XPS M1710 and Windows 7

Use caution, allen!  I'm pretty sure Windows 7 just cooked my GPU on my M1710.  I've written about it in another post.  I'll just put the text here so you can see what I'm talking about:

[DJ, I am shocked to find this post!!! Until yesterday, I had been using the Windows 7 beta and was pretty darn happy with it. Then, I decided to install the RC and planned to buy the full up this fall. I'm that impressed with it. However, I write to you now in safe mode. It's the only mode my computer will boot in, and at that all screens are covered in video garbage such as horizontal blips and dots in all the non-white areas. Yep sounds like a dead/dying GPU. I thought "isolated event" right? Until I find your post! I'm on a Dell XPS M1710 with a GeForce Go 7900 GTS. Mine too autodetected the Quadro driver and I hadn't even had an opportunity to look further into the matter. Everything seemed to be working just fine anyway. So then, some time last night I came to the computer to find a screen full of snow and after having to hard reset, I now get nothing but garbage followed by blank screens unless I force safe mode in Windows 7. Even my XP partition (with the most current nVidia driver) won't boot. EVEN THE DELL BOOTUP SCREEN is garbage'd up. Admittedly, I've had this laptop for around two years, and it served me well: to include in the Middle East while deployed, but I'm really frustrated because less than a month ago I shelled out the cash to up the RAM to 4GB and the HDD to 300GB over the paultry 80 that came with it. Sheesh, I'm pretty annoyed about this. SURELY Dell can help out? The spare parts page doesn't list any video cards for it anymore, to include the 7950, which is the only other option. Maybe they have one laying around somewhere they can send me? I really hate to can what has been a great laptop, especially since everything but the GPU works (err, worked) great. Best of luck!! Gameshow HEY DELL! FIX THIS FOR US!]

Best of luck!

Gameshow

The same happened to me only mi windows 7 is final and didn't install quadro drivers. any news?

If you have an XPS you can renew your laptop warranty - perhaps buy some time?  Many, many posts out there regarding the GPU failure at about the 2 year point.  Classic symptom is the vertical green dots at boot up (Matrix movie like from a distance).  Renew your warranty and put Dell on the hook to fix it.  Not a great option but the best I could find and not wanting to just ditch the machine after the large initial investment.

Forgot to mention in my prior post that this was happening with Vista and not necessarily Win 7 as discussed here.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=360683&l=en&s=dhs#1 Doesn't appear to be compatible

i noticed that link as well, i have an XPS M1710 with an nvidia geforce go 7900gs  i was in contact with nvidia about compatability of my card with windows 7 and this is what i was told

"

Thank you for contacting NVIDIA Customer Care.

The GeForce Go 7900 GS is compatible with Windows 7. I would recommend you consult with Dell on official support for the notebook with regard to Windows 7. Below is a link to reference beta driver that should work with GeForce Go 7900 GS. Please note that drivers direct from NVIDIA are provided “as is” and do not carry any guarantees, warranties, or support. NVIDIA recommends that you check with your notebook OEM about recommended software updates for your notebook. OEMs may not provide technical support for issues that arise from the use of drivers on NVIDIA.com.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_notebook_winvista64_179.48_beta.html


Best regards,
-Ray
NVIDIA Customer Care

"

so nvidia says yes the card should be fine, dell is saying no chance and the windows upgrade advisor is saying the card will not support aero.....what a pain

the xps m1710 has all the specs needed to run windows 7 so im not sure what the problem is here

I have contacted nvidia again about my card supporting WDDM when i find out ill let you guys know

Hi everyone, i need your advise!

Why isn't Dell saying anywhere that DELL XPS M1710 is compatible with Windows 7? Because they are compatible with my laptop. BUT!!! Mine seems different in specs...

First of all i can't agree with all the info here. I've been working with Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit for about 7 months now, and my laptop works perfectly fine. The fan doesn't do noise either or works hard. It's probably something to do with the graphics card. Please have in mind you can change some stuf from the BIOS!!! Even the fan speed.

My laptop is a Dell XPS M1710 with processor T7600 2.33GHz and with NVidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX. Have in mind i have the latest BIOS installed (i think the latest version was released way before Windows 7 were even released).

I've checked the following related-with-my-laptop-specs websites like Microsoft, Intel, Dell and NVidia to check the compatibility of my laptop with Windows 7 64bit, not the 32bit i currently have (32bit works like PERFECT).

My conclusions when using the 32bit Windows 7:

(1)Processor (mentioned above) is compatible even with a 64bit system. (2)Graphics card is completely compatible (even tested with video out) plus new drivers are out and tested them also (well done N~Vidia). (3)Windows compatibility test says it is compatible. (4) ONLY DELL doesn't have any info about the compatibility of DELL XPS M1710.

I verify that DELL laptops that have the specifications as my laptop work fine with Windows 7 32bit and i will try the 64bit version soon. No problems found in the 7 months i've been using the 32bit version.

Does anyone have Windows 7 64bit installed??? I will try them and if any problems are found i will post them here.

Comments are welcomed.

Thanks in advance.

also yes the 7900 gs does support WDDM 1.0 and the driver above is the correct driver.  Enjoy folks

@cartmaland-

I have an M1710 with these specs

T7200--2ghz processor

Nvidia Geforce Go 7900gs

4 gig of ram

I have windows 7 professional 64 bit installed and i was a bit worried to install windows 7 from xp because i had heard about the graphics cards burning up....well its been a few weeks and the computer is doing great.  I have also been in constant contact with nvidia and the people i talked to told me that my card is completely compatible with windows 7.  I have even been keeping an eye on my graphics card and processor temperatures with speedfan and yes my graphics card does run a little hotter than it did on xp pro but the temps its at are well within safe areas........i get around 55-65 degrees C and nvidia told me the card could go up as high as 120 C.............but the whole computer doesn't get hot, its not noisy, and i see no problems coming up.  Just keep an eye on your machine at first and see what you notice, you will probably be fine though.

So to get to the point, i hope you enjoy windows 7 64 bit :)

Please note that the users that reported problems with their graphics card DID NOT HAVE an NVidia GeForce Go 7 series.

yes, this is just what has worked for myself and my system, its not guaranteed to work with your systems, but i do hope my explaining my situation will help

Hi

Could you tell me what drivers did you use? these which windows 7 finds or these from dell website for vista?

When i first started windows 7 it did have a driver update for my graphics card but i ignored it and went with the link i was provided by Nvidia, here is the link for my card they gave me

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_179.48_beta.html

I usually don't download upgrade for my computer parts from DELL, instead i go to the actual manufacturers of the parts in my computer and get updates from them.  But i did download the quickset driver and sound driver from DELL for the computer.  The drivers available are for VISTA but they work fine and your not going to get anything better from DELL because they for some reason wont support the DELL XPS M1710.

@ cartmaland

I know that was some time ago,but where are in bios that options you talk about? I can't see anything related to fan speed or other stuff,just a very simplistic Dell bios.

What i did was that i installed the 179.48beta version off NVidia nad then did a Windows Update.

I don't think it matters tho because i think it installs different things... I''m not sure. I didn't saw any changes to tell you the truth.

Windows 7 must have gotten some driver updates and NVidia 179.48beta must have installled the software that handles the graphics (callibration and other configurations).

I believe you should have both. If an update is out there know that it is for your own good! if you don't like the update the use System Restore, or , unistall the update.