Should DeLL REALLY support upgraded Video Cards?

The 8600 and 8500 are Dells top of the line performance notebooks made for the Gamer in mind.  They even advertise it as this.  So the Mom and Pop and Bussiness like people your referring to would not be wise in purchasing one of these.  They would be better off with a M600 or I5100.  So yes DELL should provide upgrades to there top of the line notebooks.  If Dell offered upgrades people would not have to overclock there graphics and proccessors to get the performance they seek.  I've got a I5100 and we found a way to get the M9000 cards to work with it but of course Dell does not support this.  Its a shame.

 

Actually it is stastically proven that 50% of problems you will have with a computer are within the FIRST year and 50% are after the first year.  I have read this in several computer magazines and think I also saw it on TechTV.

As for the video card upgrades in notebooks, I think that Dell should support it, as I voiced my opinion in the petition.

However, the only reason I think we have been lucky thus far being able to upgrade the video card because they are seperate, is because it makes it easier for Dell to just replace the video card if there is a problem with it, rather than replacing the whole motherboard.  I'm sure this is the only reason they did this, not to make it possible for people to upgrade the video cards, although this may have come to mind with some of the engineers.

as long as your don't mess up your computer while installing a new card the warentee is not void.

and no dell should not support user upgrading becuase of liability issues to do people who have no idea what they are doing mucking about in their notebooks.

Yes 50% of all problems hapen after the first year.....DUH! How long after is the question. The weak components in electronics usually show up soon after purchase. A year is a luxury warranty! MOST TV's Computers, Washers, Dryers, even autos do not require warranty service before THREE years. Thats also a statistically proven fact by those who are in the business of selling warranties. They make a ton on extended warranties.
I bought a $14 optical mouse last week at Best buy and was offered a "replacement warranty" for just another $7.99. Its outta control boys and girls. Most of us in our fourties remember when there were NO such thing as extended warrantys, on products that were not made as well as todays including cars! We bought TVs and more and discovered we would have rarely used them! Yes even on notebook computers which are far less complicated than a car.

Now when you buy a car with the THOUSANDS of electrical and mechanical parts including CD drives and LCD's and CPUs that operate in all kinds of heat, weather, and road conditions you are charged 5% over the cost of the car for an extended warranty that covers 2-3 years PAST the Manufacturer's warranty. They make money on that deal as well. Now you buy a %2500 notebook which is coddled, yes bumped around occasionally, but nevertheless mostly in a nice cushioned case resting on the soft seat of a car and most of the time its used, sits flat on a non moving surface...YET they charge 20-30% over the cost of the product. TV's as well.

I remember the salesman making his best attempt to scare me into buying an extended warranty for 30% more on my 60" TV "You know how much ONE COLOR GUN COSTS?" The TV is now 6 years old and still doing well...as most do! I saved a lot! Multiply that times 4 cars 6 TV's washers dryers, Surround Sound equipt. 3 notebooks and 7 desktops etc... over 20 or so years. In not one case would I have used the warranty before the item finally died.. Even if I had issues a few of the items. The savings are still huge. And guess what..I still had the infamous "peace of Mind and slept every night well! We as a society are SCARED into spending hard earned dollars. Look around at items we don't need and how advertising is based on FEAR! You need a certain $1800 vacuum cleaner because there are "spores' in the air that will kill you. A certain air filter for the same reason......the list goes on my friends. They can scare the young into buying anything!!Everthing is going to kill us or make us poor so we have to spend MORE to prevent that???? Funny stuff!

So Dell sells these warranties to those who want to mess with their specs...Well I can not blame them for not wanting to send GPUS out there after reading the forums and the anxiety about getting certain 3D Mark scores and FPS. I see nowhere in Dells advertising that claims the 8600 was especially made for gamers. They said you can game on the machine...Of course. I have a 1.4 WXGS refub with a Go5200 64mb card and run many DX 9 games well! So they are correct. They have lived by their advertising. They do not claim you will get 10000 Marks scores or 200 FPS. Buy a Sager or Alienware..they truky market to the FPS chasers and ALLOW upgrades.

YEs most Mom and Pop and business don't need 1.7 mhz o 3.2 mhz machines but they want the best because they have been told they NEED it!. Just like we are told we NEED to "protect" ourselves from a major expense that MAY happen.....oh and for 30% more!! I don't think Toyota would honor their warranty if one put a turbo in the car. Why should Dell act any different? It's not Dells fault you bought a machine that was great three years ago! You LOVED it three years ago. I know it's frustrating that all the other items in the machine are still valid...but you could have bought a lesser machine and saved half of what you spent and with the other half bought another lappy today with the goodies. It still would have run all the apps you ran three years ago!

And it is still good today...But it's a notebook and not a desktop, We all knew that going in. But many want "desktops in a bag"
and the sellers are doing their best to accomodate that difficult and kinda rediculous need.

Its a NOTEBOOK. They are disposable. Thats why I buy refurbs every two years. I will get a better refurb for $1300 than most of today's loaded 8600's will be then. And still have not spent near $3000....And it runs many games well enough, and edits video and does all the things a loaded 8600 will do except get great 3D mark scores and run over 40 FPS..But it's good enough for $1300 and a couple years of use.

8600 1.4
15.4 WXGA
512 333mhz ram
40 GB (5200 rpm)
NVidia 5200Go 64mb
DVD/CDRW
INtel wireless
Win XP Home
1 year mail in.
$1268 (refurb)

3D mark 2002 .000052 At avg 1 FPS
1.4

Tombo77,

I agree with almost everything you are saying except for the point of the laptop being disposable. The laptop is disposable because of how it is made, not because it couldn't be made to be more flexiable. Everything you are stating sounds like it is from the consumer standpoint. I have been heavily involved as a sales associate for one of the major computer companies and simply put they are looking forward to computer machines getting smaller as well. The simple truth is with time all of our computer devices are getting smaller. As it stands now almost all of the items in a laptop are replaceable, Now they have what is called flexfit avaliable, the use of Mini PCI and moduler components. The time where desketops as we know it won't will be gone soon. Very soon there will only be mobile computer devices. The only reason for a desktop will be for very high end design, development, and for servers. The tablet PC and laptops will be what everyone will have soon(i am refering to the next 5-10 years probably). Dell would be simply doing what they tout they are, on the cutting edge and providing for us down the road.

I'm interested in a Graphics Upgrade for the sole purpose of keeping my computer as current as possible.  Most of us can upgrade our RAM, Hard Drive, periphrials, and even our procesors if so inclined.  However at this point in time we cannot upgrade or video cards, which are in fact evolving and being outdated much faster any other component in the system.  While the majority of applications do not rely heavily on graphics power, within those that do (read games), the difference is noticable.  I have no interest in overclocking a chip, this is WHY I am in support of chip upgrades.  If I can get better performance and reasonable temperatures (high reliabilty) by upgrading the chip, I will do this before I EVER overclock a chip in a laptop.  Also, as the Video Memory is integrated onto the daughtercard, as prices and physical dimensions of memory shrink, we should be able to upgrade to 128, 256, or even 512 MB video memory concurrently with new chips.  As far as warranty issues, I have no problem with an automatic voiding of the manufacturers warranty due to video upgrades as long as the condition is made very clear at the point of sale.  Those that purchased an extended warranty should be able to get a pro-rated refund on their remaining warranty in the event of an unauthorized upgrade.

BTW, Intel is trying to seriously leverage the industry into adopting its open standard for laptops.

I5150, Mobile P4 3.06 non HT, 512MB, 60GB, NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 32MB, SXGA+, XP Home

Message Edited by jk79 on 02-06-2004 12:12 PM

Message Edited by jk79 on 02-06-2004 12:14 PM

I agree. Notebooks will become more component upgradeable, but yeaterdays were not sold on that basis, nor are todays. The day will come when Dell will advertise that fact. Only when thay are assured that the upgrades will not cause damage to the machines. Unfortunately only a V Card can cause damage now. Hd's can not, Lcds, cannot, Processors can not., RAM cannot....But an overclocked video card with modded drivers can and will. Until Dell can lock the clocks to their spec and not allow mods to change that. I don't see why they will open themselves up to that can of worms.

I suggest they sell only to those who are out of warranty. No risk to them at all. In fact I'm guessing whan someone calls in for an upgrade they can tell if the machine is under a warranty and gives the buyer the run around. I'll bet Dell will sell anything to an owner out of warranty sine that is IN their intrest to do so. Many bought the extended warranty on the older machines and would like to upgrade now. The warranty should be voided, not pro rated (again more peperwork and cost to Dell)They have no legitimate business reason to prorate a warranty. Undertand that the number's of consukers that would take advantage of an upgrade are very small in comparison to the amount of machines they sell overall. A very small segment buy their machines for 3D benchmark scores and heavy duty gaming, but they realize there is a market for that and will as any good company provide the machines for that segment when they can do it safely and profitably...The they WILL market exclusivily to the high gaming performance segment. I would guess the extended warranties on those machines will cost even more than on a standard setup due to the tweaking many will do to sqeeze out a few xtra bragging right Mark scores and FPS.

8600 1.4
15.4 WXGA
512 333mhz ram
40 GB (5200 rpm)
NVidia 5200Go 64mb
DVD/CDRW
INtel wireless
Win XP Home
1 year mail in.
$1268 (refurb)

3D mark 2002 .000052 At avg 1 FPS

One of the reasons Dell added modular cards in its later laptops is for their own benefit in sales..

If they want to "add" a new card to the lineup of a selling laptop, they need only develop a new card, not a new motherboard..
This has happened many times at Dell, good examples:
The 5150 was initially speced with the M9 ATI 9000, but that GPU isn't available on a new 5150 anymore, totally superseeded by the FX5200.
The 8600 wasn't specced with an M10 GPU initially, but it is now..

They really only added it to cut costs on their own upgrade schedule for new laptops, (not upgrading sold onces), and as already mentioned, RA warranty work.


rgds

Franki

HEy Frankieh looks like im following you in the forums lol!

Anyway I was really dissapointed with my 5150 not being able to do much with DX9 games like HALO. If Dell would just put better graphics cards into the 5150 all laptop buyers and owners would eb eating out of their hands. Or they could really just allow for upgrades. Its just stupid. They advertise in the magazines that these things can play DX9 and when you get the game install it and it doesnt work who is to blame. Dell of course. If I could upgrade my GPU i would do so but I would still have bought the 5150 for its superfast CPU's Dell just really screwed up big time with this and i would like to see some changes.

5150 3.06Ghz w/ H, UXGA, 512MB RAm, 40GB HD, 64MB GeForce FX5200(poopy), Truemobile1300, CDRW/DVD

Yes, I could really use a video card upgrade.  I know that this Geforce 4 isn't going to last long in terms of the ability to play new games.

Wow not to mention Halo 2 should be coming out soon and God knows what kind of graphics that will require. I think im really gonna trade in my 5150 for the 8600 or even one of those weird brand laptops that are like alienware and allow you to swap parts in them. If Dell doesn't make changes soon there gonna lose a lot of customers! Also can anyone refer me to some of those laptop brands that are like alienware, if you could email me  a list of all the different kinds i would greatly appreciate it! email: metalgear575@yahoo.com

ok i think some people here are mad because they payed more for the non 5100 5150 computers because of the video card and if we get upgrades you will have made a bad purchase, i think this is subconsiously fueling your response.  I am mad this forum got moved here one step farther away from the goal... fighting by petition for our video upgrades to arguing wether they should even be offered... this is stupid ... of course they should be offered....

I am like a lot of people who bought a laptop because they wanted to be mobile and be able to do lots of stuff.  Now we are mobile but we would like to play awsome games like half life 2 on our computers.  In order to do this the only thing our computer is missing is a good GPU.  Why do we want the GPU upgrade? to play our games by paying 100 dollars for a better card instead of 2,000 dollars for a new computer.  Now since i have recently learned laptops are disposable ile just toss this new 5150 in the trash and buy myself a laptop with a better video card to play half life 2 on when it is cheaper in a couple years .... oh wait i want to play half life 2 as soon as it comes out, scratch that plan.  It has been suggested that we buy the cheaper laptop that will do what we want it to do and then buy another cheaper one in a few years... um yea how many cheap laptops out there right now will play half life 2 ...and play it well with direct x 9 features... if there are any they must be pretty hard to find.  Why have we come to dell instead of alienware???? well i dont know about most people but ile tell you why i did... because for 1,800 i got a 3.06ghz p4-m , 60gb hard drive, 512 ram, uxga display, dvd+rw drive, and a 64meg video card thats direct x 9 capable (well sorta :( ... pop in a game like halo and you'll find you can get decent frame rates but only by running in a lousy pixil shader and not even using dx9 stuff)  ... but look at that price difference, the cheapest alienware laptop is 2,128 and only comes with 20 gib hard drive, cdrw dvd player drive, sxga+ wide screen and 2.8ghz pentium 4 ( i must mention though that its 800FSB and has HT) the expensive alienware is 4,223 and has p4 extreme 3.2 ghz processor , UXGA display, 60 gb hard drive, and DVD+RW drive now look at that price and those features, now the processor may be better but who is going to pay an extra 2,000 dollars for that much of an improvment if shown the deal dell could offer, now did i forget to mention somthing? well i forgot to mention 2 things first of all i can turn my processor down to 1.6ghz with speedswitch and get 5 or even 6 hours of battery life instead of the 2 hours that alienware probably gets[ useful for typing up documents on the go and business use]. (also they have 16.1 inch display 7200rpm HDD remote control and mini pci wireless [i can get that wireless anyway])now there is only one really huge difference besides a some quality and performance (not 2,000 worth).... they have a way better video card to let them play awsome games.  So shouldnt dell want to get ahold of some of this gaming market? I mean gaming may not be their target consumer but other consumers will probably follow since gaming can lead to innovation in technology.  Dell could have decent comprimize to that alienware computer if they would just fill in the missing link. Observe....

Alienware Magnesium Alloy Chassis
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme 3.2GHz
Hyperthreading Technology
User-Upgradeable Graphics
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 PRO 128MB
16.1" inch UltraXGA 1600x1200 LCD
60GB 7200rpm HDD with 8MB Cache
Infrared Remote control
4X DVD+RW Optical Disk Drive
802.11 A+B+G Wireless Mini-PCI card
Price: $4,223.00

I payed about 1,800 now heres what I will have got from dell if i can get a decent graphics card  for about 120

3.06ghz p4m 533 FBS( not as fast but i can use speedstep and run for about 5-6 hours [battery doubler is also a great program with Hare])(dell now offers a 3.2ghz with HT processor also)
user upgradeable graphics (if dell decides to make it so)
i dont care what but awsome GPU 128MB (+120)
UXGA 1600x1200 LCD
60GB hard drive (not 7200 but hey its 60GB!)
DVD+RW Optical Disk Drive (i think is 4x)
802.11 wireless Mini-PCI card (well i could if i wanted throw in $50) (70 from dell for the same alienware features)
2 year warrenty & tech support
Price: $1,970

(to get price i took 1,800 [about what i payed] + $120 for GPU + $50 for wireless)

now you dont need to flame me i know the alienware is still way better but comon over 2,000 better? i dont think so.  Its ashame to waste such an awsome system just because dell wont put out a good GPU for it.  If dell does put one out maybe a lot of high end users looking for a great value will buy the 5150 and then when a small store looks to these high end users to find out what type of computer they should purchase the high end but value based user will say DELLL ALLL THE WAAAYYYYY

please move these posts back into the petition, when you move them here it takes away from the pages showing our support in numbers so people dont know how many other people are with them on this as well as the subject line taking away from our purpose and reflecting it from making a change to deciding weather a change should be made

also, dell need not worry about people sending back in their laptops after messing them up with these GPU's because first off people are already trying to overclock their GPU's even more than normal because they dont perform as expected at all and also do to this people put cards in computers other than what dell says is officially compatible. Dell could make you send it in and have them make the change so we dont screw it up if they are really worried about it, or dell could just say if you even buy this card from them you have voided your warrenty, you could just give them your computers serial number or something so that they would know that that computer is out of warrenty when you buy it.  This means dell could offer the GPU without fear and with expectation of great things. And they could give gateway another kick in the wazoo hehehe.  COMON DELL PLEAASSEE CANTTT YOU SEE WE ARE DISGRUNTLED???  

 

 

Message Edited by mikers85 on 02-09-2004 10:29 AM

I'm with ya there =D

I would love to pop a R9600 128MB card into my 5150, that would just own, and, I'd buy the card this instant, if it were available. (no, I'm not being sarcastic, I really would buy it right now) =D

Well, I mostly agree with that, but if we are comparing systems..

The 5150 has no serial/parallel ports, only 2 USD2, no Firewire800 (400 only) no hotswappable drives, 2 channel audio only..

But hey, I agree with you.. I'd be estatic with my 5150 is I could get a 9600XT in it..
When the 9600XT became to slow to be any good, I'd ditch the laptop and get the next one..
cos by then more then the GPU would be out of date, the PCI bus, hard drive size/speed and various aspects of the unit would be out of date also.

I think Dell stopped at an underclocked FX5200 because that was the fastest card they could cram in that didn't require an active cooling solution.. which would have driven the price up (or their profit down).. what I don't understand is why the 5150 base model was "MORE" expensive then the base 8600 system when I got mine..

If I am paying more, and getting a desktop CPU with speedstep tacked on. (which is what the mobile P4 is.) and sacrificing all the extra's I mentioned above.. one would assume that Dell is either making a killing on these 5150's or they got ripped off by the manufacturer.

If they are making a killing on the 5150 (and they must be), why did they skimp on an active cooling system for the GPU?... if they had factored in an active cooling system.. you can bet they'd be offering something better then the 5200 and start the marketing process all over again. the fact that the 5150 is now drifting to the back end of dells marketing goes to show that after months of price reductions, its finially getting close to the profit margin Dell used as a baseline...
I paid just under $3500 AUD for my 5150.. and at that time the 5200FX was fairly new and I didn't know how woeful its performance in modern apps really was.


rgds

Franki

No, not very happy they did that..

Rollie (a Dell forum moderator) stated that thread wouldn't be locked.. it was sposed to be a "petition" thread.

I asked Tombo777 to start a new thread where we could discuss warranty/upgrade stuff without filling up the petition thread with discussion posts..

Next thing I know, they locked the petition thread and made this the "offical" thread??

Thats why I put the petitiononline one up in the first place.. cos this sort thing can't happen there, even I have no control over that one once it was put online.
(which incidently has 923 unique sigs at this time.)

So no, I don't think turning the petition into a discussion is at all helpful to the situation.
If they really fairly wanted to "rollover" the thread, they would have started aother one, with the same name with "2" after it, and the first post in that should have been the number of "votes" in the first one and an explanaion of the reason and that it was a continuation of the other one..

This current thread is "just another upgrade" thread, of which there are dozens already, the old thread was a "petition" thread, meaning people that found it would nearly always add their 10 cents worth if they supported it..

So Dell has managed to break up the petition thing, and so far without looking bad for it.. well done guys.

rgds

franki

Message Edited by Frankieh on 02-10-2004 02:01 AM