Dell Vostro 1500

Metalface Mark · 5 Sep 2007 at 08:30

Hugest_UK said:
Hi,

I have been trying to decide on getting one of these for a few weeks now and looks like i waited too long to get the real bargains lol However I have noticed the real bargain at the moment seems to be the vostro 1700 if you can be bothered to wait 4 weeks or more for delivery! I Specced up a 2Ghz one similar spec to the 1500 with bluetooth, wireless n, same 2gb memory, 160gb hard drive and 8600GT graphics but the 1700 has the 1900x1200 truelife 17" display as opposed to the 1280x800 with truelife I specced on the 1500 and is only £50 more including vat and shipping

Obviously i think the 8600GT will struggle to run games at native 1900x1200 Res but i wonder how well it scales to lower res for games becuase i really like the sound of the 1900x200 display. Does anyone have the vostro 1700 with 1900x1200 panel?

Cheers,
Hugest

The dell panels scale pretty well, i went for the 1500 though (with 1440x900) so that i wouldnt have to scale, or scale pretty minimally.

After using my Dell 1210 the 15.4" screen seems massive

Metalface Mark · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:30

I gave Madden 08 a quick try last night, it run really well with full detail, no noticeable slowdown.

I am very impressed with the gaming qualities of the laptop, i have tried 5 or 6 games so far and there hasnt been anything that you could play, for games a year old or so, it runs them brilliantly. The only problem i have now is my contact at dell keeps phoning me up and asking me to pass on his details to friends who want to buy Vostro's, he's a good lad though, just a bit persistant.

hungryhungry123 · 5 Sep 2007 at 10:42

Chrisss said:
To anyone with the annoying CPU whine, I have found a fix.

Download/install this program http://forum.rightmark.org/topic.cgi?id=6:1217

Go to CPU advanced settings -> platform #1 -> check the box that says Disable C4 mode

Apply settings and whine goes away.

Seeing as most of you now agree that there is a headphone issue

has anyone had any success with the fix mentioned above?

JAMAL · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:15

sWiZzLe said:
Annoyingly the hum is supposed to be louder the better your headphones are and i have some very nice Bose ones

you probably wont get a hum then!

JoDaMa · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:21

Update on the CD drive: Managed to get it to work

Thanks to the ICT technician at my school who got it sorted. Did a fresh install of vista and it's working brilliantly now, very pleased indeed

Bossk128 · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:26

Thiras said:
Update on the CD drive: Managed to get it to work Thanks to the ICT technician at my school who got it sorted. Did a fresh install of vista and it's working brilliantly now, very pleased indeed

How did you fix it?

JoDaMa · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:49

He told me to use the guide on this website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060

It tells you to delete small parts of your registry (risky i know) but it worked in the end.

Metalface Mark · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:53

cells said:
stable overclock at

675mhz core
480 mem

mem fails at 490 in atitools check, core could go higher but see no need specilly as temp is aprocing 70

nice overclock considering stock on the card is 475core(42% overclock) 400mem (20% overclock)

real shame is gpu is DDR2, truely criples the card, core overclocks like a dream but the dam ddr2 mem

What drivers are you using, the default ones?

Hugest_UK · 5 Sep 2007 at 15:55

InwardSinging said:
I gave Madden 08 a quick try last night, it run really well with full detail, no noticeable slowdown.

I am very impressed with the gaming qualities of the laptop, i have tried 5 or 6 games so far and there hasnt been anything that you could play, for games a year old or so, it runs them brilliantly. The only problem i have now is my contact at dell keeps phoning me up and asking me to pass on his details to friends who want to buy Vostro's, he's a good lad though, just a bit persistant.

Mark,

If there is a chance of a discount can you pass me your dell contacts details (Email in trust)

Slightly off topic but ive joined the warhawk clan but yet to get in a game with you in fact most of the times ive been on theres only been one or two clan members online lol

Cheers,
Hugest

Metalface Mark · 5 Sep 2007 at 16:35

Hugest_UK said:
Mark,

If there is a chance of a discount can you pass me your dell contacts details (Email in trust) Slightly off topic but ive joined the warhawk clan but yet to get in a game with you in fact most of the times ive been on theres only been one or two clan members online lol

Cheers,
Hugest

Hi m8, unfortunately i cant do that since its a competitor.

Metalface Mark · 5 Sep 2007 at 18:27

Yarg, go back to the dell drivers so i can overclock, and i lose DV again, doh!

McDaniel · 5 Sep 2007 at 19:22

GuruJockStrap · 5 Sep 2007 at 19:37

InwardSinging said:
Yarg, go back to the dell drivers so i can overclock, and i lose DV again, doh!

Lol! Yup, these drivers are pretty weird.

sWiZzLe · 6 Sep 2007 at 01:09

Got Business 32 & Ultimate 64 up and running but im having some problems finding some drivers.
I can't find the SD Card drivers on the Dell site, anyone know where they are?
I tried the 163.44 drivers from Laptop2go for both 32 and 64bit, but neither will install, am i doing something wrong?

Cheers

One other thing. In XP you could rename the OS names for the boot selection list, can you not do that in Vista?

GuruJockStrap · 6 Sep 2007 at 09:19

Go to the Dell's Drivers and Downloads, select the Vostro, expand Chipset. The driver you need is Ricoh - Driver.

As for the nVidia drivers, go here: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14562

Download the driver from the link at the top of the page. If you download the driver from elsewhere it won't work!

Now the important bit.

From that page, download the Modded INF.

What you have to do now is extract the driver package to a location on your HD, doesn't matter where for now. I use 7-Zip to do this. Then, simply copy the Modded INF in the main folder of the files you just extracted. Vista will ask you if you want to overwrite the original file, select yes.

Now all you have to do is run the setup.exe and it should work.

sWiZzLe · 6 Sep 2007 at 13:37

Ok thanks i'll try that way.

Late last i managed to get those drivers to work by extracting the files and installing both 32 & 64bit as an 8600 GT through the device manager. Seems to be working, i thought it would only install the driver but also installed the control panel as well. Performance doesn't seem to be any better than my 1950. I tried running some nVidia demos that i'd never seen work before - Timbury which was designed for the 6800 ran painfully slow

So far not a great improvement over my 1950

JoDaMa · 6 Sep 2007 at 14:29

Need more advice

After i reinstalled vista, it saved my old version in a file called windows.old should i delete this file (it's taking up 7gb of my hard disk :S) or do i really need to keep it for other reasons?

Thanks

GuruJockStrap · 6 Sep 2007 at 14:32

I've just played the Bioshock demo and that ran quite well. Left everything on High at 1280x800. Some areas it slowed a bit but I'm sure tweaking around with the graphical settings would improve performance.

Will install CS:S at the weekend and I'm confident it'll run that at 1280x800 with everything on high. I'm not bothered about AA to be honest.

You got to remember that the 8600MGT is a cut down version of the desktop 8600GT.

8600GT: Approx 540MHz Core, 256MB 1400MHz GDDR3 Memory

8600MGT: 475MHz Core, 256MB 400MHz DDRII Memory

GuruJockStrap · 6 Sep 2007 at 14:33

Thiras said:
Need more advice

After i reinstalled vista, it saved my old version in a file called windows.old should i delete this file (it's taking up 7gb of my hard disk :S) or do i really need to keep it for other reasons?

Thanks

How did you re-install?

The best method is to boot from the Dell OEM Vista Business Disc and install that way.

JoDaMa · 6 Sep 2007 at 15:03

I reinstalled from the desktop on the old version of vista.