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1534942
XPS 730x General Hardware Discussion thread
Use this linked thread in the Desktop FAQ to discuss XPS 730x hardware and performance tweaks and issues.
Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
141 Posts
0
1534942
Use this linked thread in the Desktop FAQ to discuss XPS 730x hardware and performance tweaks and issues.
Top
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
May 6th, 2009 15:00
Don't use the XPS Thermal Monitor to control your fans. It's trash. Use the Nvidia System Tools with ESA Support. It will allow you to lower your fan speeds and when you reboot your PC, it will load them by default according to how you set them.
[/quote]
I'm not using the XPS Thermal Monitor to control my fans. The front fan speed is the same from the instant I turn the 730x on, until I turn it off. I only use the Thermal Monitor app to see the actual RPM's. It is set for "auto mode", and even if I create a new profile and set the front fan to 0%, the speed does not change.
Supposedly, Dell is call me today to "try a few things", but I think I'm going to request a replacement system.
Thanks.
177marley
44 Posts
0
May 7th, 2009 01:00
Unistall the thermalmonitor then reinstal it
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
May 7th, 2009 07:00
Why? As I stated, the fan speed is ALWAYS at MAX SPEED, even when just sitting in the BIOS screens. How is the Thermal Monitor software controlling the fans then? (rhetorical question).
Eagle Hill
39 Posts
0
May 7th, 2009 08:00
Hi Mastin,
I too have an XPS 730x 965 H2C. I have BIOS 1.0.2 installed. I know that elsewhere in the forum it suggests that you can raise the CPU Core (Non-turbo) Ratio = 28, but I found the same as you that it is locked at a Maximum of 24. You can lower it, but you can't 'seem' to raise it. I have been searching for 9 days now, and it just isn't there; yet in some articles that I have read (if I have understood them correctly) it says that Intel allows the Non-turbo ratio to be raised above 24?? I just don't know, I thus can only assume that Dell's motherboard just doesn't allow this.
I have also found that if you leave the Speedstep enabled, you will never get to 3.724 Ghz. If you can disable speedstep (for testing purposes), then your system doesn't 'gear down'. If I understand this properly, it is kind of like overdrive in your vehicle, it will consume less energy with speedstep engaged. I am not really sure of any other long term effects of disabling Speedstep.
You can however, raise the turbo speed limits. The recommended setting here is 28 for all four cores. Also raise the Tdc to 180 and the Tdp to 200. Thus 28X133=3.724. Dell has a technical paper on line called "overclocking Defaults on the XPS 730x" Journal id 09125SCBM8 dated 12/11/2008.
Hope that helps
Eagle Hill
p.s. In the nine days that I have had my system I have had twenty (20) blue screens. Dell has replaced all of the RAM and yet the blue continues to come. They are replacing the whole unit. When it is running, it is quite a nice system, but the constant crashes are frustrating. I have had more crashes with this system than in all of my 7 or 8 other computers combined. I have to think it is a 'Monday Morning' production computer. By the way I do have "C" State disabled. Good luck with yours.
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
1
May 7th, 2009 22:00
Eagle Hill,
Even though you directed towards Mastin, it seems like you addressed my issues, so I will respond.
It's nice to know it's not only me with the ratio stuck at 24. But that system (a 965-based H2C) is for a friend/client and I'm putting that one aside right now and working on mine. Dell never has gotten back to me when they said they would, so I have one 730x with a super noisy front fan going at full blast. BUT, I had gotten some great deals from the Outlet when I ordered these, and the first one I ordered, I hadn't opened until today. It was also a air-cooled i7-925. Fortunately, it is quiet as can be!!
In playing around with the overclocking on this unit (and being no expert on OC'ing), I think the only way to OC these 925's is via the FSB setting. So, I've got mine running at 166 FSB, and put in some PC3-1600 RAM (RAM clock is at 1328 now -- 166*8), and my CPU clock is now about 3.5Ghz. I have pretty much everything else set at stock settings, and put Vista in High Performance mode so now my CPU is ALWAYS clocked at 3.5 (sometimes even higher when TURBO MODE kicks in!), and is stable as a rock. I wish I could get my RAM higher (more towards the 1600 it's rated at), but I cannot figure out how without raising the FSB even more, which I don't want to do because right now my temps are good and for a 2.66 Ghz chip, 3.5Ghz is GREAT!!!!
The amazing thing is I got this baby from the Outlet for about $900, and it's in perfect condition! It was supposed to only come with a single 512MB 9800GT, but instead, I found it had DUAL 9800GT's in SLI!! What a great deal, I think, and the performance is awesome! As a test of a computers moxie, I use Tunebite to transcode WMA's to MP3's. Tunebite allows up to 28 simultaneous conversions, each at 2x speed, and on my current XPS 720 with a Quad Extreme 6850 OC'd to 3.46Ghz, it pretty much takes all the cores to 100% just to do 24 simultaneous conversions. On this 730x, I can do all 28 and the CPU is only around 30% and between 100-110F. Gotta love it.
Sorry you are having problems with BSOD. That is a drag. I do have C State Enabled, as well as SpeedStep, but with Vista on High Performance, my CPU clock is constantly on the highest. No "gearing down" at all.
As an added bonus, I stuck on, as my boot/OS drive, a G.SKILL Titan SSD that I had lying around. Very nice... :)
This $900 system is so perfect, I think I'm just going to send back the one with the noisy fan. It was a 925-based system with 6GB and a 1GB GTX 280, got it for about $1150. It too is in like new, perfect state, except for the fan being stuck. With two SLI'd 9800GT's, I think that is enough graphics muscle for me, and I'll let the GTX280 go back to Dell.
That's my current story. Thanks for sharing yours.
clement1986
2 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 04:00
In the conclusion, purchase h2c or not?
I'm confuse about it, and sound like they are complaining about it, but my dell seller told me that Standard Fan & Heatsink had issue with the heating problem earlier. Take with the Dell H2C Cooling Unit is more secure.
hbk123
313 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 05:00
Yes mine also is stuck with a non turbo Core Ratio of 24, i can lower it but not increase. I also have the Core i7 965
hbk123
313 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 05:00
Yes mnie also is stuck with a non turbo Core Ratio of 24, i can lower it but not increase. I also have the COoe i7 965
Eagle Hill
39 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 07:00
Hi clement 1986
I have had my XPS 730x H2C for eleven days, and while I have now had 28 blue screens of death, I have had no problem with the Cooling unit or fans. When it fires up, (that doesn't always happen) it is loud for perhaps 5 - 10 seconds then it quiets down. My crashes have more to do with the RAM which has already been replaced once, and perhaps some other fault on the motherboard. I really don't know, nor does it appear that Dell does, they are sending me a new system.
I think that you will find that the only way to get the Dell H2C cooling system is to order the 965. If you want the 920 or 940 then it will come with the air cooled system. For the record, when it is running I quite like my system, but then again I might be equally happy with the cheaper 920 or 940 units. I don't know!
Eagle Hill
Eagle Hill
39 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 07:00
Hi Lancorp,
I sounds like you got a terrific deal on your units. At that price it might be worth spending more time troubleshooting, there must be an answer somewhere. At any rate I have a question for you. I am new to Vista and haven't had a lot of time to play with it yet. You in part said "I have pretty much everything else set at stock settings, and put Vista in High Performance mode so now my CPU is ALWAYS clocked at 3.5 (sometimes even higher when TURBO MODE kicks in!), and is stable as a rock." Where and how does one engage the "High Performance Mode"?
Eagle Hill
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 09:00
Easy. Just go into your power settings (Control Panel/Power Options) and choose "High Performance" instead of "Balanced".
On the topic of OC'ing my air-cooled 920 system:
I've done a bit more research, and since I am using DDR3 memory rated at 1600Mhz, I have now been able to increase my BClk to
180, which in turn sets my memory to 1440 (7-7-7 1T) (which is still under the 1600 rated speed), and my CPU clock to 3.6Ghz, and in Turbo
it bumps to 3.8Ghz! Temps are still good, and fans are mostly quiet. Prime95 testing gets the temps to about 150F, which is still great, but I really don't
plan on running at 100% CPU for any period of time, so I'm not worried there. Stable so far...running through my apps and making sure all is good.
So far, I love this system considering the price and the performance I am getting without having to had purchased an H2C-based system!
Later today I will get back to my clients' H2C 965 system and pop in some 1600 RAM and see if I can get to 4.0GHZ while keeping cool and stable.
For those thinking about whether to get an H2C or not, I'd say if you're happy with 3.6-3.8Ghz "on-the-cheap", then skip the H2C (and the high price)
and go 920 and save some big $$$.
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 09:00
Interesting. So, seemingly, the only way to overclock the 965 is to bump up the Bclk, which the whole reason of getting the 965 is that
it's multiplier is UNLOCKED, but we cannot raise it! So, we're stuck with an overpriced 965 that acts like a 920 with a locked multiplier?
There MUST be something wrong. The 965 should be able to have it's multipler RAISED.
Maybe Chris M could chime in here?
mmab63
72 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 13:00
Lancorp, there is nothing wrong. You just need to bump the turbo mulitpler to overclock the CPU and make sure the 'Intel TurboMode Tech' = Enabled . The non-turbo Core Ratio max is 24. Min is 12. I have mines at 28 on all 4 cores....3.73GHz.
mmab63
72 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 13:00
My 965 will only go as high as the high 3.8GHz range before becoming really unstable. Of course, I have the air-cooled version, maybe the H2C will achieve 4.0GHz with no problems. And if you are using 1600 RAM, make sure you bump the 'QPI & Uncore Voltage' from Default to around +120 or +140mv or so. And make sure your timing specs on your RAM matches the BIOS numbers.
LANCORP_88b25e
224 Posts
0
May 9th, 2009 17:00
Thank you for the information. I have to say, though, that I am finding my 920 air-cooled system is overclocking much better than the 965 H2C system! My 920 system jumps to almost 4Ghz in turbo mode, and around 3.8Ghz normally, and is solid as a rock.
I will try the settings you stated (Turbo multiplier at 28) and see what my clock speed is when I run Prime95. I would have thought that I could at least mimick the settings from my 920 on my 965 H2C system, but nope. Not even close. Kind of disappointing that with all this Extreme technology that my cheapy little 920 system is out-muscling my much more expensive 965 EXtreme system! :emotion-2: