XPS 435 Owners Thread

[quote user="rettenhu"] Thanks for the suggestion i-vol...  I am running McAfee and it does not have any scheduled automatic scans, nor does it do a scan at startup although I have yet to find a speciifc option/setting for the latter.  But this (startup item and startup servics in general) is something for me to check into further.  My hunch had been more along the lines of a hardware hang-up---consistent with what Chris-M had suggested.  The significant boot time differences I see are occuring at one speciifc time during boot...  ie, after the Microsoft name appears at the bottom of the screen and the progress bar sweeps about 5 times.  From that point I either see a Vista logon screen within 20 seconds on what I call a "fast/normal boot" or as much as a minute and 15 seconds on a "slow boot".  That's a significant difference...  Re: calling support.  Was not seriously considering it...  :emotion-42:

I posted elsewhere about a problem the ATI 4870 card has with some monitors when outputting in DVI mode. There are lots of posts on the ATI forum about this. Here's a link:

http://tinyurl.com/cg2qjk

That problem manifests itself with a blank screen, but it doesn't seem to recover. This doesn't sound like what you're experiencing, but you may want to try outputting your graphics via VGA and see if there's any difference in startup time.

Thanks for that link.  I read thru most of the posts and the problem is similar to mine although not identical.  My monitor would eventually springs to life with the Vista logon after about a minute of being in a black screen mode.  I just did a complete Program Remove of the CCC and uninstalled the ATI driver.  I rebooted and reinstalled both the latest CCC and driver.  FIrst couple of reboots have been fast with no hang after the Windows Progress Bar Load finishes.  I have my fingers crossed... :emotion-2:

Quick question: does your 435 power light stay on during the "long boots" or does it go out, then come back on after an "long time", before then proceeding with the boot up? I am trying to determine if your problem is similar to the one I am having with my brand new (unhappy) baby.

Quick question: does your 435 power light stay on during the "long boots" or does it go out, then come back on after an "long time", before then proceeding with the boot up? I am trying to determine if your problem is similar to the one I am having with my brand new (unhappy) baby.

I don't recall observing the power button light but I believe it stays on solid throughout.  However, my disk drive goes from being on almost solid to an occasional on/off flicker  during the black screen, then right before the Vista logon appears there's a burst of drive activity for about 5-10 seconds and then the logo would appear.

Since my remove/reinstall of the entire ATI software suite I have not had a slow reboot.  The only other change I made was to disable Windows Defender.  The was a recommendation from McAfee, since I already have their Internet Security Suite installed.

Edit: Had another day of no "slow boot" times!  I believe the Catalyst Control Center/driver was the culprit, given the extended black screen would occur immeditely after the DVI connection displayed and because a total Remove/Reinstall of the CCC and driver seems to have solved the problem for me.

I jucst ordered a 435mt with 6GB RAM (1x6). I will want to upgrade RAM soon but felt I could do it cheaper. I have a couple questons

1) Can I put three 2GB in three of the slots for a total of 9GB or do i need to upgrade all six slots to 2GB for a total of 12GB

2) Can I use 1333mhz or do I have to stick with 1066mhz

3) Does the timing (9-9-9 or 7-7-7) make a difference

ordered a 435mt with 6GB RAM (1x6). I will want to upgrade RAM soon but felt I could do it cheaper.

1) Can I put three 2GB in three of the slots for a total of 9GB or do i need to upgrade all six slots to 2GB for a total of 12GB

2) Can I use 1333mhz or do I have to stick with 1066mhz

3) Does the timing (9-9-9 or 7-7-7) make a difference

[quote user="gvkohl"]ordered a 435mt with 6GB RAM (1x6). I will want to upgrade RAM soon but felt I could do it cheaper.

1) Can I put three 2GB in three of the slots for a total of 9GB or do i need to upgrade all six slots to 2GB for a total of 12GB

2) Can I use 1333mhz or do I have to stick with 1066mhz

3) Does the timing (9-9-9 or 7-7-7) make a difference

This computer will be used mainly for photoshop. High end digital camera today create huge (100mb) files. Photoshop is very memory and processor intensive. My experience is the more RAM you have the happier (and faster) PS becomes. I will try the 6GB but suspect that 9 or 12 will give better performance. With RAM prices what they are it is a cheap upgrade.

The pc will be on 24x7 so load times are not that big of an issue.

Thanks for the reply. Any other advice or comments is welcome. I have an open mind.

This computer will be used mainly for photoshop. High end digital camera today create huge (100mb) files.

This computer will be used mainly for photoshop. High end digital camera today create huge (100mb) files. Photoshop is very memory and processor intensive. My experience is the more RAM you have the happier (and faster) PS becomes. I will try the 6GB but suspect that 9 or 12 will give better performance. With RAM prices what they are it is a cheap upgrade.

The pc will be on 24x7 so load times are not that big of an issue.

Thanks for the reply. Any other advice or comments is welcome. I have an open mind.

gvkohl,

Running 12GB from dell in my 435T w/vista ultimate 64 bit @ 1066. If you've got a 64 bit  version of vista only CS4 photoshop will take advantage of it.Both the memory and 64 bit.  Under memory usage preferences I set the entire available 10.1 something GB's out of 12GB of RAM for CS4 usage. I have a 1GB ATI 4870 plus windows using up the rest......Only lightroom 2 is 64bit vista capable. Nothing else from Adobe is 64bit, yet. Have you checked out your program fiiles (x86) versus program files. x86 means it's loading and running in 32bit compatability mode.

This set up will require some adjusting to because none of my favorite plug ins will install in CS4 64bit. I forced Photoshop 7 onto the machine and it ran fine and all the plug ins seemed to work fine too but it only saw 3GB's of memory. Same for the 32bit version of CS4 which wont accept plug ins either and shows only 3+ GB's of memory. Don't recomend loading earlier non compatable versions onto 64 bit vista systems anymore. Caused some booting errors and had to restore to original state to clean up and used transfer wizard to re-load settings and programs from external HD back onto my "NEW" machine. No photoshop versions or plugins survived the transfer so I only installed CS4 and lightroom 2 which are both 64bit and trashed the rest. Re-starts great now so I'll do all my plug ins on a 32 bit machine with CS2 and PS7 on another.

How are you planning to add more HD space for photostorage? I got 2-640GB's in RAID 0 giving me 1.1 something total drive capacity (less Dell's recovery partition D::/). If you have a 435T there's a marked 3rd HD bay under the optical drives w/dangling free power cord right in front of it. I'm installing a 1.5 TB 7200 RPM SATA2 Seagate in there. I'm waiting to make sure the computer is totally stable before I install.

I've talked to 2 service techs from dell on the booting issue now and Rene says I can just run a SATA2 cord to one of the motherboards SATA2 connectors and plug it in. There's 2 available / 4 total. Rene says the RAID 0 system will recognize it as a slave for storage and allow it to exist alongside the RAID 0 set up without trying to add it to the array.

Paula, who replaced our video card (I think) needlessly (did not fix booting problem) says any additional HD's plugged into anyone of the open motherboard SATA2 connectors will cause the RAID controller to try and add it to the raid system. So I bought a SATA2 PCIe 2 channel internal / external controller card from newegg if Paulas right for $20. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Hey gv, want to know why I want it internally instead of an external USB2 or even eSATA. I always make a partition of 8GB's (double 4GB max) for the windows paging file and a 25GB or so partition devoted entirely to Photoshop scratch disk. The key is having these on a separate HD from photoshop and windows (separate spindle as they call it). These partitions will use up very little of my 1.5TB disk space and give photoshop lots of headroom if it ever runs out of 10.1 GB's of memory. Problem is making precise size tiny partitions in 64 bit. I'm going to do it with a Paragon partitioning program I have. None of my favorites from XP 32 bit are available. Paragon will run in 64bit vista but only using a DOS disk the program itself wont run normally on 64bit so I can't recomend it but it worked on my 64 bit vista ultimate laptop w/ PS7 and plug ins. You can try these tricks if you really want to get any version of photoshop running fast and never freezing or slowing down when it runs out of RAM and goes to scratch disk.

Why you may ask........................I go on an picture taking outing, download to HD and then open 500-1000 TIFFs in photoshop to work on 'em. Using RAM picture files open like a machine gun, when RAM runs out you can tell scratch disk is slower when the rest of the pictures load. I'm testing worlds fastest USB jump drive as ready boost to get in between here......................

Raymond

Re: Photoshop -

I've done the majority of my editing on XP 32 machines while on the road with my laptop or at home on my XP box.  The one thing that I noticed made a HUGE performance difference even if you don't have a ton of RAM is to move your scratch disk to a seperate physical disk other than the drive you are storing your photos and program files on.  It makes a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE performance difference.

Also, CS4 installs a 32bit and 64 bit specific version of Photoshop when you run the install.

It makes a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE performance difference.

Curious as to the question.   I have had enormous issues with the ATI 4870 card.   On a brand new system, I was getting Catalyst Control Center stopped working errors out of the box.   I did a complete uninstall of the ATI video drivers, and the ATI Catalyst Control Center and then reinstalled with the latest ATI 4870 drivers from the ATI site, then installed the latest version of the ATI Catalyst Control Center from the ATI site.   First of all, it was very painful even accomplishing this as the install procedures kept freezing up or running into problems.  I'm guessing this could have been due to the uninstall of the original ATI drivers and software not being a clean uninstall.   Anyway, it took me several iterations to finally get a clean install of the new ATI drivers and Catalyst software....    Should be good, right?   Wrong.   My system keeps freezing up and the only way out of it is a hard reset.     I have spent days on the phone with Your Tech Team from Dell and we are still at the same place.

Also FYI, what I just described was on a replacement system Dell shipped to me because the original 435T system I received had numerous problems out of the box (BSOD, the video problems and a host of other things I tried to troubleshoot with Dell for over two weeks).    To say I am at my wits end is an understatement.  Since this problem has now shown up on two brand new boxes, I have to believe someone else is seeing the same thing?

Desperate for help!

Also, FYI, I did update to the latest BIOS and did the typical things you would expect for troubleshooting a problem of this nature.

FYI, guys: Waiting to install my PCIe SATA2 controller and storage drive to my RAID 0 435T because started having boot up errors, wouldn't even reach windows. 3 re-starts usually fixed it but we called dell................ They immediately blamed the ATI 4870 card and tried to download the latest drivers from ATI's site, not dells. Ended up not taking the new video drivers and dell immediately wants to replace the card. Makes me wonoder if the video cards are a bad batch................ Raymond

Did you end up replacing your ATI4870 video card?   I have been having huge problems, done all the uninstalling, reinstalling of the video driver and catalyst software, but my sytem still continues to freeze (and this is a brand new system out of the box).   I have spent an insane amount of time troubleshooting this with Dell, but so far, no solution (they have not suggested replacing the video card yet).    I would really like to know if you have found resoution.

Hey COLORADO HOME,

I forgot to specify how dell removed old drivers.

Control panel / programs-add and remove

Remove CCC (ATI catalyst control center)

if it's not there it never installed properly.............

Close those screens down ans right click "MY computer" icon on desktop / properties at bottom /  top left click device manager / give windows permission / display adapters / choose yours / right click / click uninstall and follow directions to uninstall ....................

re-start and go to ati support for new drivers or dell support, your choice. I'd go with dell unless you have problems..................Raymond

Did you end up replacing your ATI4870 video card?   I have been having huge problems, done all the uninstalling, reinstalling of the video driver and catalyst software, but my sytem still continues to freeze (and this is a brand new system out of the box).   I have spent an insane amount of time troubleshooting this with Dell, but so far, no solution (they have not suggested replacing the video card yet).    I would really like to know if you have found resoution.

COLORADO HOME:

When system was brand new saw CCC error repeatedly.

Ignored it.

 Loaded 2 printers and a scanner all using vista 64 drivers. Loaded CS4 and Lightroom 2. No plug ins worked so I loaded CS3 and 2 plug ins worked. Loaded PS7 and all plug ins worked so I added more.Still working fine with all these versions on board. Got a windows error message advising to check for new video drivers. Went to dell support/drivers and downloads. Saw new BIOs,new video card driver, new memory card reader, new sound card reader and a couple more. Downloaded and installed all of 'em.........................and my troubles began.

When re-booting or starting up cold dell splash screen would open and progress bar would move to 3/4 and freeze right there never to proceed any furthur. Manualy holding in the power button leads to a restart. If we get past dell splash screen it goes black and then shows in DOS Intel matrix controller and freezes right there. The raid array info screen never loads and computer is frozen.

After repeating the above procedure 3-5 times finally it would get through all this and load windows. I was sure it was a HD going bad. Called dell and paula removed CCC and dell/ATI drivers and re-installed both from ATI's site. Drivers would not install after 3 attempts. Paula found the freezing on re-start extremely annoying so she told us the ATI 4870 card was bad and they were sending someone to replace it.

That happened the next day and dell tech put in new 4870 and I don't know who's drivers. I was not there at the time. Tech re-started twice and declared it fixed. As soon as I got there did a re-start and unit froze just like before. Called dell and they wanted to do a re-install of OS, wiping all my data. Said I'd call back and did a windows new computer transfer to a external HD for after the re-install.

Called dell next day and did dell system restore from D:/ partition.

Restore CD 1st in boot order / OK to boot from CD / F8 to system repair to repair using dell back up. Worked like a charm afterwards. Resolution was wrong. Mine was not available in choices. Dell tech Rene updted video drivers from Dell support and it worked fine. Asked Rene why Paula had recomended using ATI's drivers instead of dell's? Rene said since Paula's ATI drivers did not fix the problem, I should not use them..................................

Afterwards went into backed up version of old C drive and found windows repair had saved 3-4 hardware driver error notifications post updating all dells drivers. Won't do that again although BIOs version A07 sure did quiet down the leaf blower fan noise...................

After updating macafee and vista tried transferring data from storage to my "new" computer. All settings and files made it but no 32 bit programs or plug ins. Decided to load only CS4 and Lightroom 2 which are the only 64 bit compatibles. Rest goes on a 32 bit system. So far it runs and re-starts fine, next week I'll install a seagate SATA2 7200 RPM 1.5 TB into the 3rd drive bay and hook it up for xtra photo storage..............................Raymond