Dell Vostro 1500

Right, this Vostro is really beginning to annoy me now.

Ordered Vostro on launch. Faulty backlight inverter means it buzzes/hums on anything other than max setting. Also get the high pitch whine issue.

Contact Dell to arrange a replacement.

Replacement laptop arrives. Backlight inverter perfect but CPU whine still there. Fixed temporarily by disabling power saving of Bluetooth.

Dell contact me to arrange collection of faulty laptop. I take a day off work. Nobody comes to collect.

Purchased and downloaded the Orange Box from Steam today. Been playing approx 3 hours of TF2 (excellent game btw. Runs well on the Vostro. 1280x800 with most things on high).

After an hour or so of gaming the image goes completely **** up. I have a feeling the GPU is overheating. I'm got getting sparklies on screen. Can't remember if sparklies meant overheating RAM or GPU.

I'm now bracing myself to contact Dell yet again for another replacement.:mad:
 
Hmm thats really bad luck Guru. Fortunately I haven't had any of the problems you and some others are experiencing.
 
Anyone using Ultimate 64 with their Vostro 1500?

If I leave mine on overnight, in the morning the i cannot get the monitor to respond and have to turn the laptop off to get back into windows :confused:

Only one other problem - faulty catch means lid now doesn't close securely.

Other than that I am so impressed with this laptop - At first i thought this was a bit over the top for a work laptop, but the performance with the applications i use is superb, the ability to set afinities is coming in really handy. Great built in speakers make a nice change for a laptop!

No longer have any headphone hum and cpu whine, which is nice :p

Just wish i could figure out this display problem or i may have to go back to Vista Business 32.

-------------------------

Guru :(

You know that cpu proggy that disables C4 or whatever it is, gets rid of that cpu whine and with a 9 cell battery.... i've not noticed a significant reduction in battery time. Bugger about the GPU mind, did you overclock the card? Maybe it didn't like that :eek:

I've not really played any games on this, except for ..ahem... Peggle! heheh - love that game :D
 
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Actually, one thing i have noticed is, if i use a Dreamscene background on here the laptop gets bloody hot and in my opinion far too hot for just a simple thing like that.
 
I've been using my vostro 1500 quite abit now, very impressed with it so far, vista u32 is running nicely but there are afew small problems I can relate too...

Guru, I was using the laptop yesterday and suddenly got screen corruption or sparklies, so I had to restart. I wasn't even playing a game, but since then it's been fine, it only happened the once. If it happens again I will start worrying.

Swizzle, my lid also doesn't close 100% securely, it was like that from day 1.
 
e36Adz said:
Guru, I was using the laptop yesterday and suddenly got screen corruption or sparklies, so I had to restart. I wasn't even playing a game, but since then it's been fine, it only happened the once. If it happens again I will start worrying.
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My screen didn't have any sparklies. Was greeted with a few large polygons on screen. Exit to windows, and its fine.

Next time it happens, I'll launch the game straight back up and see if it happens again. If it doesn't, then it could be a driver issue.

I'll be keeping an eye on it.

There is another strange problem I'm having.

Very (and I do mean very) occasionally, I'll cold boot my laptop only to be greeted by a BSOD. Reboot and its absolutely fine. No stability problems at all.
 
Hey guys,

My Vostro 1500 just arrived and my first impressions were "WOW"

This is a great looking laptop!

But now down to business… As usual with any pre-assembled PC/laptop it has loads of junk on it that I don’t need so I want to set about doing a fresh OS installation. Is the system disc that comes with it simply a ‘restore’ disc or is it a plain Windows CD? It looks like a restore disc :(

Also what are the best drivers to use etc – I imaging the latest ones are on the Dell support site?

Any help getting started would be appreciated ;)

Cheers,

SW.
 
It's a full Windows CD ;)

Yep drivers and things on the Dell site as well as the supplied blue disc. There's a great post in this thread (here) detailing all the things you'll need to do for a reinstall.

Jon
 
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Nice one mate!

I'm just starting off now...

Cheers,

SW.

Edit: What's hard drive noise like for everyone? I must admit, mine seems a bit excessive :(
 
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Probably the worst thing is the hard drive - Vista is a sod for always using it. You can hear its little clunks continually. I suppose you learn to ignore it after a while.
 
Yeh it's a bit on the noisy side, but that's Vista thrashing it.

There's some good tips in THIS thread about how to stop it thrashing so much.

Jon
 
ic1male said:
Probably the worst thing is the hard drive - Vista is a sod for always using it. You can hear its little clunks continually. I suppose you learn to ignore it after a while.
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Phew, so it's not just me then :)

I've been getting so used to my desktop being so near silent that any minor noises now seem deafening :p

Does anyone know how I find the drivers for the media reader? Also, will I still be able to use the multimedia controls on the front that that I've done a clean install?

I'll stop asking questions soon :D

Cheers,

SW.
 
sam.wheale said:
Does anyone know how I find the drivers for the media reader? Also, will I still be able to use the multimedia controls on the front that that I've done a clean install?
Click to expand...

If you look on the Dell website and find the Drivers & Downloads section for the Vostro 1500, the driver you want for the media reader is called "Ricoh - Driver, Applies to: R5C833"

And yes, you can still use the media buttons after a clean install ;)

Jon
 
Shouldn't have made a new thread really...my Vostro wants to stay with Speedstep enabled. Clockspeed is always 1.2Ghz. I have Speedstep now off. It was enabled before and made no difference. =/

This is using CPU-Z...any other programs i should try?


UPDATE:

CoreTemp shows it as being 2.2Ghz so...hmm. My temps are 39C-41C. :)
 
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Has anyone noticed a display glitch when Windows loads on their setups?

Just before I get to log on my screen goes a little blocky :(

I also get a bit of a black flash as I'm logging in...

I'm guessing it's a driver issue (atm I'm using the ones from the Dell site). I don't think I noticed the problem when I first used the laptop with the original Dell installation?

Can anyone else confirm :)

SW.
 
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