I currently own a XPS Gen2 I purchased in Oct 2005. When I was deployed back to Iraq this past year it started acting up and now when I boot it the screen is just black. I have been told by a few people that it is the Vid card that has died on me. If so. Is there any modding to put a 7800gtx in it? I have seen on the forums where I can purchase one for around $260US.
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For whatever reason, my 6800 Ultra in my XPS Gen2 I got awhile ago went dead. Can anyone suggest where I can get a replacement on the cheap(er)? I bought the 6800 Ultra upgrade for $500 back then and now spare parts wants $599 for one.
View 10 Replies View RelatedI'm getting with my rig with everything turned on LOW at native res (1440 x 900). I am using the recommended 163.44 drivers. This is garbage, isn't there anything I can do to make it better?
View 15 Replies View RelatedI have an XPS Gen 2 that I bought back in 2005.
What, if anything, is needed to be done in order to upgrade my system from having a 6800 Ultra card to a 7800 GTX card? Do I need to purchase any additional parts?
I'm in the processes of cleaning out my XPS Gen2 for the first time since 2005 (yes yes I know...) because it started shutting down during some games. The question I have is related to the heat pads on the video card memory, FETs, and on the chipset heatsink. I know these things suck. I want to use AS5 in place of them but there is a gap between the heatsinks and the memory/chipset/fets when you remove them. How have you guys gotten around this? Is there a better version of a heat pad and where would I get them?
View 9 Replies View RelatedA couple weeks ago I put my laptop (a Dell XPS M170) beside my bed cause I had to use the MC Alarm to get up cause I had to be up at like 4 AM and I don't do well with the beep beep alarms.
Anyway, I plugged it in and sat it on the floor on top of (for lack of anything better) two Arizona tallboy cans laid longways (the feet sat on these) with a chess set box underneath (in case
it happened to slip off one of the cans). I also left the screen partway up. Well of course I left it on overnight for the alarm, but when I got up to go to the bathroom ...
I have been looking into upgrading my 9300 from the 6800 to the 6800 Ultra for the past couple of years now. The prices are finally reasonable enough to do the swap. My question is would the swap even be worth it these days? Is it still a good enough card to make it worth my while to come up from the standard 6800 even with overclocking it?
View 15 Replies View RelatedWhen I took my XPS Gen2 out of standby this morning the LCD had a bar about an inch wide running from the bottom to the top that is light and flickering. Then another bar next to ithat one that is even lighter and flickering. I reseated both LCD connectors, rebooted and tried several other adjustments without any luck.
I have the WXUGA Clearview screen - and could have sworn I saw something about Dell having a recall on these if they died? Could anyone direct me to the proper location for that? I'm just... exasperated this happened out of nowhere :/ The laptop isn't even 3 years old :/
This laptop just went out of warranty when the lcd started growing vertical lines(have had 4 screens replaced under warranty for the same thing )
Should i fix it with a new screen and sell it or just part it out?
I know this computer is pretty antiquated by now.. it has lasted me almost all the way through college but I just noticed how cheap memory is so i bought 4 gigs of Kingston Hyperx ram. I know windows xp can only see 3.25gigs but i figured it would run better with 2 identical sticks of ram in it instead of a 2gb stick and a 1gb stick ......
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a XPS Gen2 which has a internal 54Mbit wireless card. Does anyone know if I can upgrade that internal card to draft-N or do I have to buy a PC-CARD to be able to get faster wireless?
View 13 Replies View RelatedIt has been a while since I have read this forum and I've had this XPS Gen 2 laptop for a couple of years and am happy with it.
I remember a while back there was a very detailed thread that told of how to do a Clean Install of Win XP for the technically impaired.
I've been using my M1710 that I built from parts over two years ago and it still runs great. But guess what sports fans...this thing does have a supreme maintenance issue. An issue that Dell has never admitted. I might even call it a design defect.
And that major issue/design defect is the fact that dust bunnies form between the cooling fan outlets and the heatsink cooling fins located on the ends of the CPU/GPU heatsinks arms. The result is that air flow is blocked and heatsink efficiency goes way down, so "baddaboom baddabing"...higher temps. If your lappy is getting hotter than normal, check your fan speeds if you have I8kfanGUI as they will most definitely be running faster than normal. As an example, my maximum fan speeds are pretty consistant at 42CPU/38GPU. Right now, as I'm typing this they are 44/40 and my CPU/GPU temps are above average so I have to do something I hate to do...
...and you'll hate it too if you're having heat problems, but it MUST be done sooner or later. You, or someone you trust, will have to carefully disassemble your lappy to remove the offending dust bunnies. This requires removing the top palm rest and power switch/hinge covers, keyboard, myriad motherboard connectors, and the video card. Of course, you'll also want to remove the battery first. Here is a link for the Dell service manual to guide you in your disassembly if you don't have access to one: [url]. Until the video card is removed you won't be able to see the dust bunnies since Dell seals the tops of the fan outlets with black tape. After peeling up the tape you'll still have to remove the fans and they will need cleaning also. This is when you'll see why your "Precious" has become a POS. If you've ever looked at the mesh filter screen on your clothes dryer you'll see the same damned thing. So what's next?
After removing the bunnies, thoroughly clean the fan blades, heatsink arm fins and don't forget to clean the bottom case inlet/outlet vents. A mini-sized vaccuum is good to start with and/or take dampened-with-water Q-Tip swabs and maybe even an old soft toothbrush to do the deed. And then?
Afterwords, carefully reassemble your lappy, but don't forget to reseal the tops of the fan exhaust areas. Electrical tape works great. If you unplugged your CMOS battery you'll have to re-enter your bios settings. After boot-up you'll notice the lappy is cooler and quieter and the fans won't be running wide-assed open as often.
Don't forget these lappies generate a lot of heat naturally and any air flow blockage yields dire results. I was quite disappointed after I installed an unlocked T7600G CPU and could crank it up in the U.S, but here in Thailand I can't run it hard above 2.33Ghz for long due to higher ambient temps. This means the cooling system is just adequate and there's not much room for poor conditions.
One more tip. I usually do this cleaning every three or four months and there's always a dust bunny, or two, even if the fans don't look too dirty. Last Spring I actually disassembled the whole unit and used a Dremel to open up the exhaust slots in the back of the case bottom to hopefully increase exhaust air flow . After re-assembly I cut up some old panty hose and taped a small piece over each case fan inlet vent to filter out the dust. If you also add the panty hose filters be careful not to block any of the vent slots with tape. I did this about six months ago and it finally needs cleaning again, so it just about doubled my maintenance interval.
Now then, why do I say this is a design defect? Simple, as this same problem has existed since the XPS Gen2 for all models with discrete graphics cards plugged into the motherboard as they're all the same design. Dell should have revised the design to avoid this problem or at least they could have made the bottom cases such that the cooling vent areas could be easily removed for access. This also should have been added to the manual as a periodic maintenance requirement. I guarantee that they've spent a huge amount of money by having to service or replace probably thousands of these for overheating over the last few years when the condition was avoidable to begin with. How sad, and moreso for the unhappy customers.
Another problem I had with my Gen2 was that the graphics card heatsink wasn't transferring heat away from the GPU and it kept overheating. It was easy to tell once the power switch cover and keyboard were removed because I could then touch the heatsink over the graphics card and it was hot as Hell while the cooling arms were much cooler.
Dell replaced the 6800 with a 7800 under warranty so I was happy at the time.
I have a 9300 that has been modded to an XPS Gen2 with the 7800 GTX in it. The battery that I have sometimes gives me the flashing orange light. When it's not doing that, it only last about an hour. It used to last much longer. I also think it's going out becaus of the orange light that flashes from time to time.
I want to buy a new one off Ebay but there are so many sellers and it looks like there are a good number of variances from the batteries. Some say 7200, some say 6600. I know what I want there, but my question is this:
Does anyone know of a good Ebay seller that sells a quality and correct product for my laptop?
Or does anyone have a place that will sell me a quality product? I don't want to pay $150 for a battery from Dell.
regarding the Orange Box performance (mainly Portal) and the 6800 Go. I have a lower fps than I expected to have after playing HL2. But I realized that if I put AA up to 4x in the game, I get better performance than with just 2x (about 6-8 fps improvement). Thats at running at 1280x800 resolution.
I"m using just the Dell 84.30 drivers right now because I can't seem to find a good set of drivers. The others I used were the MobileForce 169.04's, but I wasn't getting a very good FPS. I think my laptop should handle Portal at 1280x800 at around a consistent 30+ fps (with V-sync and triple buffering, no HDR, Medium on every setting with medium, high on the other options). I could be wrong though, I seemed to have run HL2 pretty good at higher settings.
So yeah I'm just curious if anybody else that has a 6800 Go has any recommendations for drivers and why I'm getting better performance with more AA enabled right now. My specs (a bit older laptop):
Pentium M 1.6 Ghz
2 GB of RAM
NVIDIA Geforce Go 6800
Windows XP SP2
It's been a long time since i've posted on this forum, but i was wondering wether or not a 6800 go is better than the 8600m gt? The reason for this is that my 9300 seems to be on its last legs (after three keyboard replacements, two motherboard replacements, a 3d card replacement, and various other little problems) and i was wondering if they replace my 9300 with a 1720, would i be satisfied? (im already worried about it not having a DVI port as i regularly connect my 9300 to my 20' monitor).
View 15 Replies View Relatedturn on the power and for the first couple boots, I could see the POST info, but it was really distorted. Now the backlight comes on and I get nothing. I can hear the machine booting, and everything else seems fine, but no display.
I pulled the display off another laptop and it looks exactly the same, so I'm assuming it's the 6800, but I don't have any way to test for sure.
Now... if it IS the vid card, I'm not sure I want to shell-out $200 - $350 for a new vid card. The rest of the lappy works fine (in fact, I JUST upgraded the CPU). Think I could get any money for it?
Also, would would be a good replacement for around $700? I'd like the something with the WUXGA screen like I have now and at least something comparable to the 6800 I have now as well.
I've got a Dell Inspiron 9300. Recently, I flashed my vBios and had to do a blind flash. I've got a flash drive with all of the things needed on it, but I'm not so sure about the ROM. It was the only one I could find on the net, and it hasn't worked so far. I left the flash drive in for almost two hours, and it finally did the two beeps. It was on full auto mode and it didn't restart; it just sat there.
I guess I'm begging someone to send me a default bios for a Dell i9300's go 6800 gpu (NV41, according to dell, not sure if it matters).
Also, for clarification, the "backlight" refers to the monitor emitting a glow while still being blank, yes? Because as it is, the monitor doesn't even come on, much less emit any light.
Laptop started with verticle lines. Did some research, seems common video card problems - scoured the net for cheapest replacement (dell wanted crazy money!)
Found ebay seller who links to this forum (did not purchase).
Seems the link is for 9300's...read about flashing BIOS to make laptop think its an XPS...
But, MINE is.
DO i need both the battery and power supply? battery died a year ago and i just took it out. Laptop is desktop. Prefer not to buy Battery .....
i have Dell Inspiron 9300 With Nvidia Graphics card
I recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate
From Device Manager:
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800
Driver Provider: NVIDIA
Driver Date : 3/6/2009
Driver Version : 7.15.11.7967
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility
On scanning from Nvidia website:
Product : NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800
Current Installed Driver : 179.67
Latest Driver Update :
The manufacturer of this system requires that you download the driver for your GPU from their support site .....
it's weird because I'm running Dawn of War 2 and Starcraft 2 in native resolution with max settings (water effect set to mid in Dawn of War 2)
The amd GPU overclock tool is also telling me that the default clock speed is 99/199
I'm guessing it's driver issues but i have no friggen clue. I installed the latest drivers and updated everything that needed to be updated.
I've just got PowerDVD 9 Ultra and I'm having a few problems
I can't get it to output audio over the HDMI connection to my TV when playing a Blu-Ray
With PowerDVD 8 it paid attention to the default device in the Playback control panel.
No matter what I do PowerDVD 9 will only play audio through the Speaker/Headphones - even if I set the HDMI to the default output device .....
My Inspiron 9300 has the following specs:
Pentium M 1.6Ghz pin modded to 2.13Ghz (previous CPu was 1.73Ghz) , 2Gb RAM (667Mhz sticks), 6800 Ultra (Xps Gen 2 Bios flash-A05, previous card was an X300 64MB.)
I seem to be getting odd 3DMark05 socres, around the range of 4500, I tried overclocking the 6800 Ultra to 500/1166 and that produced a result of around 5000. The odd thing is that 3DMark05 appears to be running "choppy" every other frame it seems to skip producing a choppy flow of the tests, the frame rate also fluctuate by about 5 FPS in somewhat low movement/action scenes.
I have tried numerous drivers all resulting in the same thing (every driver has been cleanly installed). I am also quite certain that it's not a temperature issue as the max temp the card reaches (according to I8kfanGUI) is around 80-85 C. Just to be certain I ran 3dmark while the laptop was in an ambient temp of -5C (holding laptop outside the window ;]) and still the same...although max temperatures were a lot lower.
So is it possible that the card is for some reason throttling back and forth from the high performance 3d profile (450/1064/1.38v) to the low profile one (250/658/1.1v)?
I got the card from eBay over a year ago now and thus have no warranty on it.
Has anyone else had a similar problem and found a solution?
I am currently considering flashing the card with a custom BIOS, using NiBiTor 3.6 get BIOS from card, change ONLY throttling values to 450/1064 and also voltage to 1.38v, do not touch anything else, save the BIOS burn to CD (alongside a copy of original BIOS read from card)-[no floppy] and flash.
However I am a bit worried about killing the card, has anyone attempted something like this? Also the ROM files generated by NiBiTor are exactly 64,000 bytes is this alright?
Does anybody know the performance difference between Dell's 64 GB "Ultra-Performance" SSD and their 128 GB "Mobility" SSD?
In Canada, the 128 GB Mobility SSD is $589 extra, while the 64 GB Ultra-Performance SSD is $648 extra.
I would really like to know how much (if any) performance I would be sacrificing by going for the bigger (and cheaper) Mobility SSD.
had a dell e4200 with the ultra performance solid state drive upgrade in my hands for a day or two last weekend. i'd looked everywhere for benches on the upgraded drive before purchasing, but i couldn't find them anywhere. so when i got the computer i decided to take some benchmarks to help out any other shoppers.
couldn't take any write benchmarks because the drive was an o.s. drive. i believe this drive is an slc drive with samsung's second generation ssd controller.
i don't have access to the laptop anymore, so i might not be able to answer any questions you may have about the drive or the laptop itself. but i'll try my best.
What do you use to clean your screens with? I have grubby little fingerprints ALL over mine, and it is especially annoying on black screens in movies/games and such.
I almost bought a pack of normal "LCD Cleaning Wipes" but then I noticed it had Alcohol in it and shyed away from it. Why? I'm assuming that Alcohol would hurt the sensitive gloss finish on the screen, but my assumption could be wrong (and hopefully it is, would be much simpler to use those wipes). I also tried just using a dry wash cloth and just gently rubbing the prints off, but it only smeared them, and I'm afraid I'll damage the screen if I push any harder than I already am. Using a wet wash cloth seemed to have no effect either.
So how about it? What method do YOU use, and find best, to clean your screens?
Keyboard backlit stopped working (it used to work earlier). In BIOS the keyboard is now defined as a nonbacklight (BIOS was updated by L521XA13W.exe from dell.com/support/drivers), not sure how it was defined while working...
I've looked for a solution at community.dell.com/support-forums: - pressing Fn+F6 doesn't switch it on,- launching BacklitKB.exe from QuickSet says the backlight is on but it's not (I can adjust brightness, timing, turn it off/on but it still won't work),- reinstalling the QuickSet doesn't work,- Windows Mobility Center lists the backlit keyboard, but doesn't bring it on;- putting it to sleep and waking it up also doesn't work as well as restarting it.
I was wondering how does this CPU compare to the Intel line-up.
I could not find any benchmarks that compare it head to head.
So would it be equivalent to T6600 or P7450 C2Dou's series?
AMD Turion Ultra ZM-82 "Griffin" 65nm
Frequency: 2200 MHz
L2 Cache: 2 x 1 MB
Hyper Transport: 1800 MHz
Multiplier: 11x
Power Consumption: 35 W Socket S1G2
does anyone know if apple will be making an ultra-portable anytime soon? i prefer apples to windows but i dont like the big size and im not a fan of the air.
View 8 Replies View RelatedI've a Vaio TT that I'm (or was) fairly happy with, and before that I had the TX and the TZ.
I would however like to replace the TT since the Blu-ray has stopped working for the second time and I just refuse to pay an insane amount of $ to have it fixed. The question is, - Replace it with what?
I want an ultra-portable, i.e. 12" or smaller screen, weight less than 3 lbs, and it must have Blu-ray and SSD. Where can I find one
