Vostro 1710 WTH

You did.

Was wondering when you'd notice.

 

I've tried at least 6 times now to speak to someone with more authority. I can not get to anyone.
Every single time I'm told "you've already put a case in for this, we will call you back with a solution".
They are yet to call me back and I'm calling them twice a day repeating myself over and over.

This is UNACCEPTABLE.
I am not even using my new laptop. I am too angry and I want it replaced.

Is anyone else making progress??

I should bill Dell for all my work time that has been wasted in the past week. First it was staying home for 3 days because I was told the notebook was being delivered and each time it didnt turn up.
Now its being on the phone for hours every day to the idiots. They owe me a couple of grand in lost income in addition to a new laptop.

 

Are we absolutely sure the 8600 GS is fitted with DDR3 memory, rather than DDR2?

Thanks.

 

Im not with my laptop at the moment but I believe DDR3 was what was listed in diagnosis programs.

Even so, as others have mentioned, the GT is the superior card.

 

This is so dumb. Dell doesn't even sell a laptop with an 8600gs in it. you guys need to stop whining. you have 8600gt's. Quit trying to blame your paranoia on dell. you have the right cards with the wrong drivers.

 

Can you reproduce the problem with your 8600GT?

 

heres the results of a 3dmark test from my laptop. http://service.futuremark.com/results/showSingleResult.action?resultId=6592528&resultType=14

 

Your 3dmark score is set to private....

The GPUZ screen is what gets me, can you reproduce that?

 

I'll try inatalling gs drivers or somethign later to see. but even look at this post with a loptop of an 8600gs ddr3 with scores significantly lower.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=185434

 

That's why you see "256MB Geforce 8600M GS" if you go to Dell website and customize an Inspiron 1710.

Rivatuner & GPU-Z reports G86 with 16SP. Drivers cannot modify hardware. If it was driver, it would have been G84 32SP

 

huh thats odd because it says 8600gt if you look closer. http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bqcw73z&s=bsd

 

i dont think it is a question of if. you do have a GS and you should have a GT. you did not get what you payed for and i get the feeling they are trying to pull a fast one on you.. give them hell.

 

You don't know what you are talking about. no laptop with an 8600gs woul dget those kind of benchmaark scores on stock clock speeds. It is an 8600gt end of story.

 

Andy got told by Dell thats its not a GT chesieofdarock [see 2 threads in Dell forum] - if software doesn't convince you we have a GS, doesn't Dell's admission of guilt do so?

 

My bad on the inspiron yes, but the laptop in question (and the one I checked ) is the Vostro 1710. It shows 8600M GT @Dell US but Dell Canada does show 8600M GS. http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=ca&CS=cabsdt1&l=en&oc=N1710CV_R_E

 

See my response in the thread in the Dell forum... I just got told on the phone that there is no more GT in these systems, its a huge stuff up on their website.

 

say that again.. lol.

 

I honestly dont know who to believe, it sure sounds fishy to me. I remember a ways back a guy was all bent out of shape because an infant version of vista misread his ATI IGP, everything else read it correctly, but because vista didnt he thought he was owed major compensation. This IMO opinion is quite different and action should be taken if it is indeed the wrong card.

OP, have you downloaded the latest whql driverset? and the latest version of GPUZ, it was recently updated. I honestly dont see why drivers would make a difference, doesnt GPUZ get its info from the cards bios?

 

I'm still unsure based on benchmarks

 

I'm unsure as well, and very curious as to the the actual answer. Unless the OP gets brave and decides to take it apart, software ID is really the only way to go.

To the OP, you might want to try asking at http://nvnews.net/

 

Is it possible that this GS is a new one that has not been spoken of before?
Spec'd somewhere in between the old GS and the GT? That's what the rep on the phone made it sound like. I know he was only trying to get on my good side though.

 

Could you exagerating the story or it's another one? I did whine in this forum because my dad's inspiron 1501 has a X1150 rather than the X1270 advertised when he ordered it lol. But that's the end of story.

Well, according to notebookcheck, a 8600M GS @500/950/700 socres 2.6k @1280x1024 so one at 600/1250/700 should be near 3.3k....

It scores 5k @1024x768

Do you have anygames so we would compare framerates with GT laptops?

 

Actually an 8600gs GDDR3 is more or less on par with an 8600gt GDDR2. I don't feel like digging up the thread but a samsung R70 was compared in detail to a sager np2090 in F.E.A.R and a few other games and the 8600gs was within ~5% of the 8600gt always.

Mind you the 8600GT has better overclocking potential but at stock speeds they are equal. One has to remember the mid-range 8-series was seriously memory-bandwidth limited and 700mhz memory vs 500mhz memory makes a big difference.

 

Just called dell vostro division. The first guy told me there is NO difference between the gs and the gt! I was pretty close to swearing.
I then demanded to talk to his manager, and he still insist that this is a driver issue. He said that the gt drivers are not available so they had to use drivers for the gs, and there should be no performance impact. When I asked why the gt is not offered at the dell UK site anymore, he had no answer. However he did confirmed that if the wrong hardware was installed, it will be replaced anywhere on the planet, and things will be done on dell's behalf to make sure I have the right hardware.
I really don't think it can be a driver issue, so i think i'll just get a replacement of some sort when I come back from holiday.
oh and I also lead the manager to this forum to show him the scale of this muck up.

 

so much for being polite

 

Really!? I thought they were swimming in bandwidth

Bandwidth makes very little difference to things like shaders, shadows etc. which take up *very* little memory. Just textures\resolution and AA which i assume they piled on in those f.e.a.r benchmarks you are talking about. I'm not disagreeing with you but the extra shaders of the GT would always show an improvement in visuals compared to the GS which would rarely pull ahead with the extra 2-3 GB\s bandwidth.

Hope that made sense

 

Yes I have experienced the exact same thing. New Vostro 1710 has an 8600m GS. Not only that but its giving horrible and sudden fps dips in WoW... I'm not chuffed.

 

How issit then? Any progress? If I were you, I would bug them to hell to get the vouchers... lol
But saying there is NO difference between the gs and the gt, that guy should be fired or reeducated (about laptop hardware)..

 

No progress at all, they are still trying to figure out the problem, at least that's what they told me.
my plan is to keep this laptop for now and deal with it when I get back from holidays, then try get a replacement.

 

Actually its an extra 9.6gb/s memory bandwidth. (assuming 400mhz memory vs 700).

I found the thread.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sho...R.,+3dmark06,+underclock,+stock,+OC+Benchmark

Those are with year-old drivers also. You can do the work digging up an 8600GT F.E.A.R thread (it was with a sager np2090)

edit: found an old one with fear on 8600gt gddr2.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2130981

but soft shadows/aa were disabled and newer drivers were also included. Thats probably why he got a higher FPS average. 45FPS average in F.E.A.R at max is more like 8600GT GDDR3 levels.

 

Ok that's a bit more You would still have to stress that part of the card to see an improvement in performance. DX10 can be a bit of a memory hog so there would be a noticable difference in some games but i'd never base a purchase on memory clocks.. It'd just be a bonus

 

If Dell is trying to blame drivers. Then why can I take the "GS" drivers from their site, and install them on my M1530 and it still shows up as a GT?

 

Yeah, the driver thing doesn't seem too kosher to me.

 

Whoa, sirmetman and I agreed on something! lol j/k

I don't know. Personally I have never seen GPU-Z show the wrong video card shown, regardless of which driver is installed. I thought it took the info directly off the bios? Could be wrong there.

 

oh i'm sure he was well aware of the difference, he just wanted him to shut his pie hole. reason only goes so far with many CS reps, threatening their bottom line on the other hand is usually the only appeal that works.

they'll just laugh at you after you hang up if you get into some sort of semantics, card specs argument with them.

 

The 8600M GS & GT aren't even the same physical card, their argument based on the drivers is flawed right there

It's like saying your 8800GTX is shown as a 8800GTS 512MB "because of the drivers". It's not the same GPU, it can't even be flashed as

 

Specialised drivers could cange how cards are read by certain softwares. I know edited registry entries and inf's can do so aswell but i think we can rule out those posibilities in this case.

 

You can change its name, but it's hardware analysis by GPU-Z/Rivatuner? Doubt it.

Changing the name is really easy, just go into the .inf file and change X name by Y name. You can turn your 8600M GT into MAH BELOVED CARD if you want.

 

Oh you think so? Read this for a laugh:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18776

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=257598

 

But, but! You can buy a cheap 8300gs off ebay and it'll go faster than an 8800gs after this!

 

But all those cards are the same physical cards The 8400M GS, 8400 GS, 8400M GT, 8500GT 8600M G, the quadro NVS 140M and so on are all G86 cards. The 8600M GT is a G84 card.

 

They are different physical cards. However, if you read that thread, you will notice that there is no performance improvement from that "hack".

Also, from other thread, it appears that these 8600GS are DDR2 version, as well. I strongly recommend OP to seek refund immediately, as the chance is slim they can replace GPU - and there's quite a difference between two. No driver problem will show such "error" especially on mature chips like 8X00. Dell is likely to give absurd excuses, because they don't like to refund. But customers have the right to get what they were told that they were getting.

 

the 8600m gs that i have seems to have the faster gddr3 memory.
I just got the invoice by mail. It says 256mb ddr2 8600m gt.
I'm quite happy with the performance, in the uk it's impossible to find another deal like this. I will however make them replace the laptop or give me some refund when i get back from my holiday, since i got all the evidence that they made the mistake. and they told me that it's a driver problem(another god damn lie! that's twice dell lied to me!).

 

have fun getting sodomized by Dell, make sure you're polite to get the bestest service

 

Its not a driver problem, your situation inspired me to check, when I first booted up my machine with my new 4850 pre driver install I loaded up GPUZ and it detected and read the card correctly....too bad thats the only thing thats worked correctly with the card thus far...

 

yeah i think we established that since-it-was-suggested ago but thx

 

You can still express anger speak powerfully while being polite.

 

i never said NOT to be polite, it's not enough was my point.

 

sorry, thought you were being sacarstic.

 

On a different matter with my Dell Vostro 1710 since I have decided that so long as the card works and runs WoW well I shouldn't really complain, my power adapter was giving my laptop some grief and then died after only 3 days of use. I called Dell the next morning and the assistant was very helpful and has arranged for a new adapter to be sent to my work place on the next working day. I have nothing that would make me believe that Dell wouldn't be polite, understanding and helpful so long as you run with them at their pace instead of jumping ahead to conclusions