XPS 630 Fan running at 100%. Need your help.

Dell's answer to this is as follows (as relayed by Chris Mixon):

 

*** start original post ***

 

Dell’s products are unique and manufacturers build the motherboards to our specifications. The retail motherboard specifications frequently do not apply to the Dell proprietary product. There are many reasons Dell does this, but our goal is provide a reliable product to our customers and to provide to you the ability of having two video cards. When building the XPS 630, Nvidia gave us two 650i chipset motherboard choices:

* 16,1,1 = 1 PCI Express x16 slot (16 lanes), 1 PCI Express x8 slot (1 lane), 1 PCI Express x1 slot (1 lane)
* 8,8,1,1 = 2 PCI Express x16 slot (8 lanes), 1 PCI Express x8 slot (1 lane), 1 PCI Express x1 slot (1 lane)

 

We chose the second one to enable you to use either Nvidia SLI or Ati CrossFireX. The XPS 630i Owner's Manual clearly states the PCI Express lane configuration is locked in as follows:
- PCI Express x16 (SLOT1 and SLOT4) = connector size 164 pins, connector data width maximum 8 PCI Express lanes
- PCI Express x8 (SLOT3) = connector size 98 pins, connector data width maximum 1 PCI Express lane
- PCI Express x1 (SLOT3) = connector size 36 pins, connector data width maximum 1 PCI Express lane
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... #wp1104354

If you are unhappy with this feature set, Dell will provide a full refund. To do so, please contact DELL-Chris_M via a private message on the Dell Community Forum.

 

*** end original post ***

 

The catch is that Dell made this irreversible choice for you while advertising two X16 slots, which was misleading (at best), as those X16 slots only provide 8 lanes of performance, instead of 16 lanes--which limits newer graphics card performance.

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@TDOGS630I wrote:

So, I'm still a little confused on this.  If you only run one video card, you only get 8-lanes, but if you run two cards in SLI, do you then basically get the benefit of all 16-lanes?

 

 

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Yes. 

 

Keep in mind also that even if it is a single slot dual GPU it usually doesn't matter much as well (see the link re testing above).

 

And, of course, "If you are unhappy with this feature set, Dell will provide a full refund. To do so, please contact DELL-Chris_M via a private message on the Dell Community Forum." :)

ElkWapiti, do you work for Dell?  You must.  There isnt a post that goes by that you do not jump in to defend Dell in some form or fashion.  Which is fine, just odd if you do not work for them.  You seem to scan this forum everyday to discount any negativity directed toward Dell.

 

I am here everyday too, so don't take my comment personally, but I am here to see if there are any updates or changes.  I do not defend or bash Dell unless I have a specific personal reason.

 

Many of your posts do offer help to people, so keep posting please.  But I am still curious. 

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@foehammer25 wrote:

ElkWapiti, do you work for Dell?  You must.  There isnt a post that goes by that you do not jump in to defend Dell in some form or fashion.

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I have no connection with Dell, and you are not paying attention if you honestly believe that I am always defending Dell. Besides, no one could possibly keep up with all the negative posts. :)

 

When I visit a forum, I want real information - not speculation, nor is there any value in mindless bashing.  For example, posts declaring that you lose use of half of a dual graphics card if it is inserted in an x8 slot are inexcusable; this is completely wrong and deliberately misleads the reader. It is inexcusable.

 

Accordingly I try to provide real information upon which a prospective buyer or current user can make an informed decision.  This is what Iwant to see when I visit a forum.

 

For example, Dell's choice to spec a MoBo with x8 lanes for its x16 slots is a mixed bag.  It is good as it allows the use of either SLI or CrossFire.  It is bad in that there can be a performance hit in some circumstances as revealed in testing by Tom's Hardware (I provided the link above).  Is it not best to inform users of the whole truth?

 

As I noted above, I returned my four month old 630.  Dell handled this efficiently.  I suggest that those that are unhappy with their 630 or feel somehow mislead do the same. And then move on.

ELK,

     Why does foe have to return the 630i for a refund and move on? Most of what the original 630i dissatisfied customers are angry with is that they were "misled" by Dell. The reasons why Dell did what they did are of no import. And Dell did it for a long while before they offerred any Refund. You returned yours and are still posting, why should the unhappy consumers not be allowed to post further. It is the nature of a business Dell chose to engage. If Dell thought they had the right to make hecklers go away, I believe that they could make that happen. It's an open forum.... Let it happen.

 

and Foehammer,

      We also need to be open to explanations and alternative opinions as well. I returned my 630i and got an XPS420. That to me, does not excuse the way that I felt Dell treated me as a consumer. I'm still gunshy and probably will be for quite a while. I just feel that the open forum is a place to have all information made available to other potential consumers... both pro and con. People are intelligent enough to look at data and make an informed decision. Some sugarcoat the 630i problems and I (we) should post the alternative reality. I don't care personally if anyone agrees, they won't be able to say that they didn't hear the other side.

 

All posters are valued!

Sean

    

ElkWapiti,

 

I'm confused.

 

Are you saying that the only reason the 650i mobo was chosen for the 630 was because the PCIe x16 slots could be set to only have 8 lanes each to enable SLI/Crossfire?

 

If so by inference you are saying that the 730 is unable to run SLI/Crossfire because its PCIe x16 slots are configured with 16 lanes.

 

I'm sure you are aware there are two versions motherboards with the 650i chipset. The 650i ultra, which has one PCIe x16 slot with 16 lanes and used for single graphics card use. The 650i SLI has two PCIe x16 slots and in most other retail boards they have a cardswitch which enables the user to choose whether to have one slot with 16 lanes or both slots with 8 lanes, enableing SLI.

 

I may be wrong, but as far as I'm aware untill the 630 Crossfire was not able to run on nVidia chipsets only Intel. So the restricting of the PCIe slots in the 630 to 8 lanes couldn't have had anything to do with Crossfire support, that must have been enabled in the BIOS, driver software or some other way entirely.

 

Any light you can shed on this would be most welcome.

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@ElkWapiti wrote:

When I visit a forum, I want real information - not speculation, nor is there any value in mindless bashing.  For example, posts declaring that you lose use of half of a dual graphics card if it is inserted in an x8 slot are inexcusable; this is completely wrong and deliberately misleads the reader. It is inexcusable.

 

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Sadly the reason for all the "negative" posts here is because of the misleading advertising by Dell for the XPS 630, among other products, but there is no place there to refute the claims made there.  You can't even get a legitimate customer review that questions the specs claimed on said web page.  This forum is the only recourse many customers have to question what is being advertised by Dell.  Unfortunately, it's difficult to have a meaningful discussion here with Dell's censorship, sycophants, shill's and fanboys throwing lies and irrelevant material into the discussion.  This is also bad for Dell because customers that thought they could use this venue to bring resolution to problems now find themselves using more drastic means such as contacting people that specialize in litigating problems and government agencies to try and resolve these matters

 

For those that say Dell has offered to let you return it so why don't you?  It's quite simple.  All Dell has done is try to abate those it lied to and there are no consequence's for those lies.  Dell took away the ability to make a properly informed choice when purchasing the XPS 630.  To make matters worse Dell used all it's new customers to troubleshoot all the problems.  Dell has in no way made any attempt to compensate any of the hundreds if not thousands of hours customers spent trying out work arounds, "updates" and "fixes".  Last time I checked it wasn't a customer's responsibility to be a guinea pig for a retail produce.  I, for one, did not purchase an alpha or beta system.  There is also the matter of the time invested in installing personal software, system setting customizing and data transfer that Dell seems to be ignoring.  Sure, I could return my system but then I'd be back to having to purchase another system, install all my software(again), transfer all my data(again), set up windows how I like it(again) meanwhile Dell suffers no consequence.  I may be missing something but that's not exactly what I would call an equitable resolution especially when it was by no fault of my own that this circumstance arose instead it was Dell's deliberate, deceitful advertising that put me in this situation.

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@shdbcamping1 wrote:

ELK,

     Why does foe have to return the 630i for a refund and move on?

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Reread my post.  Mr. Hammer does not "have to" do anything.  "I suggest that those that are unhappy" obtain a refund.

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@billybigfoot wrote:

 

Are you saying that the only reason the 650i mobo was chosen for the 630 was because the PCIe x16 slots could be set to only have 8 lanes each to enable SLI/Crossfire?

 

If so by inference you are saying that the 730 is unable to run SLI/Crossfire because its PCIe x16 slots are configured with 16 lanes.

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First, nVidia only makes chipsets.  MoBo manufacturers buy the chipset and implement whatever features they would like.

 

Dell's 630 board's x16 sized slots have only x8 physical lanes each.  This way they can support nVidia's SLI and, through a custom driver, support CrossFire as well.

 

The only board I know of that natively supports both SLI and CrossFire multi-GPUs is Intel's Skulltrail.  This is accomplished by including two NVIDIA nForce 100 MCP chips on the board.

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@Drange wrote:

Sadly the reason for all the "negative" posts here is because of the misleading advertising by Dell for the XPS 630,  . . .

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I have no problem with accurate, honest negative complaints based on the truth.  However unsupported claims, such as posts declaring that you lose use of half of a dual graphics card if it is inserted in an x8 slot, are inexcusable.  This is a lie.  It does not further the discussion.

 

It is possible, although highly unlikely, that Dell as an entity made a deliberate decision to mislead.  However, "Dell" is not a single person with full simultaneous appreciation all aspects of the business.  Rather there are various departments and groups.  Marketing is full of marketing geeks, not technology experts.  While there are exceptions, most advertising technical inaccuracies are negligent at best - not deliberate calculations hoping to catch an educated populace unaware.  Does anyone honestly believe that someone at Dell deliberately decided to misrepresent its technology thinking that the highly knowledgeable gaming community was not going to figure it out?  Computer geeks are a difficult bunch to fool.

 

Regardless, it should still not happen.  As consumers we are entitled to either the product as advertised or our money back.  If one feels that the consumer did not get the benefit of the bargain you return the product.  Dell has indefinitely extended the return period to accommodate unhappy buyers and even pays return shipping.  Dell is not required to do this; we all had our contractual 21 day period to make a decision.

 

I spent a good amount of time trying to determine why my 630 had optical drive problems.  I wish this had not been necessary, but I posted the results here to help others similarly situated.  Dell threw a lot of money at the issue as well, replacing the drives and the MoBo.  "Dell" as an entity certainly was unaware of the reason for the problem; it certainly would not otherwise have wasted all these resources. These issues are a loss for Dell as well as for the consumer.

 

A healthy respectful discussion is valuable.  Purely negative outbursts and misrepresentations - regardless of on which side - do not advance the discussion.

ElkWapiti,

 

Thankyou for my answer, I still don't understand though, why is it that I have to put up with 8 lanes for my graphics card. I don't want to SLI/Crossfire, so why do I not have the option of haveing my primary PCIe x16 slot running with 16 lanes, I bought the system with one graphics card, I would like to have the choice of how many lanes are connected to it. I was led to believe it could be either 16.1.1 or 8.8.1.1, no link to the manual or advice that the manual should be saught and examined, I don't have to look at the manual before buying anything else so why am I told after the fact that in this case I should have.

 

Many more questions, I know, but all relevent, all needing answers.

 

Thankyou in advance for your help.

Does anyone honestly believe that someone at Dell deliberately decided to misrepresent its technology thinking that the highly knowledgeable gaming community was not going to figure it out?  Computer geeks are a difficult bunch to fool?

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

Yes.  Absolutely.  In fact, they have.  Most customers do not even read these posts, and are unaware and/or do not care about the technology.  Those customers are who Dell has experience with, not technical geeks.  IMO they underestimated a few of us. 

 

Do you think that Dell intentionally misrepresented LightFX2.0 thinking they could fool people?  Yes. 

 

Do you think they made bad decisions when deciding how to make their MB's?  Yes.  No one really needs a system that can use both brands of video cards.  Especially when, at times, Dell only offers you one choice (depending on their over/under stock situation).  Anyone here using crossfire with their 630?  Anyone here want to?

 

I do, however, think that their response in allowing us to return the systems is fair.  Not my preferred solution, but fair enough.  I also think that Chris has done a fine job as a liaison for Dell.

 

And lastly, thank you for addressing me as Mr. Hammer.  I kinda like that. :P

 

This is all my opinion and as valid as anyone else's.  Even more so, perhaps, than people that do not even own a Dell 630 anymore, and really have no vested interest in any of Dells mistakes. :P

Oh, and, Hi Billy!!    /hugs  :)

I think Zoder is on the right track. If you are unhappy with your XPS 630i, get a refund on it and go buy a HP Blackbird!