XPS 630 General Hardware Discussion thread

I'm still here :-) but as i've not had any problems whatever with my XPS 630i since I bought it in April 2008, I have not had any reason to post here.

I do look through My630i.com forum from time to time to see how others are faring.

I may have just figured out what the problem is.  The thumb drive was formatted to exFat.  I reformatted the drive to NTFS and it booted up while plugged in.  Weird.  I'll run it for awhile and see what happens.

Kevin

So, recently, I decided to experiment with readyboost on windows 7.  I plugged a USB thumbdrive into a back panel port.  Everything seemed to work ok.  Upon bootup the next day, that PC would just hang at the bios screen (Dell splash) with the progress bar about half way.  Shutting it off and restarting a couple of times and it would still hang.  I removed the USB thumbdrive and it booted up normally.   My bios is set to only boot from HD and Optical.  Nothing else.  It seems that this might be a common occurance with various pc's.  Can this possibly be fixed with a new bios from Dell?  Just wondering.

Kevin

Windows 7 should be able to handle exFAT format natively. For XP there was a KB fix to enable it.

But I don't think you can install Win7 on an exFAT drive.

See also http://www.ehow.com/how_5878184_format-exfat-formatting-windows-7.html

Then it must be the BIOS that does not recognise the exFAT format of the USB drive, and so does not know what to do about it and stops. I assume you have the last BIOS firmware issued for the 630, rev. 13.  Not many people use exFAT even now and it was hardly known about when the 630 came out, so probably it has not been taken into account in the BIOS firmware. Since the 630 has been taken off the market, I doubt that Dell would consider issuing a new update. But you could ask them.

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Hi. I have a Dell XPS 630i which has strangely stopped on the BIOS screen. I'm currently using the most current BIOS and when I turned it on for the second time this morning, the BIOS halts as the blue progress bar is about halfway. It was working earlier this morning - ie I didn't do any hardware or software changes this morning so not much idea on the cause.

I did clean the 2 fans at the front of the case this weekend due to dust but they seem to be running except for making some noise.

Any ideas on what has caused this issue? I'm thinking a hardware fault but not sure what is causing it. I do know know I can still enter the BIOS by pressing F2.

I wanted to update my Desktop  I have an XPS 630.  I would like to upgrade the Processor and the Video Card.  What are the 2 highest ones I can upgrade to?

Thank You for any answers