DELL XPS M1530

Fallen god · 8 Nov 2008 at 22:47

tweakinfreak said:
Some people over at laptop review forum reported a temp rise after updating the BIOS?

May do a test for myself and see

Well at A09 my fan was just not moving now the most i have seen is 57c under full load with the air way blocked by me. You could try and see for you self, the fan moves at low speeds when your doing light things such as web browserin which help keep it below 40c for the most time.

tsinc80697 · 11 Nov 2008 at 02:35

Anyone had problems with the 8800GT overheating issue?
Girlfriend was just using hers in a game and the laptop switched off then back on with the screen all odd, graphics card overheated obviously. Is there any way to fix this as Ive heard updating the BIOS just increases fan speed which makes it a lot noisier, not what she wants.

Otherwise will Dell fix/replace the laptop? Its still under warranty until March 09

lukext · 11 Nov 2008 at 19:35

As far as I know, there was a design flaw with the Nvidia 8000 series notebook cards whereby they suffered unusually high failure rates presumably overheating etc etc and i think dell have now implemented a 12 month warranty extension for all the affected models including the M1530. Id try and see what temps the GPU is getting to and if it crashes again, give dell a call. Pretty sure that they will just say update the bios thou

More detail about the flaw here:
http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/07/25/nvidia-gpu-update-for-dell-laptop-owners.aspx

and here about the warranty extension:

http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

Thinking about getting an M1350 myself, but this is kinda puttin me off

Magsy · 11 Nov 2008 at 19:37

It must be on a desk or flat surface, I don't think it would be a problem.

I have played for hours on end with mine (and I've had two), heavily overclocked GPU and not had an issue. It hits 90+ degrees but survives. I am still using A08 because I don't want the fan noise and only game occasionally while away.

I put AS5 on but it only made the temps worse, I haven't had time to revisit it but I think the tolerances are too great in places and you need the pads but I'm not sure.

You can also undervolt the CPU, I'm at 1.025v with a T7300, shaved a few degrees off.

edit : To be clear this is a reply to tsinc80697, I am worried about the GPU issue that reared its head some time ago but what can you do, just hope it is ok.

tsinc80697 · 11 Nov 2008 at 23:20

Thanks for the replies! So if the warranty ends in March 09, if the GPU fails they will replace/repair until March 2010. Better than nothing and I suppose it isn't their fault but nVidias really. Still irritating incase it does die as I'd have to get all the data off it!

Rikk · 12 Nov 2008 at 14:23

Once the order hits Phase 5 delivery does it normally turn up the next day?

iMacMart · 12 Nov 2008 at 16:42

Don't think so, you can track it via the web though!

Walsh Western I think it is

Rikk · 14 Nov 2008 at 20:02

Is there a list about with what services and applications can safely be uninstalled?
Just finding lots of stuff like cisco services on here.

Locky · 14 Nov 2008 at 21:59

Glad people are happy with the laptops.

Draeger · 14 Nov 2008 at 22:55

Got a Dell service engineer booked in to come to my house on Wednesday and replace the DVDR drive on my 1530.

It's been making a really loud noise and vibrating all over the shop for a few weeks. Wont read 99.9% of discs either, so they said they will replace it.

Appears to be a common fault, will report back with the results.

lokkers · 15 Nov 2008 at 08:35

Rikk said:
Is there a list about with what services and applications can safely be uninstalled?
Just finding lots of stuff like cisco services on here.

Do a fresh install - thats the first thing I ever do with a preinstalled laptop!

TheVoice · 15 Nov 2008 at 11:58

If any of you want a program to manually control fan speeds, try 'i8kfangui'. It works on my M1330 so it should work on the M1530 too. Takes a bit of time to get set up properly, but if you don't want to do that you can easily just set the fan to high speed when gaming and then close the program down when you're done.

tsinc80697 · 15 Nov 2008 at 12:21

Draeger said:
Got a Dell service engineer booked in to come to my house on Wednesday and replace the DVDR drive on my 1530.

It's been making a really loud noise and vibrating all over the shop for a few weeks. Wont read 99.9% of discs either, so they said they will replace it.

Appears to be a common fault, will report back with the results.

is it the not reading discs thats common or being ridiculously loud? Tried to watch a DVD the other night but it was spinning up and vibrating that loud I turned it off

Draeger · 15 Nov 2008 at 12:45

Hi,

I think from what I've read on the Dell forums, both symptoms go hand in hand.

Mine was always noisy and vibrated right from when I bought the laptop. After reading up on it online I just put it down to the old "They all do that mate" syndrome as a lot of folk said theirs did it too.

However, then I started reading about folk who not only had a loud and vibrating drive but eventually after a while it began to refuse to read discs.

This is what has happened in my case. I've owned the laptop for about 8 months now and it wasn't a "gradual" degredation in disc reading ability - it just "happened" one evening when I was catching up on some work on it. Been the same ever since. Out of every say.....12 discs you put in it, it might read one of them.

Hoping the Dell fella can sort it out with a replacement drive but even after that I will be keeping a close eye on it in case there is a recurance of the fault.

Kainz · 15 Nov 2008 at 12:46

I bought my 1530 back in January 2008 and have 52 days left on my XPS warranty. Just contacted Dell to extend it because I'm passing it on to my little cousins. I intend to get a netbook to replace this now as all I do is browse the net and use mirc.

Throughout the year, the 1530 has been rock solid and a sound worker without a single hitch on the 9 cell battery. I was one of the lucky ones who ended up with a totally silent system. Quiet HD, quiet dvd drive, the works. Hate to give her away lol

MORE SPEED · 16 Nov 2008 at 11:36

Im a noob here though guys, so dont be harsh

Here is one I just bought off the Outlet on Thursday, estimated delivery is on Tuesday this week coming.

XPS M1530
CORE 2 DUO T8100 2.10GHz
4096MB (2x2048) 800MHz DDR2
DVD+/-RW (8X)
Hard Drive 400GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
CCFL backcover & 2.0mp camera
Dell Wireless 1395 Mini-Card 802.11b/g EMEA
Internal Keyboard Uk/Irish (QWERTY)
Battery XPS Primary 9-cell 85WHr Li-Ion2
15.4 Widescreen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display
ASSY,BASE 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M GT

I got it for £569 with delivery and VAT.

Was this a good deal?

MORE SPEED

neologan · 16 Nov 2008 at 12:11

that is a good deal, but i found the 1440x800 screen right on the border of being too squinty, i'll be amazed if you can actually put up with that res!

MORE SPEED · 16 Nov 2008 at 12:42

I will probably only use the full res to show off to my friends though. My eyes might be shot by the end of the week at full res.

MORE SPEED

TheVoice · 16 Nov 2008 at 12:55

You'll want to use that resolution all the time though; anything lower is going to look a bit rubbish because it won't be the native resolution. Doesn't matter so much in games, movies etc, but for reading text it'll make life much harder if you're not using the native resolution.

That said, you can increase the DPI that Windows uses to display text, and increase icon sizes etc, so there shouldn't be a major problem.

neologan · 16 Nov 2008 at 13:08

yep, they don't run like CRT's, if you run it at a lower res it looks really terrible.