Dell :: XPS 1330 Known Problems? Common Complaints?
Oct 1, 2008
I have to choose a new computer and I'm not sure what to pick. They're replacing my old e1405 aka 640M (see stats in sig).
I have a small selection of open box units to choose from and don't want a bigger laptop than the one I have... that leaves me with just xps1330s to choose from.
I need to choose quick and was hoping I could get some community help since I don't have time to research.
1) Can I change the exterior colour of the xps (for business reasons)?
2) How much does the dedicated graphics card effect the battery life vs no graphics card on the 6 and 9 cell? Is it worth the loss in battery life to get this? Can I add or remove this later?
3) Are there any known problems with the computer? Common complaints?
Im thinking of buying a refurb 1555 on ebay and just wanted to see if there any major bugs/quirks/design faults with the 1555? I'm particularly interested in how noisy it is at idle and at full load. Is it above average for noise and heat?
Spec is Core 2 duo P8600 or T6600, 4gb ram, ATI 4570, 320gb HD (5400 or 7200), 1366x768 LCD
I'm talking about the clear plastic filter in front of the actually LCD panel.
I notice that more and more dust particules managed to get in between the plastic filter and the panel.
Right now, it's not a big problem. But you can easily imagine it will become one when, a year or two from now, sizeable amount of dust particules get stuck all over the screen
I'm looking for a new notebook and the Studio 15 looks good, although I've read a few reports about issues and wanted to see what the 'current' revision of the Studio 15 coming out of Dell were like.
Previous issues I've seen reference to are: - Low speaker quality - Touchpad is erratic - Volume control has little 'in between' and sometimes resets itself
I'd appreciate it if anyone can point out in a mature way if there are other inherit problems with this model...
Also I'd prefer to run Windows XP - is there enough community support to allow XP to be installed with all key devices (video, audio, network, hotkeys) functioning?
OK so I purchased a broken m1330 with hopes of fixing it (I own m1530 and had no problem with it) When I connect charger to it light on the charger gous off. Laptop shows no signs of life when I press power button. I took the entrire laptop apart and looked over motherboard and see no broken components. How can I fix this motherboard? there has to be a bad component that gous an those boards after all some people repair/refurbish them.
Also what motherboards would work on this laptop since I noticed there are several versions part numbers of them ...
Well I got my M1530 today and pretty happy with it overall.
The only thing I don't understand is, I got that wireless remote but I thought there is a pocket on the side of the laptop that I can put the remote in there?
Well, after wiping windows I began the steps to put on Linux. Now I've never had a laptop so I'm not sure if this is a common thing or a problem,
but on the bottom of my LCD screen it seems that the screen is secured too tight to the casing. It gives off a whitish blur at the bottom of the screen only in black displays.
I received my 1640 yesterday. Big props to Dell, since I bought it on Friday around 3pm (outlet "previously ordered new") and Fed-Ex attempted to deliver it on Monday at 10am (picked it up at the distribution center at night).
I also received my 9-cell battery, but haven't had a chance to use it or review it, so this will focus on the 6-cell.
First - Boxing: Non-fancy tan cardboard box. The laptop was encased in foam and a foamy-sleeve.
No bags were included with this laptop. I got a slim AC adapter (probably about 1/3rd weight of the previous bricks), some cds, and the laptop. Nothing else. Should I have gotten a sleeve of some sort .....
I recently sent my Sony Vaio FW in repair, the hinge was squeaky and on the verge of popping off.
They took it in and repaired it under warranty, but there is still a little play in the cylindrical shaped housing of the power socket.
Is this normal? do all vaios carry this vunerability?
I keep my vaio on my desk and avoid putting any stress on the housing of the power socket.. the power button housing on the other side of the machine feels rock solid.
Problems with the Thinkpad X220 and my Samsung 840 Evo 256gb SSD drive. Let me give you a rundown of my past 4 months...
October 2014. Purchased Thinkpad X120E. 1.5ghz processor and low memory made it horrible. Put in 8gb and bought the Samsung 840 Evo 256gb SSD drive. It made the laptop much more responsive but it still sucked...so I sold it. I kept the SSD drive for my 'future' thinkpad.I did the firmware update on the SSD as it required it. It currently has the most recent firmware. When I bought the SSD drive, I plopped it in, installed windows then openSUSE and enjoyed it for a bit. Never gave me an issue at all.
January 2015: Purchased an off-lease X220 with the 2.6ghz processor. Has a 320gig 7200rpm drive in it. Put in 16GB of memory and love it.After playing with it for a bit, I did the most recent BIOS upgrade (1.39) and prepared it for the SSD install.I put in the Samsung 840 evo. Turning on the laptop it sits at thinkpad logo a lot longer then usual. After a bit it goes to the Error 2100.I went into the BIOS, HDD is not detected at all.I kept trying to boot/restart but no go. I always see that Error 2100. I can tell when it won't boot because the thinkpad logo sits for a long time and it seems that the HDD light is always on.I tried to boot with and without UEFI...no go.
I tried to boot with SATA as AHCI or compatibility, no goI put the Samsung drive into a dock and attached it to a laptop. Disk management see's the drive. I can format it and all.I put the SSD drive then into a friend’s computer tower. I formatted the drive using the Samsung software. I tried to put it back into my laptop last night, no go. Drive is not being read.My friends desktop detects the drive in his BIOS just fine...
I believe this is an issue between the BIOS and the SSD/firmware. I looked at some of the updates for SSD's and the thinkpad BIOS, they identify a small part of the model number of the samsung drive but it is not the same.
I'm having for 2 years already a Dell Latitude D630. It works great Now my sister want also a Dell laptop, and she wants XPS 1330.
I'm sure about reliability of Latitude series, since D600 and D630. XPS 1330 has very cool design, price is OK too, but I'm very concern about GPU issue. After reading a lot of topic about replacing mainboard and especially heating problems with NVIDIA GPU GS?8400 should I still consider buying now XPS 1330?
I'm not going to buy with NVIDIA video card but Intel Integrated X3100 because sister doesn't play any game
Is there any serious issue with XPS 1330 and Intel X3100 on board?, heating, crashing etc..? I want to buy her a stable laptop like mine - D630.
after excessively researching every possible laptop that could fit into my budget and for my needs I finally went with the Dell XPS 1330. Upon receiving my order (after patiently waiting for weeks it seemed)-- I opened the box and realized there was no case or complimentary headphones. Only after researching a bit on the forums did I realize they were no longer included. After setting up the laptop and running some games--- and after almost 2 weeks of ownership I must say I am impressed.
pros- -Laptop has a beautiful bright display -can play most games i throw at it (for some strange reason Company of Heroes slows down considerably) -slot loading drive -relatively quiet (more on this on the cons) -touch screen controls -pretty quick start up -extremely light weight---and aesthetically pleasing---looks like a beauty -surprising decent battery life---get over 3 hrs with each charge--and can be configured for more with dimmer screen.
cons- -makes some strange noises when just doing ordinary tasks---it almost sounds like a ticking clock. -keyboard is also loose and makes some bad noises when clicking on certain keys. Overall the keyboard is simply sufficient---but doesnt really meet up with the price paid.
overall- I would say for the money 1215$ with 2 yr warranty is fairly unbeatable. An apple macbook was a consideration for a while---but Dells cant be beaten for the price-
overall I would say as a 1st time dell xps laptop buyer I am fairly happy. Only reason that i would consider returning it is for the crappy keyboard--and clicking noises. But i also feel lucky that my xps didnt ship with any worse problems.
i saw some pictures that suggest that this unit comes with a remote something like the bluetooth remote offered by dell... but im wondering 3 things... first off does it use bluetooth to work? and secondly does it stick out from the laptop like that other one that dell offers? and lastly can i get it without purchasing a 1330?
exact models of the AC adapters that will work with DELL XPS M1330.
Originaly I got 90W PA-10 , PA-1900-02D3 adapter,DP/N DF315 and I would like to buy spare one.
I have bought 90W , PA-10 family, PA-1900-02D, DP/N 9T215, but it is not working . I'm getting error in Vista that it is not wright model and battery is not charged. What models are offical for this XPS ?
i want to leave my xps laptop connected to my tv (through the hdmi connection) for long periods of time, and i want to be able to leave the laptop screen off and closed while i do this.. also just for extra information the laptop came with vista installed however i installed XP pro instead.
anyway, when i initially got my laptop i could press the function key and tv-out key and it would output to the tv with the laptop screen still on, pressing it again would still output to the tv and turn the laptop screen off, and a third time would turn off tv-output and have just the laptop screen. i.e. pressing fn and F8
1 time - tv output with laptop screen on 2 times - tv output with laptop screen off 3 times - bring it back to normal with laptop screen on and tv out off.
my problem is that when i press it two times my laptop screen goes off, however no tv signal is sent to the tv anymore.. i tried updating my geforce 8400GS drivers and installing and re-installing the video device but it didnt change anything.
I ordered a new XPS13 a few weeks ago and it arrived this Friday. The thing is that although I specified that I wanted Intel Wireless, it came with the Dell 1505 Wireless instead.
i currently have two 1330s... one with LED and one with CCFL
The LED is a toshiba LCD2306, the CCFL an AUO Optronics, the CCFL looks MUCH better which seems to me total nonsense since the LED is supposed to be better in all aspects.
I will be contacting customer service. Should i be asking specifically for the samsung LED?
As the subject states, my fan will not turn off. Everything was running great, then about a week ago, after installing MS updates, my fan will not turn off no matter what I'm doing.
I'm sure it was an update but am not sure how to go about fixing. I know I can just start uninstalling updates till the fan turns off but if there is a better way that would be great.
My xps 1330's battery just went completely dead (past the one year warranty period obviously) and considering how stupidly expensive the dell replacements are,
I was wondering if anyone had any experience with non-official replacements. Some places seem to sell a generic version of that battery for about half the price.
So the question I'm asking myself now is: 'what's the catch?'
I've owned the XPS 1330 for a little more than a year, and because of a drop recently I have had to change the hard drive and reinstall vista. I believe I didn't properly install vista on to the computer and now it doesn't restart normally as it should, sometimes it will show a blue screen or it will restart continuously.
I called tech and because I didn't purchase extended warranty I'm restricted to certain telephone lines, and they would require that I pay up a sum to have them go through and check the problem.
Anyone know which one is a better buy? Build quality is a big selling point for me, and ive read that the older xps 1330 has great build quality, not so sure bout the new studio xps 13, which has a glossy lid, which i hate...i can customize both on dells site for a good price..but just dont know which one has better build quality,?
I've got a 1330 with a T7250 processor, 4gigs of ram and a 8400GS.
I run my notebook all day long undervolted (tested stability a lot using orthos) so temperatures are less.
I also use RMClock to max out the cpu frequency when connected to AC (so that it stays locked at 2 ghz whenever i am in AC mode)
Also, my 8400 gs is Overclocked to 600/825 from stock 400/600.
The thing is the following: when running COD4, every once in a while my frames drop noticeably. I then went to investigate this and using RMClock's monitoring tool i noticed that the frame drop was consistent to a throttling of the CPU.
However, whenever i test out my pc with ORTHOS or rthdribl i get higher temperatures than when running COD4 and the CPU doesn't ever thottle itself...
As you can see, this is a pretty strange thing because temperature is NOT being the "throttling factor" over here, as it is almost all times. I also have the gpu copper mod applied and haven't ever passed out 80 degrees on the gpu (which are pretty normal temps for an xps1330, specially overclocked)
What do you think could be causing this? It is really bugging me a a lot. Could it be maybe unstable voltages or something?
I was streaming a TV show from my XPS via the HDMI port to my HD TV. All of a sudden it froze. Couldn't Ctrl+Alt+Delte, couldn't do anything.
Shut it down with the power button and left it for a few minutes, re-booted and all I got was a white screen followed by strange lines on the screen.
What I have garnered from the forums that with the Nvidia GPU is burnt out or the motherboard needs replaced.
Its out of warranty so I wonder how much it would cost to fix or is it fixable if I bought the parts myself. I seen a link on the forum about replacing the Copper mod but surely this won't work if the GPU is burnt out?
What memory should I buy to my M1330? I'm looking for 4 GB modules but Dell doesn't have them on their Swedish site. And I assume there are cheaper ones than those recommended by Dell.
I've had my XPS 1330 for a day and a half now, and I get random screen flickering, and the build doesnt seem that good as there is a randon dent near the track pad, and a piece of plastic that is unevenly sticking out on the left side of the laptop.
The Sony Z caught my eye because of the size and weight, and the looks. I have a couple question for you guys:
What are you averaging on battery life surfing the web and using microsoft word? feedback on the standard and large capacity battery would be great.
Also, did any of you guys select the fresh start option from sony? Is it worth it? Does the computer come with a lot of bloat ware?
SSD drive, this is an upgrade I really want, however sony's SSD drive costs so much compared to the Dell Samsung 256gb SSD. Did you guys go with sony's or upgrade yours later? How hard is it to upgrade by yourself later if you picked that path?
Customizing the computer it doesnt give you many options, what kind of wireless card does it come with?
How is the build quality? How is the keyboard?
It seems like I would be paying quite a bit more, but the 1600 dollar I spent on my XPS M1330 doesnt seem worth it in the long run.
Also, can anyone comment on Sony's customer service? This is what won me over with Dell. Also is it worth getting the accidental damage plan/
There is only one Sony Z model right? The other ones on the page are different customizations?
