XPS 8300... Who has one of these bad boyz?

Dell pulled the 8300 from sales temporaily because of the Intel "Sandybridge" chipset problem.  When the new chipsets are available and new motherboards are produced they will start selling them again.  For customers that have them, they are replacing them or at least the motherboard with the new chipset motherboard as they become available.

I would accept the replacement, as somtime down the line you could run into the problem and be left holding the bag since you didn't take the replacement when it was offered.

Thanks for the response I appreciate it. I just wanted to know if anyone else out there has one and what has your experience been so far?

I received my XPS 8300 last Saturday. So far, the "jury is still out" as far as I'm concerned. It's faster than my old XPS 210, but it doesn't seem as fast as I thought it would be. Plus I have an annoying problem with it already. In device manager, there's a yellow ! under the "ethernet" category indicating that no ethernet controller is installed. I specifically wanted a WIRED network because it is much faster and more reliable than wireLESS. But my 8300 is using the wireless connection because there are no drivers for the ethernet/wired connection. And I've tried over and over to install the driver, but I get a message that the processor doesn't support it!! This is really making me angry. I want my wired 100mbps!

I have partitioned my 1TB HD and added Win7 Ultimate on one of the partitions so I can dual-boot. I also have installed a "virtual" XP drive on the Ultimate side. I have plenty of room for all of my music, programs and pictures.

I had to go out and buy a new monitor that had a DVI connection because I couldn't play any Blu-ray disks with my old flat screen vga connected monitor. I would have bought a monitor with the PC (and financed it along with the system) had I known that a DVI/HDMI connection to the monitor was necessary in order to play Blu-ray disks.

I'm waiting to see what Dell is going to do about the faulty chipset in this system. I'm perfectly willing to wait til someone comes to my house and installs a new MB. But I will not be happy if I'm not contacted about this issue in the next couple of months. So we'll see.

@JohnnyStash--I noticed that you have the Core i5 processor--I have the i7---is your chipset part of the recall?

Yeah I believe so. Thanks for your response man. Mine is faster than my xps 3 but I had higher expectations as well. So far no problems though. Sorry to hear about your troubles. Hope you get them squared away. Let me know how things work out. 

RAID 1 is now installed and working on my XPS8300.  I bought ($75) a 2nd 1Tb Seagate 7200.12  ST31000528AS from Dell parts to match the one that came in my machine. Initially I installed it as a 2nd HD on port 1.  I moved the Bluray / CD to port 2.    Then I went into BIOS and switched from AHCI to RAID.  Then within WIN7 I used the Intel Storage utility to create a RAID 1 configuration.  It took about 6 hours to create the Array_0000 which I've observed on older Optiiplexs.  Now I have a single 1Tb C drive mirrored.  So far so good here in Indiana.:emotion-2: 

I received my XPS 8300 last Saturday. So far, the "jury is still out" as far as I'm concerned. It's faster than my old XPS 210, but it doesn't seem as fast as I thought it would be. Plus I have an annoying problem with it already. In device manager, there's a yellow ! under the "ethernet" category indicating that no ethernet controller is installed. I specifically wanted a WIRED network because it is much faster and more reliable than wireLESS. But my 8300 is using the wireless connection because there are no drivers for the ethernet/wired connection. And I've tried over and over to install the driver, but I get a message that the processor doesn't support it!! This is really making me angry. I want my wired 100mbps!

I had the same problem and was highly annoyed that I had to revert to wireless.  Hopefully when the tech brings the new motherboard (April/May??) I can get them to rectify.

BTW, I found mine really fast and only problem experienced is it freezing up requiring a reboot.  Tech Support trimmed down the startup in msconfig but it's still happening although I've switched all sleep/hibernation off.

I've had my XPS 8300 since Feb. 12th. At first was going to send it back, but decided to wait for the motherboard replacement.

1 - So far a mixed experience. I like the computer a lot, - it's very fast running Photoshop and my design software. BUT, I ran into a problem with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 software as soon as I did the first driver update. Catalyst Control Center would not open anymore. I tried the procedure in the FAQ section, I tried the suggestions in an old thread about the same problem with earlier machines, and I tried suggestions in several non-Dell forums. Nothing worked, including rolling back to the original Dell drivers. I spent a few hours with a Dell tech driving the system, and he couldn't fix the problem. I ended up having to use the Factory Image Restore and set the system up all over again. Everything is up-to-date and working well again, but I am absolutely afraid to update the video card driver/software.

2 - So, has anyone here successfully updated the ATI Radeon HD 5770 drivers on an XPS 8300, with Windows 7 64-bit, without losing the Catalyst Control Center?

HD5670 drivers v 8.740.0.0  with CCC v2010.0517.1742.29870  working fine on my i7-2600 XPS8300.    Does the HD5770 use a different driver?  Update driver click within Device Manager doesn't find any updates for me.

Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet and DW1501 Wirelss-N WLAN Half-Mini Card (Device Manager also shows Microsoft Virtual WiFI Miniport Adapter) both working on my XPS8300.

What happens when you delete all Network adapters and reboot?

I've been allowig Windows Update to update my 8300. Several days ago, the PC connected via ethernet and when I checked device manager, the driver was there. I have no idea how the driver got installed, but I am very happy it did. . I also disabled the wireless card so that it would not attempt to connect to the internet that way.

I've been working on my old XPS210 so I can pass it on or get rid of it and I do notice that the 8300 is faster than I first thought. The 8300 is also quieter, which surprises me.

BMonnery--how often are you having the freeze-ups?

HD5670 drivers v 8.740.0.0  with CCC v2010.0517.1742.29870  working fine on my i7-2600 XPS8300.    Does the HD5770 use a different driver?  Update driver click within Device Manager doesn't find any updates for me.

I don't know if it's the same driver. My HD5770 shipped with version 8.700.0.0, which is what I'm back to using. I've never known the "update driver" button to find anything - ? - But, if you do a Windows Update there is a later driver for the card available as an optional update. If you go to www.ati.com, you can find the latest drivers and software for all their products. Which is what seems to have gotten me in a world of trouble.

I just recieved my XPS 8300, i7 2600, W7x64, & ATI 5770 and the ATI Catalyst failed to load after the Windows updated the ATI 5770 driver as well. I checked both the Dell and ATI sites for the latest drivers and they are identical-neither solved the problem. I also rolled back the adaptor driver, uninstalled the Catalyst applications and reinstalled to no avail. Installing Windows 7 SP1 has no effect either.

I had the same problem and was highly annoyed that I had to revert to wireless.  Hopefully when the tech brings the new motherboard (April/May??) I can get them to rectify. BTW, I found mine really fast and only problem experienced is it freezing up requiring a reboot.  Tech Support trimmed down the startup in msconfig but it's still happening although I've switched all sleep/hibernation off.

Are you still having the problem with the ethernet driver? I finally got mine to work on both partitions (I have 64 bit Win7 Home on one and Win7 Ultimate 32 bit on the other). Ethernet is much faster (not to mention safer) than wireless. It took some time to figure out just what driver I could get to work (there are so many on the Broadcom site) and the one on Dell didn't seem to work. According to device manager, the driver is called K57nd60a.sys., the date of it is 7/20/10, and is version 14.2.0.7.

Also, I've had problems with rebooting on occasion too! Sometimes (not always) when I reboot to go into the Win 7 Home partition, it hangs after it says "starting windows..."-- it will just show a blank screen and nothing happens, so I have to do a hard shut off (by pressing the power button). It will do that over and over again.

LadyinIL - I'm back in Canada so have left the 8300 for a couple of months.  The freezing would occur if I left the machine for a short time even though I turned off all power save and hibernation features.  I do want to double check my wireless keyboard driver as I installed a Logitech and it occurred to me on the way home that I may have downloaded the 32 bit instead of the 64 bit.

Has Dell started replacing motherboards yet?

I just ordered an 8300 for our place in Canada and on this one did not have an option for wireless card - only ethernet.  I'll tinker with the drivers when I return south in May.