DELL XPS M1530

Randell Floyd · 7 May 2008 at 20:51

Weird, I got a automated call saying it was currently set to default AM pickup to arrange another time press 2 and so on.

Maybe something to do with the depot they come into, mine was WWI - HINCKLEY

Bry · 7 May 2008 at 21:20

just got updated as

[SIZE=-2] 07/05/08 [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] 17:00 [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] BPO - EXETER [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] DRIVER OUT OF TIME.[/SIZE]
:mad:

Randell Floyd · 7 May 2008 at 21:26

Bry said:
just got updated as

[SIZE=-2] 07/05/08 [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] 17:00 [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] BPO - EXETER [/SIZE] [SIZE=-2] DRIVER OUT OF TIME.[/SIZE]

Blimey I'm gobsmacked!

Just seen on the dell site that they now have free delivery, so that's going to be a phone call to CS and I'm going to give them hell, they better offer some reduction on the delivery cost now!

Bry · 7 May 2008 at 21:31

and it didnt say that at 8pm so that 5pm statement is a total lie

Randell Floyd · 7 May 2008 at 21:46

Bry said:
and it didnt say that at 8pm so that 5pm statement is a total lie

That could be down to a few things like the driver's handheld download for the day etc, and a few don't finish work at 5pm either, just they finish delivering if it's anything like a mate I had that worked for City Link I think it was. Also the Western site is a little slow on updating times etc.

Slackworth · 7 May 2008 at 22:16

OcUK now have a selection of M1530's in stock ready for next day delivery. The cheaper model will be arriving in the next few days.

We are massively cheaper than Dell directly and offer good specifications all with the 3 Year premium warranty.

Randell Floyd · 7 May 2008 at 22:41

Slackworth said:
OcUK now have a selection of M1530's in stock ready for next day delivery. The cheaper model will be arriving in the next few days.

We are massively cheaper than Dell directly and offer good specifications all with the 3 Year premium warranty.

Sadly the custom spec is what I needed, but intrigued I just priced up the http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-045-DE&groupid=959&catid=1071&subcat= with that same spec on dell uk site and it came out as £1,146.27 with the current free delivery, so all in all a whopping saving of around £200 from buying from OcUK!

Slackworth · 7 May 2008 at 23:10

Obviously it doesn't help you but if there's certain configurations people are after then let me know here or speak to one of the sales team, ask them to pass it on to me and I'll see what we can do.

As you can see, we can offer huge savings.

Randell Floyd · 8 May 2008 at 09:32

Well I got off the phone with WWI to query the fact that it hadden't made a appearance, and after phoning the courier they said that it was attempted and no one was home. I stated the fact that I was home and out side the front door working on my car and bike all day long and this was impossible, she said it was 10.30am and of course we all know the courier didn't come near my house. I told her they didn't bother leaving a failed delivery note when I must have magically become invisible, to which see had no answer. Told her I would like to take it further and basically you can't........um ok.

Edit:

Dell don't seem to care very much, there telling me they don't have any compensation system and don't have anything to offer but a sorry. So I told them that I might phone back later with a laptop to return, that doesn't seem to work either

2nd Edit :

They've lost it.
Local depot don't have a clue where it is, but they will keep a slot between 7pm-9pm just in case they find it! But no gesture of goodwill can be given from Dell or WWI. Sadly I'm off to my new job 2hrs away and will be away until next Tue......fuming is a understatement.

Bry · 8 May 2008 at 16:58

Got mine about 4pm

Sorry to hear about yours randell.

Build quality is excellent with lots of great extras.

Really impressed

greenalien · 8 May 2008 at 18:52

M1530 Vista, Blu-ray and trackpad questions

I'm considering an M1530 so I have a few questions. As you can probably gather from all the questions I'm a bit nervious of having technical issues. I've been having trouble with my aging Vaio (developed keyboard fault and broken hinge) and my new desktop died on me so I just need a stable laptop with good OpenGL support so I can get back up and running.

If I reinstall Vista, can I use disks that come with the laptop and not put the crapware back on? If not, 1) can someone give me the executives address so I can go over an poke them in the eye, and 2) Is it worth buying a new copy of Vista without the junk?

If I get one with Blu-ray, will XP work fine with the Blu-ray drive? Anyone tested out the XP drivers for this? Presumably movies would not work but would at least writable Blu-ray media work and regular CD/DVD disks?

Ideally I'd like one with the LED backlit screen. And I see it's already an option in the US. Does anyone have a clue when the UK will be getting them? And along with the other benefits does it make the M1530 thinner too?

With memory being so cheap I want one with 4GB. Or I'm happy to upgrade this myself after seeing how easy it is - I watched a youtube vid about installing memory on the m1530. This is a world away from my Vaio which required the keyboard to be removed to get at one of the memory chips. I was also impressed how easily the harddisk can be replaced too.

Can anyone running XP with 4GB tell me how stable it is? any BSODs? Also, although I'd typically only gain 200mb or 300mb compared with having 3GB, does 4GB give extra performance because of the matched pairs enabling dual channel? Info on Crucial.com makes sound like this is the case, though I havent seen it mentioned elsewhere which surprises me.

I've ordered a copy of XP because I'm nervous as hell about Vista. But since Vista SP1 has come out, how good is it now? Can the copy protection underpinnings be turned off for a performance boost? Presumably the user access control (whatever its called) can be turned off too. If I follow one of the guides on the net for stripping down Vista and removing unneeded processes is it as good as XP?

I had a play with the M1530 in COMPETITOR. I didn't really feel it was in the same class as Vaio especially the keyboard, and I've been hearing people complain about the trackpad too. Which is critical for me because I want to avoid using a mouse (I get RSI pretty quick if I do). The trackpad on my current Vaio works perfect. How are people's experience with the M1530's trackpad? Reliable? Are they all shakey or just some of them? The one I played with at COMPETITOR didn't feel as good because my finger doesnt seem to glide over as smoothly but I'm assuming I would warm to it.

Something I'll need to check actually because I forgot when I was at COMPETITOR. My 17" laptop has a 1920x1200 screen. I came to realise that this resolution is too much on a 17" screen. What would people say the equivalent is on a 15.4" laptop for the same DPI? (so I can avoid it). I'm considering the 1440*900 screen, but might fall back to the 1280*800 screen if stuff appears too small on screen. I'm guessing the 1680x1050 panel is equivalent so I'm avoiding that one anyway.

Thanks for any feedback.

Bry · 8 May 2008 at 22:15

greenalien said:
If I reinstall Vista, can I use disks that come with the laptop and not put the crapware back on? If not, 1) can someone give me the executives address so I can go over an poke them in the eye, and 2) Is it worth buying a new copy of Vista without the junk?

While the laptop comes preinstalled with vista and junk it also comes with the vista dvd so you can format and doa clean install with none of the junk.

If I get one with Blu-ray, will XP work fine with the Blu-ray drive? Anyone tested out the XP drivers for this? Presumably movies would not work but would at least writable Blu-ray media work and regular CD/DVD disks?

While not having a blu ray drive myself writing discs is exactly the same you just need a burning program that will do it. the latest nero will do this fine.

Ideally I'd like one with the LED backlit screen. And I see it's already an option in the US. Does anyone have a clue when the UK will be getting them? And along with the other benefits does it make the M1530 thinner too?

it makes it slightly thinner, slightly lighter and saves on battery. However they aint here yet and there is no eta (could be next week or next year. Just getting my laptop i am more than happy with my 1400*900 screen

With memory being so cheap I want one with 4GB. Or I'm happy to upgrade this myself after seeing how easy it is - I watched a youtube vid about installing memory on the m1530. This is a world away from my Vaio which required the keyboard to be removed to get at one of the memory chips. I was also impressed how easily the harddisk can be replaced too.

Yep its is very easy

I've ordered a copy of XP because I'm nervous as hell about Vista. But since Vista SP1 has come out, how good is it now? Can the copy protection underpinnings be turned off for a performance boost? Presumably the user access control (whatever its called) can be turned off too. If I follow one of the guides on the net for stripping down Vista and removing unneeded processes is it as good as XP?

Just got it and the default install is fine and I am loving it (installed sp1 and removed UAC) everything else is great and tbh i think im liking it more than xp.

Slackworth · 8 May 2008 at 22:26

If I get one with Blu-ray, will XP work fine with the Blu-ray drive? Anyone tested out the XP drivers for this? Presumably movies would not work but would at least writable Blu-ray media work and regular CD/DVD disks?

Blu-Ray will work fine on XP but Vista is going to be the most compatible in the future so you're better staying on this. You'll need something like Nero to burn to BD-R/BD-RE and will need PowerDVD or WinDVD to play films although you would in Vista.

Ideally I'd like one with the LED backlit screen. And I see it's already an option in the US. Does anyone have a clue when the UK will be getting them? And along with the other benefits does it make the M1530 thinner too?

Not sure on this one until they are released to the UK but they provide a benefit on the M1330.

With memory being so cheap I want one with 4GB. Or I'm happy to upgrade this myself after seeing how easy it is - I watched a youtube vid about installing memory on the m1530. This is a world away from my Vaio which required the keyboard to be removed to get at one of the memory chips. I was also impressed how easily the harddisk can be replaced too.

Unless you're going to change Vista to a newly bought copy of 64-Bit then you might as well stick with 3GB which is why the models we've bought in at OcUK only have a maximum of 3GB.

Can anyone running XP with 4GB tell me how stable it is? any BSODs? Also, although I'd typically only gain 200mb or 300mb compared with having 3GB, does 4GB give extra performance because of the matched pairs enabling dual channel? Info on Crucial makes sound like this is the case, though I havent seen it mentioned elsewhere which surprises me.

Never used 4GB in XP so no idea.

I've ordered a copy of XP because I'm nervous as hell about Vista. But since Vista SP1 has come out, how good is it now? Can the copy protection underpinnings be turned off for a performance boost? Presumably the user access control (whatever its called) can be turned off too. If I follow one of the guides on the net for stripping down Vista and removing unneeded processes is it as good as XP?

I find Vista faster since SP1 came out although I've never had any issues myself beforehand. UAC can be turned off but it hardly does anything to performance anyway. I clean installed my Sony laptop to ditch the Sony junk but apart from that it does pretty much everything I want as standard with no need to strip it down.

I had a play with the M1530 in COMPETITOR. I didn't really feel it was in the same class as Vaio especially the keyboard, and I've been hearing people complain about the trackpad too. Which is critical for me because I want to avoid using a mouse (I get RSI pretty quick if I do). The trackpad on my current Vaio works perfect. How are people's experience with the M1530's trackpad? Reliable? Are they all shakey or just some of them? The one I played with at COMPETITOR didn't feel as good because my finger doesnt seem to glide over as smoothly but I'm assuming I would warm to it.

Not one I can answer.

Something I'll need to check actually because I forgot when I was at COMPETITOR. My 17" laptop has a 1920x1200 screen. I came to realise that this resolution is too much on a 17" screen. What would people say the equivalent is on a 15.4" laptop for the same DPI? (so I can avoid it). I'm considering the 1440*900 screen, but might fall back to the 1280*800 screen if stuff appears too small on screen. I'm guessing the 1680x1050 panel is equivalent so I'm avoiding that one anyway.

The models we chose at OcUK have the 1440x900 screens as we found these the best for the 15.4" screen.

jamesk13 · 9 May 2008 at 08:10

Hey guys - posting from my new XPS1530 - all very pleased apart from bluetooth.

I followed the excellent guide posted earlier in this thread about doing an Nlite XP disk and all the XP drivers - all went smoothly apart from bluetooth driver - it hangs with a box asking me to activate the bluetooth using Fn+F2 or the radio on/off switch. It definitely does have bluetooth as the icons were there under vista before i reinstalled. The radio switch is on in BIOS and the O/S - I am posting this via the wireless connection so that works.

Can't find any drivers or help online - anyone had this? The drivers I tried to use are "R161378"....

PaulStat · 9 May 2008 at 08:43

Randell Floyd said:
Well I got off the phone with WWI to query the fact that it hadden't made a appearance, and after phoning the courier they said that it was attempted and no one was home. I stated the fact that I was home and out side the front door working on my car and bike all day long and this was impossible, she said it was 10.30am and of course we all know the courier didn't come near my house. I told her they didn't bother leaving a failed delivery note when I must have magically become invisible, to which see had no answer. Told her I would like to take it further and basically you can't........um ok.

Edit:

Dell don't seem to care very much, there telling me they don't have any compensation system and don't have anything to offer but a sorry. So I told them that I might phone back later with a laptop to return, that doesn't seem to work either

2nd Edit :

They've lost it.
Local depot don't have a clue where it is, but they will keep a slot between 7pm-9pm just in case they find it! But no gesture of goodwill can be given from Dell or WWI. Sadly I'm off to my new job 2hrs away and will be away until next Tue......fuming is a understatement.

They lost yours too? Good luck getting another one, from my experience it takes 6 working days of "internal investigations" before you're allowed to re-order it.

I've sent a very stroppy snail mail letter off to the head of customer services in the UK asking what he plans to do to compensate me. I'll let you know when I hear back

jamesk13 · 9 May 2008 at 10:50

jamesk13 said:
Hey guys - posting from my new XPS1530 - all very pleased apart from bluetooth.

I followed the excellent guide posted earlier in this thread about doing an Nlite XP disk and all the XP drivers - all went smoothly apart from bluetooth driver - it hangs with a box asking me to activate the bluetooth using Fn+F2 or the radio on/off switch. It definitely does have bluetooth as the icons were there under vista before i reinstalled. The radio switch is on in BIOS and the O/S - I am posting this via the wireless connection so that works.

Can't find any drivers or help online - anyone had this? The drivers I tried to use are "R161378"....

Sorry to quote myself but I have been doing some digging around and I think I'm in trouble.

Firstly I re-read the guide in this thread for installing XP and noticed this:

2. installed Windows XP and once it booted with it, it had these with yellow exclamation marks under Device Manager:
- Base System Device x3 - this is for the SD/MMC/MS Pro memory device
- Biometric Coprocessor - fingerprint scanner device
- Ethernet Controller - ethernet device
- Network Controller - wireless device
- PCI device - onboard sound
- SM Bus Controller - Intel mobile chipset
- Video Controller (VGA compatible) - nVidia 8600M GT graphics

but it conflicts with this:

13. installed the Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth module driver and software, from here: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R161378.EXE Removes 'BCM 2045' from Device Manager

I didn't/don't have "BCM 2045" listed but am sure I had bluetooth on the Vista install so I went trawling and found this post about XP drivers generally for the M1330 and M1530. 2 issues came to light. Firstly XP doesn't seem to have its own drivers for the "keyboard shortcuts utility" (this refers to the message I get trying to install bluetooth drivers above). Apparently installing the Vista drivers:

http://support.us.dell.com/support/...eid=R151309&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=201395

via DOS gets round the OS check and they work. I haven't tried this yet as I am at work but I sure hope this works because of this:

One note to the installation of the Network-Wireless 335 Bluetooth Module driver, you should make sure the Bluetooth is remains ON the last time in Vista before installing the XP. Otherwise the Bluetooth is no way to be turned on in XP and be discovered as new hardware.

Luckly I kept my Vista SATA HDD and I swapped the HDD and turn on the Bluetooh and swapped back to XP SATA HDD to install the Bluetooth driver successfully.

I turned bluetooth off before I wiped Vista. GOD KNOWS WHY but I did. So according to that source I have bluetooth switched off and no way to activate it so it's detected for the driver install!

ARGH!! Am I screwed? I deleted ALL partitions to install XP :mad:

jamesk13 · 9 May 2008 at 11:57

Me again lol!

As a reference I found this on the support site - evidently what I did is not uncommon. At work so can't test but this sounds promising - a utility to reactivate the device in XP:

http://support.dell.com/support/top...&component=-1&lang=-1&doclang=en&toggle=false

PaulStat · 9 May 2008 at 15:17

PaulStat said:
They lost yours too? Good luck getting another one, from my experience it takes 6 working days of "internal investigations" before you're allowed to re-order it.

I've sent a very stroppy snail mail letter off to the head of customer services in the UK asking what he plans to do to compensate me. I'll let you know when I hear back

Got a response by email :rolleyes:

Dear Mr Statham and Miss Reade,

I am writing on behalf of Dell Computers in response to your letter dated May 8th 2008 regarding the delivery issues surrounding the above order.

Please be advised that I have investigated this matter with Syncreon Couriers who have confirmed to Dell that the goods are currently mis-laid. This information was fed back to Dell by Syncreon Couriers who then had to carry out a depot search and full investigation in order to locate the Order. This is the agreed procedure between Dell and Syncreon Couriers for when an order goes missing.

The couriers then have 8 working days in which to either find the missing goods or replace it. Regrettably this process is not ideal for our customers as they are left without their item for this time. However I hope you can understand that the couriers need to be given the opportunity to find the missing goods before they are charged for them.

Syncreon have advised Dell that they will close this investigation out on May 12th. So if they have not located your goods by the 12th then they will authorise Dell to re-order new goods. A replacement order would be built on priority at our factory and you would be kept updated regarding both build and shipment.

We sincerely regret that the delivery of your order has been delayed but trust you understand that we will do everything we can to fulfil your order as quickly as possible.

Yours sincerely

Angelina Arcari

Breezy · 9 May 2008 at 20:13

does the 8600gt cope with bioshock at 1440x900?

RoboCod · 10 May 2008 at 08:08

PaulStat said:
Got a response by email
[/I]

Seems all fair and well to me. The courier lost your order and if they can't find it they will have to pay Dell for a new one. It isn't Dell at fault and they are trying to rectify the problem. Seems like good customer service.