Here we go with Part 2....

I am no engineer, so I could be wrong on this, but I don't believe an external more powerful power supply is going to make even the slightest change regarding the internal heat of the computer.  What it will do is run the actual power supply cooler and allow the components ( ATI GPU and i7 CPU ) to reach their full speeds.

In theory, the laptop itself will run just as hot, or hotter than it already does, with a 130W PS.  The only real way to "cool" the laptop is via design/fans/heatsinks/etc...

I am no engineer, so I could be wrong on this, but I don't believe an external more powerful power supply is going to make even the slightest change regarding the internal heat of the computer.  What it will do is run the actual power supply cooler and allow the components ( ATI GPU and i7 CPU ) to reach their full speeds. In theory, the laptop itself will run just as hot, or hotter than it already does, with a 130W PS.  The only real way to "cool" the laptop is via design/fans/heatsinks/etc...

Not engineer either but the way they explained it to me is that the CPU / GPU running at higher levels over a longer period of time is definitely going to generate more heat inside the system.   And the system will cut back on the CPU / GPU to protect itself from those thermal extremes.

The increased heat generated has to be dissipated somehow and the form factor that the ST1747 is built with only allows so large of fans or heat sinks.   Thus, the increased utilization of the fans that everyone is noting.   Something has to be done to remove the heat.

I have had the 1747 (4GB RAM) since early Jan10.It came with I think A03,I upgraded to A04 in Jan and then more recently to A07.I haven’t used the machine to it’s (supposed) full capacity so I haven’t really noticed any throttling issues.I have had the following problems:-

Fan running on higher speed even when idle – this happened the other night for over 2 hrs.The only cure was to put the machine into sleep (close lid) and then open again.This stopped the fan from continuously running at higher speed (for a short time) and returned it to it’s more normal operation of cycling on and off at the lower speed.A04 was not as bad as this

Iphone syncing –does A07 still allow normal Iphone syncing (I haven’t tried it yet)? The upgrade to A04 cured the problems I was having with A03 whereby when plugging in the Iphone Itunes would freeze/crash and when I eventually got it to be recognised and tried a sync I got disc error messages from Itunes

Not able to play 1080p videos – tried The Dark Knight one on Youtube (full screen) and twice it crashed the computer cause was Video hardware error,LiveKernelevent  ID 2057.I have the  8.650.0.0   version of the ATI drivers and version  10.0.45.2  of Flash installed.I ran the Windows 7 memory test and this reported no errors.

Is the PSU only getting really hot under high or very high CPU/GPU load? Under lightish load mine only gets warm certainly not hot.

correct me if I'm wrong but : the only one time I saw the st1747 runs the fan at full speed (according to my ears) was when I upgraded (twice) the bios. not when playing a game (dragon age).

Well I have not stressed the computer with the prime and furemark tools, but I would guess that even stressed at max, the fan will not run at 100% speed ( <-- there : am I wrong ?). And it could, for a long period, as long as the "extremely real-world demanding game" is running...

Now if we face people who are power users enough to reach the maximum usage of the CPU AND the GPU - or the time has passed and we are in 2015 and all games are demanding- , I would guess that they are prepared to get the fan speed and noise increase consequently. no ?

I mean there are 2 things reguarding the fan :

- while doing word/internet : the fan doing noise (not very loud, but long) is very annoying ==> at low cpu and gpu usage whe could accept higher temps for the fan not to come in action

- while stressing and gaming - 100% cpu and GPU - the objectives are not the same : keep temperature at reasonable levels to preserve hardware at the expense of silence. But only when the computer is actually stressed.

if possible, off course. Because I may be wrong from the beginning

Iphone syncing –does A07 still allow normal Iphone syncing (I haven’t tried it yet)? The upgrade to A04 cured the problems I was having with A03 whereby when plugging in the Iphone Itunes would freeze/crash and when I eventually got it to be recognised and tried a sync I got disc error messages from Itunes   Not able to play 1080p videos – tried The Dark Knight one on Youtube (full screen) and twice it crashed the computer cause was Video hardware error,LiveKernelevent  ID 2057.I have the  8.650.0.0   version of the ATI drivers and version  10.0.45.2  of Flash installed.I ran the Windows 7 memory test and this reported no errors.

With A07 installed, iTunes still wont detect my iPhone.  Doesnt crash or freeze or anything, simply doesn't detect it.

As to your video crashes, I think we have established the fix, of all the people that have tried it, I havent heard a single "still doesn't work".  Upgrade your drivers to non DELL ATI drivers.  Generally 9.12 seems to be the version people are using, although I posted a link yesterday to modded 10.1 drivers and I have been running them for a day and they are incredible!  I would recommend installing those drivers, even if it is a 250MB download.  Second, install the beta version of 10.1 of Flash, links are available earlier in this thread for that as well.

Hmm, I wonder Bill/Todd, I know they refer to installing non-Dell drivers, but frankly, it does seem to fix the problems.  Can you create a sticky thread about full screen youtube crashes?  I mean, people experiencing that problem arent going to digg through this 60+ page thread.

I feel like I'm using a "one-trick monkey" when it comes to this laptop. Multi-tasking is non-existant. Updating the wireless drivers didn't fix the problem like I hoped. When I started copying my backed up files via USB drive, the computer kept shutting off the wireless card or the wireless wasn't getting enough power. If I disconnect EVERYTHING from this unit, minus the mouse, it's somewhat stable and the wireless connection is fine. I also notice that FAService was taking the CPUs to town. I'm tempted to uninstall or perform a clean install to get rid Fast Access webcam login/Dell preload, it was by far the highest CPU hog on the performance monitor.

Actually, it really is sounding like a fresh install is in your future.  Personally, this is the first thing I do when dealing with an OEM computer, even though the Dell preinstall wasnt actually that bad ( you should see what Acer sticks on there! ).

That said, and I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but you can prevent Win7 from shutting down your wireless card.

HIt Start Button

Type Device Manager[Enter]

Navigate to and expand "Network Adapters"

Right Click "Dell Wireless 1520 Wireless-N Minicard" (Yours may be different ) and select Properties

Select the Power Management tab

Unclick "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power"

Click OK

Ok, uploading the 10.1 drivers to a service that isn't so shaddy and NSFW then will put something together.  Much easier to put together instructions with pre-moded display drivers.

EDIT:  Ok, upload completed.  For those that are interested, here is the premoded ATI 10.1 drivers.  From my very unscientific tests, they show about a 30-40% FPS increase over the standard Dell drivers.  That, and they crash less.

http://www.filedropper.com/atimobility101870rc1full

( I have never used filedropper before, but at least its quick, no annoying queues and the ads are safe for work! ).

I've scanned this file for viruses and safely run it myself, but of course I recommend you do the same yourself!  Additionally, it is in RAR format, you can use WinRar or 7Zip to extract it.

If you install these drivers, please post a follow up of how they work.  Check FPS in a game before/after or let us know if YouTUbe works, etc...

Might as well go with 10.2 if there is a modded version already available.  I was trying to manually mod that yesterday with no success.

Between the reboots, recoveries, resulting file scans and the time spent looking for a solution, I bet it has cost me a good 60 or 70 hours of work.  Lets just say, at my billable rate, I've lost more money than this machine actually cost me!

Ordered a 1747 a a replacement work system earlier this week, and now after reading this thread I'm seriously considering canceling the order.

It does appear they've made some progress in fixing some issues, but the remaining issues seriously concern me.

You said you were going to write up a summary of known fixes users have found, if you ever get the desire (and ability) to write that up it would be most helpful!

The fan issue is really getting annoying.I can probably go for 30-45 mins before the higher speed kicks in (for no reason) and then doesn't go off

Unclick "Allow computer to turn off this device to save power"

Yup that's one of the first things I did, that and switched to a modified Performance plan, and did the USB Root Hubs too. If you create your own power plan or choose "Change plan settings" from a premade config  there's a hyperlink at the bottom "Change advanced power settings" this will unlock everything including CPU, PCI Express, Multimedia, Hard Drives, etc.

This is done, except the PM part. 

BTW, is it possible to jump to the last page of a thread?  I don't currently see a button to do so?

Well, my streak of "no freezes" since Monday is over.   This thing just vapor locked while I was scrolling through some e-mails in Outlook.