Recieved my vostro 1700, i have some questions

Well i got my 1700 today, it seems fine, the screen is an LG make and dosent seem to be grainy, i havent tried out the headphone jack for noise but thats pointless for me anyways as i will be using an audigy 2 nx. I have some questions.

1. I need more hard drive space, 160x2 on my desktop is not enough so 160x1 on this laptop is insufficient. I was thinking external, but i can actually get a 250GB internal 2.5" drive for a decent price. How would i go about installing it? Are there any in depth guides like there is for installing memory? I gather i need another mounting.... thing.. dont know what you call it, but the thing that holds the drive in place, where would i get one of those?

2. Does anyone elses dell logo heat up? Lol its crazy that the little silver logo at the bottom of the screen is the hottest part of the laptop.

3. Are there are x64 drivers available for the card reader? Its called a "Ricoh - Driver" under the 32 bit section of dells driver page. I dont need this piece of hardware yet but i would like it to work, if there isnt a driver is there likely to be one in the future?

4. Can the keyboard be taken off and cleaned?

 

as long as you get a 2.5" form factpr drive it should go right in place of the dell one... you should not need anything

the dell logo there heats up because the bulb for the lcd illimination is behind that area all of the ones i have seen 1520 and 1720 all heat up there i mean not enought to do any damage but it gets warm

the third one im not sure at this time id have to check


the keyboard comes off pretty easy takes about 5 min and then it can be cleaned with some compressed air or cleaner make sure to use something that will not affect the plastic keys though

wish i had a 1700 here i ordered a 1500 and regret it now i should have just got the 17 everyone for th emost part seems really happy with them not like the 15" ones

 

I plan to keep the dell drive, i gather there is space for two hard drives so i want to use the 160 already in it for programs, ill use it conservatively, and the 250 i plan to put in for everything else.

Theres a bulb that lights it up!? What happens if it burns out? Can it be replaced easily?

I gotta say i was kinda wishing i had went for a 1500 due to the people saying the 1700s are so heavy and big etc etc, the thing aint heavy at all, and the only bag this wouldnt fit in is a handbag. Its definately more portable than i was led to believe.

 

if you didnt order your laptop with a 2nd hard drive, then you wont have the second hard drive cage...basically the matal bracket to hold the laptop down. you can order this from dell for about 25 bucks.

my dell logo is cool to the touch on my 1500...

 

yep i feel the same everyone said the 1700 was so big.. i wish i would have ignored everyone cause the 15 is not really what i wanted it to be

 

Do i have to get the cage from dell? No other option? If so can someone link me to it, i cant find a cage. Im from the UK btw.

 

You'll need to order the items below. It'll be much faster if you call Dell Parts to get them.

Adapter: XK231
Caddy: C7586

Be sure to ask them for some screws. My drive caddy didn't come with any and it was a pain to find them. I found some that worked at a hobby shop.

It's an easy install. The service manual pretty much shows you what you need to do. For some reason they don't show the adapter in the service manual. With that little adapter, the drive can not connect to the motherboard.

 

Gotcha, phoned them up. Ill summerise whats been happening since i phoned them.

--Called technical support--

Me: Hi i would like to order some parts please.
Customer service: You want buy computer?
Me: No i want parts, i have the park numbers here.
Customer service: Ok i transfer you to part upgrade services

--Transferred to a random company who are not dell--

Me: Hi i need vostro parts please
Random company guy: We dont have any, dell havent told us anything about vostro components we deal in legacy parts mainly, the CSR that transferred you was a dud.
Me: Seems that way

--Called the sales line instead--

Me: Hi i need vostro parts
Dell sales guy: You have service tag?
Me: Yes its xxxxxxxxx
Dell sales guy: Is this for home or buisness use?
Me: home and business
Dell sales guy: What you say?
Me: business....
Dell sales guy: Ok i transfer you to buisness line!
Me: Uh no wait umm its home use actually i forgot.... --already transferred--

--Transferred to business sales girl--

Me: Yo can i order some parts?
Business sales girl: blah blah blah
Me: blah blah blah

She was surprisingly helpful actually, knew exactly what the parts were and understood i wanted parts and not a whole friggin laptop. She also gave me some ref number and a number to call in case i got disconnected.

--Transferred to the REAL parts line--

Me: Hi i need to order parts
Some guy: Hello

--Cut off from the REAL parts line--

--Dialled the number that helpful sales girl gave me for the REAL parts line--

Me: Can i order parts here?
REAL parts guy: Which parts sir?
Me: XK231 C7586
-he kept mumbling things to himself so it tough to know if he was asking me something-
REAL parts guy: What there parts for sir?
Me: Ones some kinda adapter for a hard drive, the others a caddy to hold it in place
REAL parts guy: You wish to buy hard drive?
Me: no! i want those parts
REAL parts guy: Got service tag sir?
Me: yah blah blah blah
REAL parts guy: Ok i find those parts for you sir, call back in 15 minutes.
Me: k

MAN!! WHAT A CROCK OF S**T!!! lol.... So many hoops just to get something thats probably just a fangled piece of metal, i swear if he calls back and tells me something like £50 each part ill just go and get that western digital passport thing. Thats IF i get a call back, ive been waiting about half an hour. I want to go listen to music real loud but then i wont hear the phone, so i cant i have to sit here and wait

Ya know what i did yesterday? I went and found an email to logitech and praised their customer service, said that i was dealing with dell at the same time and it was like heaven and hell. Maybe logitechs csr's will get a raise or something if they get praised.

Anyways on a more positive note heres some pretty pictures of my new laptop and its good LG screen:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5338/p1010002tl3.jpg

http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/8516/p1010003jp7.jpg

 

Let me know how you get on - been looking into this myself. My CSR told me to go to a third party, presumably the one you were directed to, but still waiting for any word from then. If I can get it direct from Dell I'll try again.

 

F**K S**T BALLS!! AHHH!

Technical support know what im talking about, but they cant ORDER the part.

Sales line dont know what im talking about, but they have the ability to order the part.

I was pissed with the sales guy because of his insistence that the part numbers i had were wrong and asked to speak to his supervisor, so he says ok, puts me on hold, then i get transferred through to another department, insolent soab!!

When i finally get through to someone who knows what im talking about, they phone ahead and have a chat with sales educating them about hard drive caddys or whatever before she transferred me over to the sales person she was talking to. When i do get transferred its so quiet i can barely hear whoever was on the other end of the line.... I have excellent hearing and i even put the phone on loudspeaker as well... no joy, then they hang up. What a load of gar*****. Im gonna give this one last shot!

 

I dont think they had it in stock, but that was the same department who kept asking me for the "dell part number" so i dunno.... They said they would call another company to get the part for me, but i suspect thats the company i was transferred to earlier and they havent been told anything about vostros or inspirons.

 

Eh, I wouldn't agree so... while I can move the Vostro easily, it's not exactly much for being on a lap and such. It's not something I can stuff in my bag and carry around campus to use wherever I like... I have to carry it in my case and then set it up or else it'll be very unwieldy.

 

do you feel that way about the vostro or all 17" notebooks.. ive seen a lot of different ones and it seems the dell is larger than others when it comes to overall bulk

 

Just thought maybe I would offer my experience with getting these parts. My experience was actually quite a bit more pleasant it seems. I actually have an Inspiron 1720 which is exactly the same as the Vostro except for the inner case plastic color and the fact that the Vostro is supposedly dockable. I wish now that I had known the Vostro would come out a couple weeks after ordering my Inspiron because I would have ordered one of them instead for the above noted differences. My Inspiron takes the exact same part numbers as the Vostro for the drive caddy's so it's still applicable.

After calling Dell at 1-800-915-3355 I got the extension I needed for sales from the first person I talked to which is 7266200 - you can dial this from that main Dell number to go directly there. After explaining what I needed I was transferred to parts. I gave them my service tag and explained what I needed in as much detail as I could - the person on the other end was apparently more intelligent than some of the people you have talked to. She didn't know what I was talking about at first but she said to hold on and she would ask about it. A few minutes later she said she had found what I needed and asked whether I needed the caddy for drive bay #1 or #2. I told her I needed it for #2 and she proceeded to get my information. The price was something like $21.00 or so and then there was tax and shipping appended making the total somewhere around $30.00. I should be getting the caddy and the adapter either today or Monday. By the way, I doubt you'll ever be able to find this on Dell's website because their publicly available parts don't seem to include everything for all models.

I wonder if it would help you to explain as I did that when I purchased my laptop I was hoping I could add a second drive that I already have here at home (not really, but for helping them understand it's purpose this story worked), but that in order to add my hard drive I needed the drive caddy for the second hard drive bay in my laptop. You will probably have to be patient and carefully explain in detail what it is. If you do it this way I suspect that the parts people will then realize that it's definitely a part that exists and that they need to actually do something to figure out what it is rather than just lead you around in circles. I would recommend this method over giving them direct part numbers.

 

I gave up and ordered a western digital passport 250GB, ill give this another bash when 300-500GB drives are available in 2.5" format.

Thanks for the advice though, ill keep it in mind.