XPS 435 Owners Thread

First off, I want to thank all you folks for contributing to this terrific forum.  I am just on the cusp of ordering a 435T and have been trolling the web for information from users, so this has been very useful.  Your comments give me a good idea on what to expect.

I’ve owned a lot of Dell’s over the years and have bumped into a range of problems/challenges.  I too have scar tissue from waiting for and talking to Dell phone support.  In the main, all the problems I’ve had did eventually get resolved.  The XPS support seems particularly responsive.

I can resolve some basic technical stuff, so I’m not too worried about what you’ve all said about the 435T.

I have 2 specific questions that I’d like to discuss before I place the order.  1) Given your collective experience with the 435Ts to date, do you think it makes sense to buy an additional year of warranty?  For a laptop I always buy more years of protection, since the machine is moving around.  But for a desktop, I’m not sure that it’s a worthwhile expenditure. Adding a second year is about $120, or $170 with Complete Care (prices in Canada).

2) I was going to order the machine with the ATI 4870 1024 – I’ve always preferred ATI.  However, since yesterday the Dell site no longer offers the 4870/1024 – maybe in response to the many issues that you have mentioned in this forum.   Now they’re only offering a nVidia GeForce GTX 260 1792MB.  My experience with nVidia has been mixed – like crashing WoW, which was not a particularly demanding game for a GPU.   Also, I can’t find any information on a “1792MB” GTX 260 (is it the GTX 260 Black?) so I can’t find a performance comparison with the 4870/1024.   My question is: Do any of you have any views on the GTX 260/1792, and how it might compare to the 4870/1024?

I wonder if there will be any Labor Day savings if I wait a few more days.

I like my 4870 1024 and the 435T in general, after formatting the drive segments (I split the drive in half one half is W7 RC build 7100 which is now very stable and other half Vista 64 again very stable) I copied the Recovery partition then formatted it and loaded Ubuntu 9.04 which is stable as well but not connecting to my wireless as yet but I have a tri-OS boot system working very well. If the 4870 is what you want I'd see if there was one in the Refurbished Outlet where I got mine from and I did purchase a 2 year extended warranty, the system shipped at $2507 with warranty a good savings over the build side. Best of luck.............. Oh and I also flashed the BIOS to A13 and it's much faster now.

banjo

Manotick,

I have owned several Dell desktops and laptops and my employer used Dell equipment as well.  Regarding an additional warranty,  I have used the same practice you do.  That is, I don't buy the extended warranty for desktops but make sure I have a 2 or 3 yr warranty for the laptops because they take more abuse.  My experience with desktops has been that component failures usually occur, if it all, within the first 12 months which would be covered by the base warranty of 1 yr.  So my suggestion would be to bypass the extended warranty and ensure your system is backed up regularly in the event of a failure.  I don't have any experience with the GTX260/1792 but I have owned nVidia products before and have not had any issues.

Good luck with your pending purchase and be sure to share your experiences with the rest of us here and to keep this thread as helpful as it has been to many, including myself.

i too am considering getting the 435t and i also saw that they now offer the gtx 260 1792mb card as an option.  im wondering if this card will run properly on this system with its 475w power supply as the gtx 260 card says it requires a 500w power supply minimum.  also, it requires 36 amps on the 12v rail.  can anyone who owns the 435t kindly look at the label on the power supply and tell me the following: is it a dell branded power supply or another brand? can you tell me the maximum total watts on the 12v rail? there will be a line on the power supply that says maximum total on 12v is xxx watts and thats where you find this number out.  normally this number is a little less than the power supply watts, which in this case is 475w.  to get the amps, you take the number of total watts allowed on the 12v rail and divide by 12.  this should be over 36 amps to run the gtx 260 smoothly.  also, i plan to install 3 hard drives and a tv tuner with the gtx 260 card and im wondering if all of this will tax the power supply and make the 475w one that comes with this system underpowered?  lastly, has anyone had any experience installing any of the gtx 200 series cards successfully on this system?  thanks in advance for your kind replies.

I tried to do the BIOS update, my XPS 435 is now a  $2300 boat anchor. Nothing works, only the fans start up. I have requested a replacement.

That's why I always say if it ain't broke don't fix it.  The 435T runs fine under Windows 7 RTM even with the Bios I have from late April.

I tried to do the BIOS update, my XPS 435 is now a  $2300 boat anchor. Nothing works, only the fans start up. I have requested a replacement.

MOH Airborne rocks on my 435T. Don't recall having to do anything special. It just loaded up and away we went. Have 6gb's RAM, ATI RAdeon 4870 w/1gb onboard. Are you using the Dell provided vid driver? If so, may want to get the latest ATI driver and give it a go. Hope that helps.

I am running the latest from ATI and I have the 4850 and 6GB RAM. Did you update any other drivers? I updated Realtek to correct a blue screen error and I am running A11.

Nope, just the ATI driver. Also running A11 but when I played it was on A07.

What it all looks like............

I am running Win7 RC1 on my 435T. Everything was fine when one day the card reader started to malfunction. For troubleshooting, I booted with Ubuntu and quickly found that the USB ports on the motherboard were fine. I could find this out by swapping the two USB cables for the front (one goes to the four USB ports in the front and the thicker one goes to the card reader). Connecting the card reader cable to either of the two ports elicits no response when plugging in a card in the card reader when I tail /var/log/messages. Plug in the front 4-port USB hub cable in either of the two motherboard ports and they both work. So the card reader is the problem.

For now, I have disconnected the card reader's USB cable from the motherboard but Win7 still shows it as an Unrecognised device. Any pointers or fixes for this errant card reader or should I just leave it alone?

I received my new 435MT last week, have been playing with it in my spare time, and can report first that the Iogear Miniview KVM switch works in Vista 64 without any issue.
That is really sweet.
In fact I tried in 3 steps in case I got into some trouble :
1- no KVM, just the basic Dell KB and mouse : no problem
2- KVM plugged in with same Dell KB/Mouse : no problem wither, the KVM "driver" is recognized and installed, the Hotkey to swap between the 2 PC works like in my old XP.
3- last test, KVM with my Logitech Wireless KB and Mouse LX 500 : again no problem ...

I will post more finding about the RAM, the Video etc in a separate post, and a couple of "funny" things (no issue though for now as I have not been using it extensively).

Truc88 did you update your BIOS? I am affraid to do it as the first 435 crashed and never restarted. This is actually my second one!

Lesterpaul, Just  a short answer for you on your question while I am preparing my longer post, No I did not do the BIOS update to 1.1.2.
My machine came installed with 1.1.1.

Not sure why it was not done in factory with 1.1.2 since it was available for download since 06/05/09, and my machine was ordered end of August.
Now that you mentioned your crash, I will be even more cautious or afraid to move to 1.1.2 without any compelling reason.
I might need to read a bit more on this BIOS version in the forum.
HTH.