Some issues with my Inspiron 1545...

Purolator dropped off the laptop today and I was quite excited. I tried the Bluray and it's definitely worth the extra money. However, some things are going wrong.

First, the damn touchpad sucks. I want Synaptics back. But at this point all I can do is BAWW about it, so whatever. But when I try to install the drivers, the cursor flips out every time I touch the pad at all. It goes all over the screen in random directions.

Second, my bluetooth doesn't seem to be working. I installed the drivers on Windows Vista and Windows 7, but neither of them yielded results. The drivers install without a problem and then tell me to enable Bluetooth using the radio button. The radio button is already enabled, as Wi-Fi is working, but there is still no Bluetooth option in the Control Panel or anywhere else for that matter.

Third, Bluray movies seem to not work with WMP. What's the problem? If it's not supported, what program do you guys suggest I use for Bluray movies?

Fourth, no matter what I do, Catalyst Control Center just won't install. The drivers are there, but CCC just won't work at all, let alone show up in my desktop context menu. Ugh.


I'm already starting to regret getting this thing. Help me out!

 

apparently Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3 is the only software that will play it, according to this link: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/510203. I'm surprised they wouldn't include some software to read BD out of the box.

 

Okay, I've gotten most things settled. The touchpad drivers work after I got older ones, it appears after a recheck on my emails from Dell that I didn't even get Bluetooth after all, but whatever, it's useless for me.

However, there is still one more problem. No matter how many setups I run for Catalyst Control Center, it never installs properly.

 

If you are trying to install CCC on windows 7, I wouldn't bother using the one that Dell provides. It was causing me no end of problems. Instead go to the ATI site and download their beta version for Windows 7. Then use mobility modder to alter it for the HD 4330. That works just fine.

You shouldn't in reality have to mobility mod it at all, seeing that ATi are providing mobile GPU drivers for Windows 7, but for whatever reason they failed to include the relevant ones for the Inspiron & Studio GPUs. Mobility modder will fix this, as recently they released an updated version which now includes the HD 4330.

With regards to the bluetooth, even if you did have it, it could potentially have been disabled in the BIOS, therefore the switch would have done nothing.

Finally, the Cyberlink Power DVD software is supplied if you ordered a Blu-ray drive; or it was in my case anyway. Give online chat a go if you've not got it.

Regards

 

To be honest, I sort of made this thread with you in mind. Good thing you noticed it.

Now, the ATI website appears to have drivers for mobility HD4000 series cards, which includes us. I installed that before posting the thread and it didn't do anything. Then I downloaded the CCC-only package from the desktop 4800 series section, seeing as how CCC isn't GPU-specific. Nothing worked. All they ended up installing is the Install Manager along with one more thing that doesn't do anything. No CCC in sight.

About the Bluetooth, I now recall seeing the option in the BIOS and it is checked. Should this mean that I do in fact have Bluetooth?

Also, I discovered the PowerDVD disc after posting my previous reply.

 

I'm flattered that you had posted for me to answer, but there are a ton of other people in these forums with a knowledge 10 times greater than mine. I just enjoy sticking my oar in quite a lot

Anyway, the drivers from ATi should in theory have the HD 4330 in there, but they don't. I've emailed ATi about this again as I did with 9.6, but whether it gets added to 9.8 or not, your guess is as good as mine.

However, if you follow the instructions on this website, you can get it to work just fine by downloading the 9.7 full catalyst suite for the HD 4000 series and then modding them: http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

Having the bluetooth thing in your BIOS doesn't mean it's included with your machine, it's in my BIOS and I definitely don't have it included with my notebook. You can try to change the setting, but if it's not included on your order confirmation then likely it's not included in your machine.

In fact, I just checked my order confirmation document and it specifically stated "No Bluetooth Upgrade", so check for that.

 

I downloaded the desktop HD4350 drivers and ran that modding program on them. CCC is now installing.

You deliver, once again!

But now there's one more problem. Do you notice how around text at times there will be yellow and blue-ish coloring? What's the deal with that?

 

Never mind about the coloring. Seems that the drivers just fixed that.

 

Woah, what the christ.

They messed with the UI big time.

 

Which display did you go with? Go to control panel > device manager > Monitors > Properties > Details then select Hardware ID in the drop down box to see the model.

I recall recently that there were some people on here and the Dell support forums complaining about some of the colours not be reproduced correctly on the Samsung displays I think. I didn't notice on my original display (which was an LG) or my new display (which is AUO).

Mind you, my eyesight if failing me more and more each day it seems, so any dubious colouring I'd probably put down to that. Really really need to go get some new glasses....!

You could try calibrating your display. I take it that you are using Windows 7? If so, go to control panel > display then on the right hand menu choose "calibrate display", eventually you'll get to a screen that allows you to alter the RGB balance.

EDIT: How do you mean they messed with the display big time?

 

As I recall, there were three choices, a low resolution regular, a low resolution bright, and a high resolution bright. I went with the low resolution bright.

 

To be honest that doesn't matter, because Dell could change display manufacturers anyway. Only way to be sure is to check the hardware ID like I mentioned above; but before worrying about that I would say check you have the latest graphics drivers installed, which you now have (and it fixed the problem?) or trying the calibration method as also mentioned above.

 

I'm certain that it is fixed. And I did the calibration and in the end I ended up with lower gamma for a much richer color. Anyway, that'll be all. Thanks for your help.

 

Not a problem, glad you've got it sorted.

 

Wait, it's not fixed yet. Here's basically what I see, but I zoomed in to make it obvious.

 

Do you get that in anything other than games?

 

It comes up basically whenever small text is present. For example, it's quite evident in the "Dell Inspiron and Dell Studio Post questions and comments on the Dell Inspiron and Dell Studio line of notebooks in here. Click Here to see the latest Dell Inspiron and Studio deals" that is located near the top.

 

OK, go to control panel > display > Adjust ClearType text and go through the wizard; see if that makes any difference to start with.

 

Nope. All of the samples had considerable amounts of blue-ish tint to some letters.

On a side note, I seriously hate this touch pad. It keeps having retard sessions every 10 minutes.

 

Oh and make sure you have the resolution set to the maximum resolution possible for your display (I think from the sounds of things that would be 1366x768). If I zoom in 400% even I see that on my external display, so if your resolution is not set right I would imagine it might be more pronounced.

 

It's set correctly.

Meh, this is probably not the laptop's fault. I'm just being too picky. For all I know, my old screen had this too. Thanks for your time.

 

The touchpad is a little sensitive. Install the Apps touchpad software and change the sensitivity of it, in my opinion it is far to sensitive out of the box. Might also want to turn on the touch check feature

 

OK, it looks to me like it is where Windows is trying to smooth the edges of the fonts. You can disable that in Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings > Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts.

However, it makes the fonts look worse. Maybe a combination of that & the clear type text will make a difference?

 

Yep, there seems to be no color in the text anymore, but it does make it significantly skinnier. Thank you again for the help.

Oh, and I can't enable TouchCheck because I absolutely despise Tap to Click. :/

 

Yeah same as. To be honest I set it up so it disables the touchpad if I plug in a usb mouse, and I nearly always have one plugged in.

 

Well I ended up turning ClearType on again. Skinny letters = eye rape. But I spent more time messing with the calibration and it seems better now. Anyway, I'm off to watch a Bluray movie, something I've wanted to do forr a long time.

 

(Deleted) you already resolved the issue

 

Oh, and when I said that they messed with the UI big time, I mean the control center. It had a totally different menu previously, but now they resorted to this crappy one that takes longer to navigate through. Not to mention the 3D page lags hardcore. I mean, the 3D itself is rendering fast, but any clicking on this page takes forever to get registered. But whatever.

 

Yeah, lots of people have voiced their negative opinion about the new CCC. Personally I don't really mind, I only tend to use either performance or quality mode via the taskbar shortcut