I ordered an XPS 16 a few days ago, and it is currently "in production." I ordered it knowing about the issues and throttling. I also ordered it with the realization that I will probably have to deal with the charger replacement/BIOS update mess. It would be no big deal if that was the only problem.
Now I'm concerned about the screen bleeding and overheating. The one I ordered will have the 15.6" WLED screen (RGBLED is not an option for now). Are the bleeding complaints coming from people with the WLED screens or the RGBLED screens? Or both?
Also, how is Dell's return policy within the 21-day period? If I want to return my laptop within that time period, how much of a hassle are they going to give me? Will I be able to get all of my money back? Would I be better off trying to cancel it in the "in production" stage?
Aside from Todd/Bill/Brad, Dell seems like it's just a big mess. From design to testing to support, every group has failed on this laptop in some major way. I hope I don't have to return this computer. It has great specs for a great price and looks great on paper, but the company is giving a horrible image overall.
So even after disabling hiberation, I continue to experience lockups. I have noticed they happen more frequently when using the MS 5000 BT mouse I bought from Dell with the system. I will try not using that for awhile and see if it makes a difference. I re-enabled hibernation to prevent battery drain in sleep mode.
Seperately, I noticed ALL of the tickets I have opened on the freeze/lockup issue are closed. I am curious why they close the unresolved tickets? How does Dell track the ongoing nature of the problem if they don't have open tickets to look at?
I wonder if phone based tech support (my tech team) is escalating the unresolved issues or are they just closing to make their reports look good to management? Is it possible there is a larger problem than Dell realizes because the tickets aren't being escalated?
Some thoughts to share from a frustrated customer.
Just to add to the fun: I just received my shiny new slimline 130W power supply from Dell. I am very pleased with them for doing this, and for all the really hard work I know must have happened at Dell to pull this off. Thanks folks!
Now the bad news: The new power supply seems to be shipping with the WRONG CORD. Please forgive me if this is old news in this forum, but it was quite a shock to me (almost literally) when I saw how poor the fit between the wall cord and the brick was. Since a picture (or 5) is worth a thousand words, here are a few that illustrate the issue.
I really hope Dell figures out if this is just a simple part-matching problem at the shipping center or if it's something worse (bad vendor?) and makes it right as quickly as possible. It's been a VERY long road for many of us i7 early adopters. While we really want to remain loyal Dell customers, the slow, lethargic reaction by Dell to the thousands of howling customers makes it harder than it should be... Problems with a new product line - that's to be expected occasionally. Slow reactions to customer feedback (including hard empirical data!) just comes off as uncaring. Considering the huge difference that a few simple posts (i.e. We're working on this as quickly as possible...hang in there!") would have made (at no cost to Dell at all!) I think this is an area where Dell needs to do some fine-tuning.
Meanwhile, I'm *still* waiting to be able to use my 1645 / i7, almost four *months* after I paid $2400 for it.
I noticed that a lot of folks got the right power cord for their new 130W power supplies, so now I'm wondering if I was simply sent the wrong one by mistake. I'm posting a picture of the part number on the flickr site too.
Mine was quite snug too. It will all go together though. Once it goes, it all snaps together quite nicely.
I noticed that a lot of folks got the right power cord for their new 130W power supplies, so now I'm wondering if I was simply sent the wrong one by mistake. I'm posting a picture of the part number on the flickr site too.
Let me also add that the Dell team here on the forums are currently being VERY responsive, and their hard work is going a long way towards repairing my opinion of Dell. Keep it up, folks, and Thank you!
No worries Bill - I'll send them a PM. The comment by the previous poster makes me wonder though - I am supposed to really push this puppy into place HARD so it all 'clicks in' ? I'm pretty sure that I pushed pretty darn hard, and we worried that anything else would void my warranty with a loud crunch noise. Thoughts?
My games play fine for about 5 minutes and then it starts to lag big time, and it gets hot really fast.
What you are likely running into is GPU throttling due to heat. I think the trigger temperature for that has been lowered a little in bios A07. If you run a log file with GPU-Z while playing it should show you when the GPU core and memory clock speed is dropping down to the 2D speed level instead of remaining in 3D. Game performance will definitely get sluggish when this happens.
[quote user="gstboy"]My games play fine for about 5 minutes and then it starts to lag big time, and it gets hot really fast.
What you are likely running into is GPU throttling due to heat. I think the trigger temperature for that has been lowered a little in bios A07. If you run a log file with GPU-Z while playing it should show you when the GPU core and memory clock speed is dropping down to the 2D speed level instead of remaining in 3D. Game performance will definitely get sluggish when this happens.
[/quote]
Thanks, I tried doing that and I think the max temp of the card hit 80-81. When I check the log file though it seemed that the core and memory clocks did not drop during the game until I exited to the desktop and then it went down to the 2d levels but I still noticed a performance drop. Maybe it's the resolution I'm trying to play this game at, 1920x1080 at the lowest settings. Even though the game plays fine for a while. I'll try a lower res and see if that helps. Is it too much to ask of this card and system to try and play games at the screen's native resolution?
I gave up on the 1645 over a month ago. Went through 3 of them. Power supply getting to hot, poor quality, throttle issues. I ended up getting a Sony F series and I am a very happy customer. Pretty much the same specs as the 1645.
The only negatives compared to the 1645 are a slightly less powerfull graphics card and not quite as nice of a screen(as compared to the RGB LED screen). BUT it shipped with an adequate power cube, has an nice 16.4" screen, build quality is great. It is NOT GLOSSY - which is great. Came with Blue Ray burner.
And to top it all of I got it from Sony direct for $1847 (that was with a 7% faculty discount).
hi guys....i have the studio xps i updated the bios to v07 and I am using the 130W adapter.
BUT i dont see a speed increase...it actually feels like my performamnce has gone down with the bios upgrade....i.e. cpu startup time is LONGER
I didn't really want to say it ... but I feel the same way. I guess I wanted it to work better so badly that I've been trying to convince myself it does.
AutoDesk Inventor now runs for less than 1 minute before complete system failure ... where with A06 it ran for about 10 min.
I also had severe throttling problems with Dirt2 again after about 15 min of play. So I take back the 100% status I gave Dirt2 and give it a 90%
Hei guys, i'm glad to say my problems are now solved with A07 without the 130w adapter, apparently Malaysian xps 1645 specs build are slightly different from the western builds.
I can now run Arkham Asylum, COD MW2, Avatar with full specs, full brightness, even with keyboard backlighting on!
..and this is coming from a 90w adapter.
For other Malaysian consumers i advise that you call to switch hardware if you're still experiencing lags, i am now one very, very satisfied customer!
rakathan
13 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 17:00
I ordered an XPS 16 a few days ago, and it is currently "in production." I ordered it knowing about the issues and throttling. I also ordered it with the realization that I will probably have to deal with the charger replacement/BIOS update mess. It would be no big deal if that was the only problem.
Now I'm concerned about the screen bleeding and overheating. The one I ordered will have the 15.6" WLED screen (RGBLED is not an option for now). Are the bleeding complaints coming from people with the WLED screens or the RGBLED screens? Or both?
Also, how is Dell's return policy within the 21-day period? If I want to return my laptop within that time period, how much of a hassle are they going to give me? Will I be able to get all of my money back? Would I be better off trying to cancel it in the "in production" stage?
Aside from Todd/Bill/Brad, Dell seems like it's just a big mess. From design to testing to support, every group has failed on this laptop in some major way. I hope I don't have to return this computer. It has great specs for a great price and looks great on paper, but the company is giving a horrible image overall.
TechinCC
12 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 17:00
So even after disabling hiberation, I continue to experience lockups. I have noticed they happen more frequently when using the MS 5000 BT mouse I bought from Dell with the system. I will try not using that for awhile and see if it makes a difference. I re-enabled hibernation to prevent battery drain in sleep mode.
Seperately, I noticed ALL of the tickets I have opened on the freeze/lockup issue are closed. I am curious why they close the unresolved tickets? How does Dell track the ongoing nature of the problem if they don't have open tickets to look at?
I wonder if phone based tech support (my tech team) is escalating the unresolved issues or are they just closing to make their reports look good to management? Is it possible there is a larger problem than Dell realizes because the tickets aren't being escalated?
Some thoughts to share from a frustrated customer.
Tamooj
22 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 20:00
Just to add to the fun: I just received my shiny new slimline 130W power supply from Dell. I am very pleased with them for doing this, and for all the really hard work I know must have happened at Dell to pull this off. Thanks folks!
Now the bad news: The new power supply seems to be shipping with the WRONG CORD. Please forgive me if this is old news in this forum, but it was quite a shock to me (almost literally) when I saw how poor the fit between the wall cord and the brick was. Since a picture (or 5) is worth a thousand words, here are a few that illustrate the issue.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamooj/sets/72157623470313910/
I really hope Dell figures out if this is just a simple part-matching problem at the shipping center or if it's something worse (bad vendor?) and makes it right as quickly as possible. It's been a VERY long road for many of us i7 early adopters. While we really want to remain loyal Dell customers, the slow, lethargic reaction by Dell to the thousands of howling customers makes it harder than it should be... Problems with a new product line - that's to be expected occasionally. Slow reactions to customer feedback (including hard empirical data!) just comes off as uncaring. Considering the huge difference that a few simple posts (i.e. We're working on this as quickly as possible...hang in there!") would have made (at no cost to Dell at all!) I think this is an area where Dell needs to do some fine-tuning.
Meanwhile, I'm *still* waiting to be able to use my 1645 / i7, almost four *months* after I paid $2400 for it.
Sigh.
Zarabadoo
14 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 21:00
Mine was quite snug too. It will all go together though. Once it goes, it all snaps together quite nicely.
Tamooj
22 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 21:00
I noticed that a lot of folks got the right power cord for their new 130W power supplies, so now I'm wondering if I was simply sent the wrong one by mistake. I'm posting a picture of the part number on the flickr site too.
Tamooj
22 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 22:00
Let me also add that the Dell team here on the forums are currently being VERY responsive, and their hard work is going a long way towards repairing my opinion of Dell. Keep it up, folks, and Thank you!
Tamooj
22 Posts
0
February 19th, 2010 22:00
No worries Bill - I'll send them a PM. The comment by the previous poster makes me wonder though - I am supposed to really push this puppy into place HARD so it all 'clicks in' ? I'm pretty sure that I pushed pretty darn hard, and we worried that anything else would void my warranty with a loud crunch noise. Thoughts?
danp224
7 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 09:00
Force it, it does fit. It make take some effort, or use the one that came with the 90W. I've heard that those fit as well.
unclewebb
38 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 10:00
What you are likely running into is GPU throttling due to heat. I think the trigger temperature for that has been lowered a little in bios A07. If you run a log file with GPU-Z while playing it should show you when the GPU core and memory clock speed is dropping down to the 2D speed level instead of remaining in 3D. Game performance will definitely get sluggish when this happens.
gstboy
9 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 12:00
What you are likely running into is GPU throttling due to heat. I think the trigger temperature for that has been lowered a little in bios A07. If you run a log file with GPU-Z while playing it should show you when the GPU core and memory clock speed is dropping down to the 2D speed level instead of remaining in 3D. Game performance will definitely get sluggish when this happens.
[/quote]Thanks, I tried doing that and I think the max temp of the card hit 80-81. When I check the log file though it seemed that the core and memory clocks did not drop during the game until I exited to the desktop and then it went down to the 2d levels but I still noticed a performance drop. Maybe it's the resolution I'm trying to play this game at, 1920x1080 at the lowest settings. Even though the game plays fine for a while. I'll try a lower res and see if that helps. Is it too much to ask of this card and system to try and play games at the screen's native resolution?
sterg17
5 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 12:00
hi guys....i have the studio xps i updated the bios to v07 and I am using the 130W adapter.
BUT i dont see a speed increase...it actually feels like my performamnce has gone down with the bios upgrade....i.e. cpu startup time is LONGER
redcbx78
3 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 14:00
I gave up on the 1645 over a month ago. Went through 3 of them. Power supply getting to hot, poor quality, throttle issues. I ended up getting a Sony F series and I am a very happy customer. Pretty much the same specs as the 1645.
The only negatives compared to the 1645 are a slightly less powerfull graphics card and not quite as nice of a screen(as compared to the RGB LED screen). BUT it shipped with an adequate power cube, has an nice 16.4" screen, build quality is great. It is NOT GLOSSY - which is great. Came with Blue Ray burner.
And to top it all of I got it from Sony direct for $1847 (that was with a 7% faculty discount).
Mike460
14 Posts
0
February 20th, 2010 14:00
I didn't really want to say it ... but I feel the same way. I guess I wanted it to work better so badly that I've been trying to convince myself it does.
AutoDesk Inventor now runs for less than 1 minute before complete system failure ... where with A06 it ran for about 10 min.
I also had severe throttling problems with Dirt2 again after about 15 min of play. So I take back the 100% status I gave Dirt2 and give it a 90%
Zi Wei
19 Posts
1
February 21st, 2010 04:00
Hei guys, i'm glad to say my problems are now solved with A07 without the 130w adapter, apparently Malaysian xps 1645 specs build are slightly different from the western builds.
I can now run Arkham Asylum, COD MW2, Avatar with full specs, full brightness, even with keyboard backlighting on!
..and this is coming from a 90w adapter.
For other Malaysian consumers i advise that you call to switch hardware if you're still experiencing lags, i am now one very, very satisfied customer!
Aguarate
1 Message
0
February 21st, 2010 04:00
Im spanish, anyone know where I can get the 130w charger?
I can´t see any info about the replacement :S
THX :)