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New Dell....need advice, thanks in advance!

post #1 of 22
12/30/03 at 1:00am
Thread Starter 
New here but been trolling for a spell. Just broke down and got a Dell, here are the specs, what do you all think? Will use for light gaming but resource intense games at that and mainly Microsoft office stuff. Needed longer battery life that why i chose the Centrino. Any advice on tweaks to maximize this notebook once i get would be greatly appreciated and most welcome.

Thanks for all of your older posts which helped me in the decesion process.

Inspiron 8600,Pentium M, 1.7GHz,15.4 in WUXGA
768MB,DDR,333MHz,2 Dimms, Inspiron 8600
128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600PRO Turbo Video Card, Inspiron 8600
60GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 8600 (7200 rpm)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional,Inspiron
Dell TrueMobile 1300 WLAN (802.11b/g) miniPCI Card
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post #2 of 22
12/30/03 at 1:52am
Video card wont let you down, its sweet, but your processor isnt really up for gaming.
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post #3 of 22
12/30/03 at 2:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by fs454
Video card wont let you down, its sweet, but your processor isnt really up for gaming.
Quote taken from www.voodoopc.com:

"The new Intel Pentium M features an incredible amount of power with very little power consumption. Perfect for people on the go, this processor is more than capable of running todays most demanding applications. Don't let the speed fool you, this processor has 1 megabyte of cache and the performance beats all of the old Intel Pentium 4 Mobile Processors. *If you take the processor speed and multiply it by 1.9 you'll get a similar speed equivelant to the desktop Pentium 4 Processors in similar laptop configurations - according to our benchmark tests. "

Now I'm not sure about thier claims or thier benchmarks, but I believe they are saying the 1.7 centrino is roughly equal to a 3.0 P4.
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post #4 of 22
12/30/03 at 1:00pm
I doubt Voodoo will lie about that. Of course, we have Pentium 4s with Hyper-Threading now, which the Centrino does not have, so that may be why the desktop replacements still use Pentium 4s... HT is very nice. Anyway I haven't heard anything to suggest you shouldn't get a Centrino notebook for gaming.
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post #5 of 22
12/30/03 at 1:05pm
I was thinking about ordering a Dell today but then I thought about how an extremely hungover tech would be assembling it on thursday So the wait goes on.
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post #6 of 22
12/30/03 at 1:26pm
GAH. If I here this one more time I am goign to freak - the PM is NOT equivalent to a 2x P4 desktop - its is the same as 2x P4M. Thats the throttled P4 chip used in laptops. NOT THE DESKTOP
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post #7 of 22
12/30/03 at 3:44pm
I should've written 3.0 P4-M, thats what I meant to say anyways. I think CGamerProgrammer also implied P4-M as he refered to desktop replacements. But you're absolutely correct, P4s are not P4-Ms and we should not leave out the 'M'.
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post #8 of 22
12/31/03 at 3:42am
Your system is the same as mine only difference I have the WSXGA+ screen,and I have the 5650FX GO NVIDIA..you won"t have to do anything at all ,your Laptop will handle anything. mine has been a dream and I have had no problems at all, had mine since mid november runs all office applications as well as some of my video editing software with no problems, burns dvds quickly and error free, may want to remove some apps that Dell has installed but thankfully there are not many and some you may want to keep.....the 1.7 plays games beautifuly have played MAX PAYNE 2 . CALL OF DUTY, HALO,RETURN OF THE KING,with no problems,battery life is very good 4 hours plus with laptop is the norm, battery recharge is less than an hour..all in all this is the best investment I have made,welcome to the 8600 club......
SPECS 8600 1.7
NVIDIA 128 5650FX GO
768 MB 333DDR
60 GIG HD
15.4 WSXGA+ (SAMSUNG)
4xDVD+RW
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post #9 of 22
12/31/03 at 12:53pm
Thanks Warlord its nice to see some Dell customers who are happy with their lappy. It seems as though the Dell forum is mostly people who are unhappy which is the exact opposite of the sager forum. I had the 5680 and 4780 and had problems with both so now I need a lappy and may turn to Dell. Smashing nanas for the Dell pixel God
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post #10 of 22
12/31/03 at 2:30pm
What's the 8600's case and keyboard like? Flimsy? That's what I've heard, and it was one of the reasons I chose not to buy one.
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post #11 of 22
12/31/03 at 2:55pm
The best recommendation I have for you is to return it.
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post #12 of 22
12/31/03 at 4:11pm
I don't like the design of the 8600, just my $.02
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post #13 of 22
12/31/03 at 7:46pm
You wont have any problems gaming with your 1.7 Ghz. I have tossed Vice City, NWN, Call of Duty, Medieval: Total War, Warcraft III, Age of Kings and Jedi Outcast at mine and had zero problems.
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post #14 of 22
12/31/03 at 7:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Van
You wont have any problems gaming with your 1.7 Ghz. I have tossed Vice City, NWN, Call of Duty, Medieval: Total War, Warcraft III, Age of Kings and Jedi Outcast at mine and had zero problems.
Well, yes, but I've played most of those games on a 1GHz Pentium 3 and had zero problems, too.
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post #15 of 22
12/31/03 at 8:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOSSAIC
The best recommendation I have for you is to return it.
Far enough, I see you don't like Dells. I wish you could tell us why you don't like it. Seems like you've had problems with Dell in the past. I, too, had a problem with the last laptop I had. It'd be nice to hear more specific information instead of just the totally-negative-yet-not-useful comment you posted (though I guess the huge number of forum members who post such comments does tell you something about Dell notebooks...)
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post #16 of 22
12/31/03 at 10:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CGameProgrammer
Well, yes, but I've played most of those games on a 1GHz Pentium 3 and had zero problems, too.

Good for you. I have had zero problems playing any game i want on my old 1 Ghz Athlon Thunderbird as well. My post was mainly in response to fs454 who implied that it wouldnt be good for gaming, which absolutely isnt the case.
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post #17 of 22
1/1/04 at 7:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Van
Good for you. I have had zero problems playing any game i want on my old 1 Ghz Athlon Thunderbird as well. My post was mainly in response to fs454 who implied that it wouldnt be good for gaming, which absolutely isnt the case.
But my point was that the question is not with the current/oldish games you listed but with future games over the next few years. HL2 and Doom3 will be good tests of system performance -- Doom3 won't actually use the CPU too much, but HL2 certainly will with its physics engine. Anyway I'm sure a Centrino is perfectly fast and people's fears are groundless, but my point was your list of games can run on anything relatively new.
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post #18 of 22
1/2/04 at 10:26pm
I have no problem with the keyboard no clicking keys very smooth, very sturdy....The main complaint with Dell at this point is the HITACHI LCD many people are complaining about the quality of the screen compaired to the SAMSUNG I was fortunate to receive the SAMSUNG,,,but this only effects the WSXGA+ screens....Dell does have problems but all companies have problems...Their main problem is customer support which really STINKS!!!!!
but their equipment is very good and does as advertised and in the end thats all that counts and my 8600 does as advertised and a little more,,,,,,,,
8600 1.7/768MB 333DDR/128NVIDIA 5650FXGO/60GIG HD/15.4WSXGA+/2100 WIRELESS/4xDVD+RW/
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post #19 of 22
1/3/04 at 12:02am
I have found that using Opera as the internet browser took out the ghosting/blurring of text when scrolling in web pages.

I wonder if anyone has received a Samsung LCD that is packaged with the ATI 9600.

Either way, Im going to decide this weekend to see if I should return it and get the WUXGA.
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post #20 of 22
1/3/04 at 1:04am
Interested to here what you do kre8tvt12, please post here or on Dells forum with what you do, please. I will be deciding what to do with mine in the next 2 weeks also. I am starting to think it's not that bad, no worse than most of the laptops out there and that I can live with it. (Opera does make a differance as well.) I hate knowing that there is a better display out there that people got who paid the same amount of money as I did. As it is, the screen is just "ok" and I expected better. At least I don't have any bad pixels though.
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