Core i3 or i5 Laptop, with good build quality - Minecraft, light video editing, imagine editing... e

[JimboJet]

That almost needs its own thread imo. It could be very useful for people asking the same question in future, and more importantly just in case for the people wanting to extend the warranty later down the line whilst being told that's not possible. A quick copy and paste should get Dell to honour the request for extended warranty.

Having this info hidden in this thread will be a pita for anyone searching for it in the future.

 

[lfc]

Done although I'm not sure if there is a better or more relevant place for it than in 'laptops' (as I was told it covers everything in the outlet).

 

[UKFX]

Good job on posting that up there.

A part of me feels a tad sympathetic towards you for missing out on what I ordered, but part of me thinks, yay I got something awesome just at the right time. So glad I was patient and I didn't borrow cash because a couple of weeks ago some of the stuff on there was silly compared to what I ordered.

 

[lfc]

Well I was a bit annoyed when I missed out on yours but at the end of the day, I wanted confirmation about the warranty first so probably wouldn't have bought it anyway.

The one that went today has been really annoying - it had everything I was looking for, apart from possibly the battery - and that wasn't a huge issue as I probably wouldn't run it off battery that often. As I said, I'd had it in my basket pretty much non-stop since Tuesday so to loose it a few hours before I would have bought it was yeah, a tad frustrating .

Was going to have a little rant here but calmed myself down in time .

Just hoping I don't have to wait too long for something similar to come in.

 

[UKFX]

I'm sure you won't have to wait long before you find something super awesome. I am glad mostly because of my patience. If I'd borrowed cash and bought the laptop earlier I'd be here with an XPS L702x with 2410m (entry level i5), a GT550m, 4GB of RAM and 6 cell battery, which is pretty much all there was a few weeks back. Now though, I got the top Core i5, the 2540m with a 2.6ghz base clock, 6GB of 1333 Dual Channel DDR3, 9 Cell battery and 500GB 7,200RPM drive. Patience wins. So my advice would be to wait until you find something you're most pleased with. I will admit though, that little gem was on there just at the right time, so it was mostly down to chance.

Amen to Dell Outlet.

When you do get something from the Dell Outlet... make sure you change your signature the day you put down your order. lol

 

[lfc]

Yeah hopefully - just will feel like ages because I'll probably be checking it non-stop

Yeah there was 12 or something all added on Tuesday, with a mix of i5's and i7's I think. I've got no rush really so you're right, just wait until I've got something that suits me - no point rushing into something you might regret later.

I've got to admit, when I was feeling angry / annoyed earlier I read a few very bad stories about Dell - and it very nearly put me off. But I've read more good than bad and have family who have had success with them, so fingers crossed, I'll be able to put it in soon

 

[UKFX]

Yeah, there were one or two i7s on there when I picked, but balancing all of the i3s, i5s and i7s, I managed to settle for one with a better all round performance for the best price. Some had Blu Ray, pushing the price up, but was rather pointless for a 1600x900 screen (especially when I own a PS3 n HDTV), an some had 750GB HDDs which I'll never fill, but still pushed the price up a ridiculous amount. Didn't take long to pick though, but I'd imagine you'd be waiting no more than 2 weeks before something awesome crops up.

This i5 should do nicely for Fraps, Handbrake and Minecraft. I was a bit concerned that my purchase of Fraps and Minecraft would go to waste, but it seems it won't now.

I'm very eager to try out Empire: Total War as well. I say this because before I sold my PC, with a Phenom II X4 955BE 3.2Ghz AM3, 4GB Corsair 1600MHZ DDR3, 1GB 4870 GDDR5 on Crosshair III Formula. I had the worst performance imaginable when playing at 1680x1050. Sometimes it'd run well, but soon enough it'd drop frames, as if it were a memory leak. After owning it about a year after it's initial release, I am yet to play past the 3rd Road to Independance Campaign. That's not even like 5% of the game completed... so fingers crossed it works. Oh, it usually ended up with corrupt save files and freezes as well. Creative Assembly, probably the worst ever! lol

 

[Merlin5]

Congrats mate Did you receive it yet? Or perhaps it'll arrive tomorrow if it was dispatched last wednesday. Post pics of it, and screenshots of windows index score and stuff like that. Does it have a backlit keyboard? Seems a lot of Dells do. Love my backlit keyboard, really invaluable, especially if you want to work or game with the lights off.

 

[UKFX]

Well... in the past I've always found that even though I touch type very quickly, without needing to look, intially locating keys in the dark to start typing when you first stop leaves me pressing the wrong keys at the start of a sentence. Never had a backlit keyboard though. As for laptop, I don't think it does, because it didn't say, but I'll find out more when I get it. I don't need backlighting anyway because the screen will do plenty of front lighting, haha.

It is scheduled to arrive tomorrow between 8am and 6pm. Last time I checked the tracking, it was near Nuneaton about 92 miles away from where I am, at 2:23pm. It dispatched that place at 2:24pm, so it should arrive first thing in the morning, or at least before the evening.

Mainly chuffed about the processor and the RAM. Can't play games unfortunately because I need to buy a new laser mouse, so I'll be without one of those for about a month. Heard the XPS have bad 2.0mp webcams. One guy on these forums said it was so bad he complained and Dell gave him a good USB webcam. Not overly bothered though, don't spend a great deal of time on cam, an the money was well spent on all that sweet hardware.

I'll send pics ASAP, including some images of the Windows Experience Index. Very excited. Touch wood all goes well.

Check back soon. Thanks again to all those who helped and thanks again... again? to those who put up with me the whole time lol.

Peace

 

[UKFX]

OK System looks great. Core i5 2540m @ 2.6Ghz with turbo to 3.3Ghz. 6GB 1333Mhz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory, Nvidia GeFore GT550m, 500GB WDC (Western Digital?) 7,200RPM SATA II HDD. 9 Cell battery blah blah. Backlit keyboard is great. 3 settings. Bright backlighting. Low level backlighting, or off. I have it on low. Speakers are great. Looks super.

Now the problems.

When trying to play a CD from the DVD drive. It does it super super low quality and plays about 1 milisecond of music in this barely recognisable audio quality. It plays a few miliseconds of chronic low quality sound every second. Ripping CDs doesn't worth either. It'll say pending, an then ripping will stay there on 0% for ages, before going to 10%, which then stays there for ages, etc. Problem with disk drive? I shouldn't of thought there would be if these were so called certified refurbs? Right?

Bluetooth adapter is iffy. There isn't a built in one, this is my own. Was fine on old PC. Can't turn on discovery either. Installing Windows update, I was left with it stuck on Shutting Down... for the reboot process, having to force it to shut down. It's done with updates now, but earlier (about an hour ago) after I went downstairs. I closed the lid. The computer wasn't doing anything important. After coming back upstairs after about 30 minutes, the laptop was off. I booted it again and it said Windows hadn't shut down properly. When the OS loaded it said Windows has recovered from a serious error.

Regarding the DVD drive again... I did a Dell Recovery thing, which took about 30-45 minutes to do two DVDs. I did think it took a while considering there was practically nothing on the laptop, but now I fear there is a problem. Tested the speakers on digitallyimported.com, they perform and sound superb.

 

[UKFX]

Apparently this is a DMA issue. Something to do with IDE ATA/ATAPI. Whenever I go into it on Device Manager, there is no settings available, so I can't change it from PIO to DMA. Yay? Help?

 

[UKFX]

Well, it's done it again. It restarted, I think because of some Dell Recovery Update, an it got stuck again on Shutting Down... - I had to hold down the power key to turn the laptop off. Not happy.

So far:

Occasional squeak on spacebar lol. No worries, Outlet afterall, but more importantly -

Bluetooth radios and settings will not change.
Can't play audio CDs or DVDs due to very slow speed.
Cannot rip CDs.
Shutting Down... gets stuck on Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium.
USB ports are so tight, the force required to put something in there is plentiful enough to break them.

I got a BSOD earlier by the way, that was when Windows recovered from that serious error. Probably something to do with the Bluetooth.

Need help folks. Very important.

 

[UKFX]

Oh... there it go, it's frozen again on the Bluetooth Settings page. I click the option to try make the laptop discoverable but when I click reply, woot woot, "NOT RESPONDING". When it does finally get out of it, if it doesn't crash on that window, it says error, Windows could not save your settings. Blah blah blah, something along those lines.

I have steam coming out of my ears.

 

[UKFX]

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...pio-mode/1189ac64-5828-48b6-b6d4-797cd3e9561c

"should reinstall" lol, like I'm trying that without a driver CD.

 

[Chillimonster]

99% of the drives will install automatically, the rest will be available on the Dell site.

i ALWAYS re-install on a machine as soon as i get it - i like to be in control of what goes on my machines.

 

[UKFX]

OK but I'm worried something crappy will happen. Is there no easier way to get the CD/DVD drive running in DMA mode instead of PIO, because this is ridiculous. You'd of thought the technician would have set it properly, lol.

An yes, still, just tried it again, whenever I try to apply the settings for allowing the laptop to be discovered by other bluetooth devices, it freezes and says not responding. It was sitting there not responding for about 20 minutes so I forced it to close.

Still concerned about Windows not shutting down properly from updates. Hanging on 'Shutting Down...'. Selecting Shutdown turns the laptop off properly though... I think.

I'm really tired because I woke up at 5:30 this morning after 4 hours of naffo sleep, so I'll check back tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks for the help folks.

 

[UKFX]

Just closed the lid about 10 minutes ago, an for the 2nd time on closing the lid, I have returned to find the PC has shut down. I must then press the power button to boot it up, where it says Windows was not shut dow properly - Start Windows normally. Upon reaching the desktop it says Windows has recovered from an unexpected shut down.

This is madness. Many problems.

I'd like to get this sorted within the next few days so I can just bloody use the damn thing!

 

[str]

I know it doesn't help you now but it's a good idea to have something like Acronis True Image (it lets you make a bootable CD to backup the HDD without having to boot into Windows) to backup the entire HDD as an image to an external drive. If you have any problems you can restore the image and it's like it's just arrived again. You can always use it to do a fresh re-install in the future too. It saves having to boot the laptop into Windows to get the backups done.

You have the restore DVDs so you can always start again by restoring from them.

The blue screen and shutdowns are weird but it might be related to the bluetooth drivers, hopefully that is all it is anyway.

 

[UKFX]

Not too helpful no, lol . My Grandad has Acronis True Image. He does backups all the time, but I'd rather not go into that because I'm pretty sure all of this is software related, an is solvable. I need to turn the setting on this CD/DVD RW drive to DMA. I think it's stuck on PIO. Problem is, I can't find it anywhere in Device Manager, so I don't know how I'm to go about changing the settings. The drives are up to date already. I checked.

I've also got the bluetooth issue to sort out, which freezes and doesn't allow settings to be saved by Windows. It may have been the cause of one BSOD whilst I was away, I'm not sure.

The problem of closing the lid and having Windows shut down unexpectedly or getting an error.

I'll just uninstall the bluetooth drivers for now, but I'm disappointed if it doesn't work because there is no reason why it shouldn't.

Thanks for helping.

 

[UKFX]

Last night I was so tired, I don't know if it was the bluetooth adapter or not, but clicking Shutdown worked. It turned off, prior to shutting down though I closed all open programs apart from a few in the system tray and this time the adapter wasn't in. Probably was bluetooth, so yes, I'm glad I didn't do any recovery things, it'd of been daft considering how 'fresh', this system is.

Now I just need to find a way to get bluetooth working, without it freezing or preventing the system from shutting down. I obviously also need to fix the setting on the CD/DVD tray, because at the moment it cannot even play a CD directly from the drive, an ripping is a no no. Dying to get my music on here.