just shut down for an hour, powered up and it doesnt happen aymore, UNTIL its been on for a while. It doesnt feel like its overheating tho, yes its warm but nothing Ive known before with other laptops, or my old inspiron 9100 which did get quite hot...
Not sure what to do

 

What do you mean by 'distorted'? Distorted in shape, size or color??

 

the screen 'rolls' like tuning in an old tv... it does it very quickly and only lasts a second..
I think I`ll give dell a ring tomorrow and see if I can get it sent back without any bother...

 

Surprising... Seems the Mobility 4650 is rated for about 20W where as the mobility 4870 is rated for more like 65W ?! Or 4870x2 for 2x65W?!? There's the requirement right there. I hadn't realized how much more power it required. Might be something to justify the Alienware premium price after all.

But then again, the 4650 wasn't the only 1747 video option available either, if memory serves, though it might be at the moment. Still strange that they wouldn't slip in a bigger adapter just to give a bit of room. Would also think an adapter drawing 100% of its capacity wouldn't necessarily last as long as one drawing 50% of its capacity, but I'm no expert in such matters.

 

Are you overclocking? Sounds like a heat issue, you are right.

 

All this aside, Studio 1747 still can't be properly run on 90W without heavy throttling. It's really just simple math.

CPU - 45W (actually more, that's just "recommended" top)
GPU - 25W
Chipset - 5-7W
Screen - 10-15W
Backlight/Keyboard - 2-3W
HD x 2 - 2-3W each so 5-6W for two
DVD-ROM - 3-5W
Memory - 2-3W

I am sure I am forgetting something else here, but if you look just at the numbers here it adds up to 105W or so. Throw away some inefficiencies, heat, whatever I forgot, and tendencies of i7 to consume more then 45W on full load and Dell's "storyline" of 90W PSU being sufficient is complete BS.

 

and the noisy fan ?? and as I saw at HWMonitor my I7 can draw 55W.

 

Looks good but I would like the backlit keyboard with that

 

nope. Not done anything out of the ordinary in the month or so ive had it. Had it switched off overnight, turned out this morning,, and its as it should be when booting up... now after about an hour it will go back to being a 'crashy' logo and the odd random split second crashy screen.

 

Heh, it's extra 5W for the noise! Yeah, the fan takes some power too, more for CPU, etc... Point being it's quite a bit over 90W. Dell using some pixie dust on their new and improved BIOS would simply mean.... more throttling for us. I am staying on A04 with ThrottleStop until I see proof of anything better. At this point I would settle for Dell admitting there is a problem, allowing 130W and 150W PSUs in the BIOS and calling it a day.

 

Greeeeeeeeeeat news!!!
Well at least for those here in Europe. Dell finally has put the studio config with core i3-i5-i7 (arrandale) with ati 5730 online!

For 799€ you get a core i5-430M with ati 5730, 1600x900 screen, 500GB HDD here in Belgium. A great deal IMO.

I'm definitely going to order whenever I get one of the coupon codes.

Okay the 1080p screen is still missing, but I saw the 1600x900 screen with my own eyes and it isn't that bad at all! I mean it's even better than most laptop screens I see from Acer, Hp, Asus,... alternatives

 

what do u guys think? off them http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/mult...id=multitouch_systems&s=dhs&cs=19&redirect=1? are this good laptops?

 

I am so glad I got the 130w PS.

2hrs of playing WOW... 90w power brick is HOT.. I mean HOT, as in not good to touch. (Or leave plugged in)

the 130w PA-13 get's barely warm.

Stressed the system for 3 hrs yesterday, running Prime95 (8threads) and Furmark (1024x768 window, 2XMSAA), used throttlestop to force the multiplies to stay high, 130w PS.

Palm rest area (left side) got fairly warm, so did the trackpad, 130wPS got warm (but not burning hot) Fan went into hairdryer mode. CPU temps on all 4 cores around 74-76 GPU temp was around 72.

No problems ,No throttling, lock-ups or glitches, Screen Brightness around 80%, even played HD youtube vids without a hitch.

No 7 beeps of death either.

Dump the 90w PS, remove the power usage restriction from the BIOS, and slow down this slightly irritating fan.. and it'd be perfect.



-==Dell Studio 1747 | Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor | 4GB DDR3 1333MHz | 1080p R+BG LED ==-

 

Sounds like they may have solved the issues with this one as well...I ordered same specs as you Vidguy...but it's been over 2 mos since my order..sounds like when it is running like it is supposed to ..it's a fast rig...cheers!!!

 

Well just ordered a 1749 I hope Dell dont let me down like the 1745 I ended up cancelling after 2 months of waiting.

Ordered Core i5 540m with Ati 5730, 1600x900 LED screen, 500gb 7200hd, 4gb ram and backlit keyboard and 2yrs onsite warranty
It has carp wireless card with no option to upgrade but hopefully I can pop an intel card in later. I also wasnt going to pay £30 for bluetooth so will add that myself too

Total after 5% discount was £797.08 plus I get 5% quidco back.

 

Ooh, that's a nice config (minus the screen). The price is quite fair as well.

 

Wait for the update from Europe to get to US, IMO. Arrandale i5/i7 is quite fast. Do you need quad-core, that's the big question? I wonder if this has video-switching as well to integrated...

 

I have an EDD of 26/02/10 for the 1749 so will give a review when it arrives.
I will also be testing for throttling

 

Has anyone tried and tested the new A07 Bios that seems to be out?

 

no not yet I dont trust dell engeneers

 

On a Dutch forum someone installed the latest A07 bios update.
He noticed a more silent fan, less ups and downs, cpu clock around 1789 Mhz (before the bios update it varied between 1400 and 1500 Mhz).

Sounds like an improvement to me for the i7 owners. Still not a solid-proof solution, but I think most of us know that you'll get a enough, but never everything out of this laptop's power.
Start getting used to it...

 

Not installing any BIOS updates myself (on A04) right now till I make sure it does not make throttling worse or kills ThrottleStop somehow.

 

Without any disrespectfull thoughts, would you please stop dropping such negative comments?
I will not get used to it and If I have to sue dell, ill be glad to do it.
Thanks

 

No doubt you've been keeping up with events on the Dell thread:

http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19310587/19612534.aspx?PageIndex=45


Pretty disappointing in my opinion......and not entirely unpredicted. The reply from Dell Todd to unclewebb was interesting:
Quote:
unclewebb:
Most games use both the CPU and the GPU at the same time. Not intensively like Prime95 + Furmark testing but modern games can trigger throttling with a 90 watt adapter and who knows what game will be released next week or next month. If a computer can't run at full load on both the CPU and GPU then users need to be warned of that on the sales page, not after the fact. Other laptops can complete this test without resorting to throttling. Why can't Dell do the same?


Dell Todd S in reply:
I'm going to, respectfully, disagree with you on this. The Studio 1747 isn't one of the systems designed to handle max load utilization of both the GPU and CPU at the same time such as would happen with using Prime95 and Furmark. The question comes down to whether the system can handle realistic utilization without throttling. I pass forward what the engineering and development teams report about their findings on the system when they do what they consider realistic testing of this model. If we have examples of throttling happening on a consistent basis that is information we can, and will, gladly take back to them.

 

Yep And I m f*** angry
Very cheap from dell, if now they are changing their mind Very Very cheap

 

thats a shocking answer. i am getting nervous about my 1749 order
I know i can send it back if it doesn perform but knowing how bad Dells customer service is I am not sure I want to risk it