Dell XPS 630i Responses

Excellent post with very good info Chris.

I feel Dell has once again like with the 700 motherboard upgrade, offering a full refund on the system speaks of how willing Dell has been to listen and offer the end user an accepable path forward. 

 

Chris,

 

What's the reason the temperature sensor had to be disabled instead of being fixed to report the correct information?

 

Also, IMO Dell should not be selling the 4GB Corsair upgrade if it does not work reliably with the 630.  The whole point of buying the SLI memory is to be able to overclock it.  Instead you are charging a $420 upgrade over the 4 GB 800 mhz ram without the additional performance benefit.  That just seems wrong to me.

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@foehammer25 wrote:

Oh, and NO.  Please do not disable the HDD light.  If it really bothers someone they can just put a piece of tape over it.  I use the disk drive light to tell me when activity is occuring.

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I understood it to mean that it would be a user adjustable option in the BIOS.  Not permanently turned off.

Chris

 

re;

The bright(white) flashing HD LED

 

Change the color to red or blue?

Add another Chasis light Control?

 

Bill

Chris,

Thanks for the followup responses.

These do clarify some issues and can be linked to when further questions arise.

 

Are your 8/16 MIO/ESA responses as far as Dell is taking this on your pinned page?

Does the latest firmware handle all the prior issues?

"4GB of SLI memory does not function 100% reliably because of a limitation with the 650i chipset."

 

What exactly does this mean?  I have replaced the original memory with 4gb of SLI memory.  It seems to work fine.  But saying that it "does not function 100% reliably" concerns me.  What are the situations where this type of memory will not function reliably?  Will programs crash?  Will this cause BSOD problems?  Are you speaking only of overclocking the memory?  Please be more specific so that I can use the correct type of RAM.  This is a big deal for me.

 

 

Oh, and NO.  Please do not disable the HDD light.  If it really bothers someone they can just put a piece of tape over it.  I use the disk drive light to tell me when activity is occuring.

Chris_M,

 

Thanks so much for this info! I can see now why Dell designed thier motherboards as proprietary. I could imagine many smoked and melted down rigs if Dell did not do this. I can see this as a protection feature from excessive OC'ing and was designed this way for protection. Although I've always seen your #6 as a trivial point. It would be interesting to see if there would be a BIOS fix for this. Your #3 hold no argument that I can see.

 

 

Nice summary, Chris, and great info.

I Think Your Doing A Great Job At Handling Everyone's Complaints, Chris, And I Should Mention That I Love My Dell XPS 630I (Even With Some Of The Reduced Funtonality Of The NVIDIA Video Graphics Card), The Main Reason Why I Purchased 2 Dell XPS 630I's (One 4 Me And One 4 My Parents), Is That I Most Definitely Would Not Be Able 2 Afford Any Dell XPS 700 Series Computer Or Computer's With My Limited Source Of Income, And These Were Emergency Computer Purcheses (2 Of My 4 Computer's Started Having Problem's At The Same Time). The Fact Is That Although I Have Heard That The Performance Of The XPS 630I Is Not As Good As The XPS 700 Series, I Have Found The XPS 630I Performance 2 Be Much Better Than My Dell Inspiron 530N Computer (Expecially When You Compare Their Performance When Both Computer's Are Running Vista, When They Are Both Running Ubuntu, They Both Perform At The Same Speed, However).

P.S. I Should Also Mention That Although The Fact That I Installed The Public Download Version Of Dell OEM Ubuntu Is Unsupported By Dell 4 This Computer (The Public Download, Not The Private Download), I Have Found That It Boosts The Performance Of My XPS 630I By A Large Margin Of Speed (Due 2 It's Smaller Foot Print Of RAM, VRAM, And Hard Disk Drive Space). Since My Dell XPS 630I Runs Ubuntu Very Well, I Hope That Some Day The Dell XPS Desktop Team Will Start Working With The Dell Ubuntu Team 2 Create A XPS Desktop That Runs Ubuntu, With Out Having 2 Buy A Microsoft Windows Vista Licence (Since They Love 2 Advertise Just How Successfull They Think Vista Is Even Though There Was A Article Today On One Of The Computer Websites, That A Third Of All New Computer Users, Are Barrowing Volume Licence Copies Of XP From Their Place Of Work, In Order 2 Get Rid Of Vista From Their Computer's, And Are Down Grading 2 XP), JUst FYI.

(1) Removed the misleading references on the sales page...okay.  I can change my LEDs to red, green, or blue.  I'm happy.

 

(2) The retail motherboard specifications frequently do not apply to the Dell proprietary product.  Okay, but you need to explain that in the sales/marketing page, because when you say you use a certain chipset/technology, enthusiasts are going to assume the retail specs apply.  They are going to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, not, oh wait, this is a Dell, so I should ignore the chipset/technology because it's probably "dumbed down" or limited in some way.  Unless, of course, you want enthusiasts to think about your products that way.

 

(3) 650i chipset is ESA supported.  Okay, but that wasn't always the case and it took many rants from enthusiasts to get that web page changed from ESA Support = No.  Again, a misleading reference?

 

(4) Another example of what I'm talking about.  But I'm glad to see the offer of a refund.

 

(5) Okay.

 

(6) This never bothered me, but please, if you make a BIOS change to turn it off, make that not the default.  Like the other poster said, I need my HDD light to check for activity.

 

(7) The Dell ESA NVMonitor hasn't reported correct CPU temperatures for quite awhile.  I reported that about a month ago here: http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=Tech_Talk_XPS&message.id=71598#M71598 and you can't tell me that Core Temp or Real Temp are inaccurate.  Thousands of enthusiasts are using those programs.

 

(8) This reading is used only by the BIOS and does not need to be monitored by the user or NVMonitor.  Why would the BIOS need a 178 C temp reading and what would it do if the reading changed?

 

(9) Okay.

 

And since you took them in order from the enthusiasts complaints, it's fair to mention that these issues are published here: http://www.my630i.com/resources/issues.html

 

 

(1) Customer statement - No LightFX 2.0 dancing lightshow software.

It was admitted by Chris_M in a post made 1st July this year that LightFX 2.0 does not exist.You have just admitted misleading references, I say it was false advertising as the software was not in existence as described on the original sales page. A lie to a customer can never be excused and can certainly never be explained away.


(2) Customer statement - Dell modified the Nvidia 650i SLI chipset/motherboard to restrict it.

As is your right as the manufacturer. To borrow an answering method from Chris_M,

Is there a link on the sales page to the user manual advising potential cusotmers to check it before making a purchase - NO.

Should there be a link on the sales page to the user manual advising potential customers to check it before making a purchase - YES.

If the motherboard was configured with 8 fixed lanes per PCIe slot simply to enable the customer to be able to run SLI or Crossfire on the same system then surely there should have been some sort of notification to that effect. To my mind giving the user the choice of whether to have SLI/Crossfire or choose a single graphics card configuration should have been paramount. A cardswitch may have been the answer, it could well have produced more calls to tech support, but those calls would have been easily dealt with and of course it could have been well documented. As it is now, the customer has no choice at all.


(3) Customer statement - The motherboard is not ESA-certified.

The original matrix posted by nVidia stated the 650i chipset was not ESA compatible. It was only changed after Dell prevailed on nVidia to do so. Prior to the change we all were informed that the chipset did not need to be ESA compatible as it was the MIO board that made it so. Which is it?


(4) Customer statement - No SLI-Ready memory support.

To advise us now after nearly 5 months of this system being on sale that there is a known problem when using 4GB of SLI memory and that you have known about this problem from the start is quite frankly inexcusable. No mention of this limitation on the sales page or in the user manual. Systems still available to be purchased with 4GB pre installed. An explanation would be most welcome.


(5) Customer statement - CrossFire compatibility restrictions.

I personally do not have ATI CrossFire so feel it only fair that I do not comment on it. I'm sure the many customers that do will make their feelings known.


(6) Customer statement – Constant hard disk drive LED activity.

One of your own engineers stated to Cnet that the problem is a resister that requires a physical move, and then stated that it would be a possible firmware update to remidy the situation. Clear as mud. Now you offer the chance to turn it off in BIOS, an ovbious case of "If you can't see it, it's not there" attitude.


(7) Customer statement - Negative temperature readings.

Still researching this myself, so again I feel it only fair not to comment.


(8) Customer statement - Missing temperature sensor after bios 1.0.3.

How long was the system in R&D? Nobody spotted the 178c temp. It was not untill numerous customer posts before BIOS update 1.0.3 arrived and the sensor had been dissabled. Again, if you can't see it - it's not there!


(9) Customer statement – Confusing/misleading advertising of optional audio cards.

Seems par for the course. Personally I've had no problems with my sound card, maybe thats because I'm running Vista, I don't know for sure. Again to be fair no further comment from me.




As has been pointed out by a poster on My630i.com, these responses from Dell seem to suggest that this is all that Dell is willing to do with the system and they are washing their hands. A very generous offer to repay in full the cost of the system to anyone who wants it is all well and good, but a message to all customers that despite Dell knowing full well what the problems are and what it would take to put them right they would rather do without their custom.

Restricting the PCIe bus to only 8 lanes is not a question of speed but more a question of bandwidth. 1GB of data will travel from A to B at the maximum speed of the link, with 8 lanes the total time taken to accomplish this will therefore be twice that of 16 lanes. This is the restricion being encounterd with games such as Crysis and FlightSimX.

I have been a loyal customer to Dell for a great many years. I have given advice to freinds, relatives and co-workers who have taken that advice and been very happy. They in turn have passed on that advice, the power of a personal recommendation being something money can't buy and no amount of advertising will ever equal. The way this XPS 630i situation has been handled is nothing less than abysmal. I for one would have to think long and hard before ever recommending Dell again. I do have hope though, Dell did once before admit the errors of their ways with the XPS 700 saga. I only wonder how long it will take them to do the right thing this time. They really do face the prospect of loosing a great many long term loyal customers, and that would be a very sad day indeed.

Please Dell, do the right thing, win me back.

I'd still like confirmation that Crossfire works as per #5 with non-Dell-OEM cards.

 

I still haven't seen anyone confirm this, as anyone who has it working is doing so with the Dell OEM cards.

 

I have a 4870 HD and really need confirmation that a second will run before I waste $300 on a card that won't work.