Long Wait for Studio XPS [435MT]?

Well mine finally arrived yesterday.  Orderded on 12/11/2008.  Almost a month when I was given a one week build time originally. 

It is well worth the wait though.  It is so nice to have 15 things going at once and nothing slows down.  I have a very fast internet connection and this thing can download full 1080P video while playing it without a single hiccup.  And they say faster is right around the corner.  LOL   Enjoy guys!!!

I have been enjoying my machine for the past couple of weeks...i7 processor is smokin' fast, love having all of the RAM...and I did the PSU upgrade for peace of mind.

Today, I finally got around to adding two VelociRaptor HDDs and figured I'd have no issues setting them up as a RAID0.  I changed the BIOS SATA setting from ATA to RAID, entered the Intel configuration utility,and tagged only the new drives to become members of my new RAID0 (leaving my Vista boot drive out of it), and then tried to boot into Windows.

Before I see the loading bar for long, I see a flash of blue and the machine reboots (after disabling auto-reboot on crash, I found that it was saying STOP: 0x0000007B...).  I checked the BIOS setting and made sure it wasn't trying to boot from the new RAID drives.

As long as I keep the BIOS SATA setting on ATA, I can boot into Vista normally...but I was really hoping to use these new drives in RAID0 configuration.

Any ideas?

Three questions:

1.  The XPS 730 lists the 300GB WD Velociraptor as an upgrade option.  Has anyone tried ordering the Studio XPS with it?  What else can you do to boost hard drive performance?

2.  An article at techspot.com says there's a big advantage to going with DDR3 at 1333MHZ over the standard 1066MHZ.  Anyone add that to their Studio XPS or thinking about it?

3.  Currently, no coupons for the Studio XPS that I can find.  Anyone know of some?

umm... I hope everyone who bought Studio XPS should form our club.. for tech and solution who is new or new to its baby.

Well ... this topic is about Studio XPS.... you should check the 730 section with more support.

1 I check the Studio XPS cption... it didn't come with any 300GB WD Velociraptor... I mean if you are pro-gamer you should check 730..730 got more option... but if you want to boost hard drive performance, I suggest to use 2 HD... 1 for OS and "Disk Cache", and the other one for all your stuff.

2, And again I check the studio XPS, doesn't matter how many RAM you choose.... they all come at standard 1066MHZ... so if people bought Studio XPS... I don't think we have any choice to think about it.... (also the Dell's StudioXPS i7 or even 730x motherboard is not as good config as Ausu P6T... so doesn't matter how good the stuff you pick... it's not extreme!...  )

And of course Tri-Channel DDR3 sound better... but Vista didn't really support it....

I agree, a club would be great for tech questions, etc.  By the way, disregard my post with questions about Velociraptors and 1333 memory.  I just got a decked out Studio XPS as a scratch-n-dent outlet item.

Still shopping?  They now offer the i7 940 (2.93) Studio XPS on the Outlet site, but they go fast.  Check often, refresh often, and you might get lucky.  My system comes with 12GB memory and Blu-Ray; two options I was planning on getting down the road, but the deal was too good!

Any hiccups people have run into with their new systems?

Hi, my ordered in the UK on 29/12/08, confirmed delivery date on 7th, even got a confirmation phone call from WWI, nothing happened in next few days even after chasing customer service few times a day, finally admited the parcel got lost, had to wait to finish investigation. Wanted to speed up delivery of new PC or some free update, frightening them to cancel the order... wanted to talk to CSR supervisor, got his contact but did not bothered to answer my e-mail - no compensation at all. Now got new estimated delivery date of 13/02/09. Very annoying to wait 6 weeks for PC, got to rearrange quite few things to accomodate the delay. It is very poor customer service, was expecting Dell can do much better. I'm very disappointed, just keep my fingers crossed the machine will work fine otherwise I'll be mad. Not sure if I can recommend this to my friend, probably not. Try to search facebook for experience with dell, you might be surprised how bad the service can be :emotion-12:

Hope others get better level of service

to anyone not keeping track i already upgraded the power supply to the antec EA650

I've really been debating whether I made the right decision on the Studio XPS since the Dell BIOS is so extremely restrictive in regards to overclocking, something the i7 920 is supposed to accomplish with aplomb, easily hitting well up into the 3.Xmhz range without any stress to the system.   Ditto for the RAM speed.  Although it's understandable that Dell does not want to deal with the level of support that would probably follow, it's a bit depressing when you see just how easily the typical build i7 920 systems can be made to perform with some bios tweaking.   The Dell BIOS solution is really a minimal answer as far as system control goes. 

The other two main complaints revolve around the noise of the 92mm case fan and the rather tepid 360w power supply (the 350 PSU ended up being completely fine and the 1.0.12 Bio fixed the ramp-up of the 92mm case fan).  On the other hand, both are easily replaced with aftermarket options that can solve issues, though this is a bit disconcerting right out of the box.  I'll know more when I get my outlet ordered system in two days.   Obviously, it was a return so it will be interesting to compare to the Studio MT (Studio 540) system I had with 8200 Quad Core, 8GB DDR2 800 RAM, 2x640 in RAID 0, and ATi 3450.   This Studio XPS will have 6GB Tri Channel, 2x640 RAID 0, and the ATI 4850.  Gonna be a bit cramped and hot in that beast.

kh

http://en.community.dell.com/groups/xps_club/forum/t/19247011.aspx

DELL CHRIS xps forum ref Studio XPS

The 360w power supply can perform up to about 425w. We tested this PC with our ATI Radeon HD 4850 so you should be fine with the retail one.

bugout> when you added the GTS 295, did you have any issue with cooling? Did you have to add any chassis fan? Is there a power header for additional fan on the Dell motherboard?

Thanks for all the info... this thread is most informative!

Can someone clear something up for me? I read pretty much any ATX PSU will work in the Dell XPS 435MT, but when I pulled the power supply out of mine I noticed the motherboard uses an 8-pin connector connected to the power supply. I checked my ATX power supply (Antec TruePower II 550w) and it doesn't have an 8-pin power adapter. How is it possible to use my Antec PSU in the system. thx