Any other difference other than turbo? For my uses I really don't see where turbo is going to be beneficial. My most demanding task is encoding where all four cores are going to be used so turbo will be moot. Anything I am missing here? I don't do enough encoding to justify the i7, IMHO day to day performance will be better with the higher clocked 1i3/i5. $75 difference.
IGP vs. Dedicated
No gaming so no dedicated card needed? One thing I am really liking with my current rig is the nvidia GPU with flash 10.1 enabling support for it. If I am understanding this correctly the GMA4500 is supported so it should be fine. Main thing is HD youtube videos, I noticed a tremendous difference once I installed the beta. $110 difference.
I recently took advantage of a 20% off coupon for computers from the Dell Outlet.
I ordered a Studio XPS 1640 that included a 128GB solid state hard drive.
Shortly after the computer arrived I started having weird problems. At first I thought it was because I had installed the Windows 7 RC, but eventually I tried re-installing Vista and the same problems were happening (in other words, I spent a lot of time on this). I began to suspect a hard drive problem.
Finally, I called Dell support and while I was on the phone (for over an hour) the hard drive failed. OK...that was Monday and she sent me a replacement hard drive that arrived yesterday.
I installed the new hard drive and the first thing I did was go into the BIOS and it recognized the hard drive, so all was good so far. Next I went into the diagnostic and it came up with a hard drive error. I called Dell and after trying some diagnostics and re-seating the hard drive it was clear that the hard drive wasn't working - it was no longer even showing up in the BIOS .....
Dell offered to replace my XPS m1330 that I got from the outlet because I've already had 2 screens replaced(got laptop 3 monts ago). Should I keep it or exchange it for the SXPS 13?
I'm concerned about the overly blown up heat issues. Is the heat that bad with just the 9400m or is it only for the 9500m.
What other issues should I be concerned about the SXPS 13?
What is the average battery life(balanced, 50% brightness, browsing, youTube videos .....
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 (2.8GHz/1066Mhz FSB/6MB cache) The only option Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit 3 yr In-home Service after remote diagnosis + Complete Care+LoJack No one year options 15.6” Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera/Facial Reco 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz Only option Size: 500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) Only option McAfee 36 month Forced to get
I've ben waiting patiently(ish) for my delivery from Dell, and using the status page I've managed to follow it for so far, but the last action updated was on the 26th, nothing since........................................
So I plan to take advantage of Dell deals and order a 15. I've got it configured with the 1GB ATI card.
What I can't decide is between better screen, or better processor. I have to come in under $1,000 shipped, and can't have both.
15.6” High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife (Standard) 15.6” Full High Definition (1080p) High Brightness LED Display with TrueLife [add $75] ......
So without realizing it I let the warranty on my SXPS 1640 run out in February. I found out when the hard drive crashed March 1st. No big deal I know how to replace a HD and it is not worth the fight to try and get the warranty extended since I was a day past.
However the next week I get the BIOS message about the AC Adapter is not recognized on boot.
After doing research for 2 weeks now I know it could be 1 of 3 things, battery, adapter, or motherboard.
This makes me sick at my stomach. I have been a loyal Dell customer for 5 years and I finally get a lemon.
I have the computer listed in my signature and I'm getting a replacement in a few weeks, and I do not yet know what the specs are. I am very hesitant about getting this replacement because of the bad experiences I have had with this computer so far. The rep offered me a full refund but that meant I would have to go a certain amount of time without a computer. I then told him just continue to process my current replacement, then when I received that, I would decide whether or not I would want to keep it. He then told me that he would expedite the current repair and it wouldn't be a problem to receive a refund in the future. The only problem I have is deciding what would be better than the SXPS, that I could buy for approx $2,200? Should I go alienware? Is the nvidia card in the M15X better than the ATI 4670? I guess I just have so many unanswered questions.
A friend of mine just purchased a Dell Studio 15 and I realized the Dell Dock on it would be a useful app for my XPS M1530 as well.
However, I've been reading past posts and articles saying that the Dell Dock has bugs and is not as stable as other freely available ones like Objectdock, Rocketdock, and Stardock.
There are a couple of things I couldn't find here despite the FAQs and all the posts I read. They are:
- My pc came with the T2500 cpu (that's a core duo). Is it possible to fit in a core 2 duo in this motherboard? If not, which motherboard should I get from ebay?
- I want (or rather, desperately need) to replace my ATI x1400. I can get a geforce 7950 at ebay, but they cost about $400. I also found the quadro fx1600m, which is a DirectX 10 card (probably a 8xxxm?) and for much less money. Does the fx1600m work with the e1705? the guy in this post fitted one but didn't work with internal LCD. Does it make any sense? Should I risk it and buy one?
I had a chat recently with a Dell rep and he said that basically the only way to get any sort of warranty (in Canada) is to show definitive signs of malfunction on the GPU.
Recently the left side of my computer has been incredibly hot, and annoying to lay my wrists on the palm rest areas (ironic, I know).
Anyway he told me to do the FN + power button combination to boot up and it would run the diagnostic test to determine if anything was wrong .....
I am intending to buy a Vostro 1320, I will use it for text editing, Internet surfing, occassional photoediting, so I don't have high hardware demands only that computer works smoothly.
There are some things which I dont understand:
1) they offer processors with fsb 800 Mhz and fsb 1066 Mhz, but the RAM memory works on 800 Mhz
I am prepared to pay for little bit better processor but do I have advantage of better CPU when I have slower Ram ?
2) they have also half-height and full-height wireless card, is it some particular advantage with half-height ?
3) is it worth to buy 256 MB Nvidia instead of onboard Intel X4500MHD graphics card, and as I said my demands on graphics are not so high ?
I found a decent priced 1555 on the outlet store so have ordered it (coming in about 2 weeks)
it says on the order form its loaded with vista. I have a retail copy of windows 7 which i bought at luanch and is installed onto my other laptop. i m looking to sell this laptop (i have a retail version of vista i can put on it) how do i go about putting my windows 7 onto the new dell as the liscence is on the old laptop
my business partner dropped her XPS 1330 and cosmetically damaged the case and cover.
we have Complete Care and Next Business Day coverage. phoned in the claim and Dell advised that NBD only applies to hardware failure due to Dell and not a dropped machine
I've had a search through the forums and see quite a lot of posts discussing upgrading processors on the 1525, but I'm still unclear as to my options when it comes to upgrading the processor.
I use my 1525 (with 4Gb ram) for video editing a lot, and now I'm using HD, rendering is taking hours and hours, despite using another PC to assist via the network.
I've been having problems with my Inspiron where it beeps constantly after POST. It's the equivalent of holding down a key continuously, which I think is so because at Windows login prompt my password is already completely filled with *
This started happening after I placed and removed the Admin, System and HDD passwords in Dells BIOS setup. I cannot say if this is the cause, but it is when I 1st experienced the beeps.
My "W" key is behaving erratic, from not working @ all some time to constantly appearing on screen as if I pressed it (e.g in a DOS prompt window without typing anything "w"s would recurringly appear, and also inbetween text as I type).
I just recently bought a XPS 1640, and I am wondering if I have chosen the right hardware for the laptop. I'm a college freshman, so I need a long lasting laptop with good battery life and hard drive space.
Here are the specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo P8700(2.53GHz/1066Mhz FSB/3M L2 Cache) 4GB, DDR3, 1067 MHz 2 Dimm for XPS 1640 15.6 inch Wide Screen 16:9 900p HD+ WLED LCD W/2.0MP, XPS 1640 ATI Mobility RADEON M96XT - 1GB 320GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive Intel 5100 Wireless-N (1x2) Half Mini-Card 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion P Primary Battery
Is this a good combination of hardware? I know a TAD bit about computers, but not any in depth stuff.
I've been checking out dell notebooks and using their system builder for the past few days. And every time I configure a system there's always something different in their config options. Mind you, sometimes this is with the same exact model.
For example, I will customize a Studio 15 and it will let me select the "No security software" option, which is nice because I hate bloatware. But then I will try again in an hour or two and that option will be gone and I'll be forced to choose the Mcafee trial.
I am in the process of ordering a new e6500. I have been reading through the forum for the last week and I came to the following configuration but would like to clarify a couple of questions.
Just an idea of what laptops I have, I am using Latitude D610, Latitude D620, Thinkpad T60. This might give you an idea of what I am used to. I find T60 is the best overall, D620 very mobile but slow, D610 ok and stable.
Here is what I am thinking for the e6500.
Latitude E6500 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8600 (2.40GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) Operating Systems Genuine Windows Vista Business Bonus-Windows XP Professional downgrade Memory 4.0GB, DDR2-800 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS Internal Keyboard Internal English Backlit Keyboard Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD 250GB Hard Drive, 7200RPM with Free Fall Sensor No Fingerprint Reader 15.4” UltraSharp™ Wide WXGA+ (1440x900) LED Display-Brushed Metal Black Dell Wireless® 370 Bluetooth Module Modem Internal 56K Modem 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD™ Camera / Microphone Integrated Webcam with digital microphone Intel® WiFi Link 5300 802.11a/g/n Draft Mini Card Intel vPro™ Technology’s advanced mgmt features are Off for future use
This machine will be used mainly for the Internet and not so demanding applications.
Now,
1) What do you think overall? Any issues to watch for?
2) Should I go for the WUXGA? I have been reading about the small font but was not sure. My T60 is set to 1280x800
3) I read about HDD noise, should I downgrade to 5400 or maybe upgrade to SSD?
I’m about ready to buy my XPS 1530, but wanted to check with the forum to see if I’m making any big mistakes. I came up with the configuration because I always have tons of documents open at the same time & also have a lot of programs open at the same time. This includes more than one photo editing program & a video editing program. My hard disk is always going, swapping things out. So I wanted something that will really speed things up.
I also don’t have a TV so use my computer to watch DVD’s. Later on I plan to get a larger external monitor to make use of the Blu-ray drive. My configuration follows. Let me know if I’m missing anything.
Also, I had a few minor questions.
I’m going to bite the bullet & get the 64 bit version of Vista. Do I also get the 32 bit DVD so I can use that if 64 doesn’t work for me?
I’m thinking of getting the LED screen. Is it worth the extra cost? Any downside?
I’m getting Dell wireless N. Is that the best?
I’m getting Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0+Enhanced Data Rate) since it’s not that much more, but I don’t know what it is.
I was just on the Dell site and noticed that some configuration options for the XPS M1730 have changed...for instance it doesn't come with Blu-ray by default anymore and you can't select a single hard drive option. Before I was able to select a "200GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)" but I don't see that as an option anymore. The equivalent seems to be the "RAID Performance: 400GB (2x200GB) 7200RPM". Do you think it is RAID-0 or RAID-1?
Also do you think they will bring back the old choices or can I request them? Also what do these changes in configuration usually mean...did they find that the original configuration was causing problems?
Finally with the two SLI 8700 NVIDIA cards...is SLI enabled by default or will Dell have to release drivers for them? I thought on the Alienware website, when customizing a M9750, it said that you can purchase SLI but Vista doesn't support it yet and you will be e-mailed the drivers when available...so does Dell have the drivers already (or is SLI not enabled yet on the XPS M1730 either)?
After several problems with booting, I had my Precision m4400 serviced by Dell. Just in case, both the mainboard and the processor were replaced (I also had my LCD replaced at some time due to inversion issues).
When I looked at Device Manager and dxdiag, both told me that I had a Quadro FX 1700M (my system is supposed to have the 770M). In addition, the viewing angles on my LCD became rather restrictive compared to the previous screens before they started failing.
I've noticed the improvements are relevant but not as big as I expected, I think with normal HD the RAID0 performance will be much better than a single HD drive, any experience using SSD in RAID0 configuration
