Dell Latitude D820 - Page 4

Hi there, I might be fussy abt thumbnails & icons but my point is my old screen of inspiron is brighter than the new latitude d820... i can live with font being small or i can increase it when i want but how can i get the decent brightness which i expect from a new notebook?

New notebook screen vs a 3 yr old inspiron (technology wasnt that great at that time)

You tell me why I wouldnt be mad ?

What is this slot and is it broken???? plz help

Hi,
I turned my notebook and looked in the back side and I found this. Let me know if its broken or what.... plz compare this against your D820 and let me know asap... maybe dell sent me some cheap/broken returned notebook as new... see the image D820_BackSide_USB1.jpg

also i have posted a comparision by keeping d600 close to the new d820. PPl in my office also said d600 was more brighter(its not glossy) than the new d820.
Even though you cannot say much from the comparision pictures, if u view it live you can easily see the difference.

plz guide and help me asap... oh can someone tell what that slot is supposed to do above the usb? see the pic if you dont know what I am saying.....

Hi,
I got clarification abt the usb issue. It seems to USB power slot.

Having cleared that out of the way, if you look at the picture closely ( i have zoomed & attached in this post), there is break in the seperator between the normal USB(below) and power USB(top). Is this normal? Do you or others have the same break between there usb slots? see the pic.

Do i need to contact returns dept or is there another dept for screen exchange? can somebody guide me? I think I might need the LG screen...

Also if I dont like the view/screen even after screen replacement, can i still return back the notebook because dell has 21 day policy for returns?

thanks all

Technician came with wrong screen. Still waiting. Thursday I will make final decision

Now to most important part. I called Dell returns and told them my problem. The lady said contact Technical Services. She transferred me and I spoke to a representative who specializes in Latitude. He asked me to go to Dell site and install new drivers for Nvidia 120m and Intel 950 or whatever it was. So I installed drivers and restarted system and nothing changed. The screen was dull like before. After this he remotely logged in to my computer and we tried few options like changing display settings to less than 1920 * 1200. But still the screen was the same i.e dull. Infact the dell guy himself said that it is very dull. I took the opportunity to point him out the icons which were fuzzy in normal resolution as well at the low resolution, which he wanted me to set the system at. After confirming that screen is dull, he siad we will try hardware tests. He asked me to shutdown and start the system again by pressing Cntl + Power button and release both at same time. This started the hardware tests. In the graphics section, the system shows rainbow vertically and horizontally and asks you, if you can see it. First time, I said yes and I started system again but as usual screen was dull. Second time, the guy said select NO as an option and that we wanted to hear the beeps from the system. I selected NO this time, and the screen beeped for sometime. He said Screen is bad. It failed the test. I dont remember guys exactly how many times it beeped but I think He said it should be 20. Also He said it should be beep in a particular pattern and it didnt do that or something like that. Sorry I dont have enuf info on this one. I was so scared and confused abt what is going to happen thats why couldnt remember what was going on.

So its confirmed now that the screen is bad and I wasnt crazy about my screen as some ppl thought I was about font and brightness. Now I have 2 options

1) Dell will send new screen either wsxga or wxuga for replacement by tuesday(which is between the 21 day return window which will end on Feb 23 i.e friday). I am thinking of wuxga again bcause I heard ppl praising the display and crispness of the screen. Also if I had to take wsxga, then I guess I would be happy wiht Inspiron 1505 since it was the wuxga/high res which made me go for latitude.

2) Return it back to Dell and get money back and get an inspiron 1505 with truelife which makes me think what will Latitude give me in terms of quality of work/performance ?(not the external beauty, we all know Latitude is strong). So I would need your assesment. Will Latitude system remain the same i.e. no hard disk noises , no issues, stable ? bcause Inspiron 5100 I have makes a hell lot of noise which i dont like. So can anyone technically point out what exactly is the diff between Inspiron vs Latitude? I will save 300 dollars atleast by going with inspiron.

3)Replace the screen and if I still dont like it return back to dell.

4)Send the system back and ask them for a new system.


I talked with a technician on phone and Dell sent a technician with the new screen on Tuesday Feb 20th 2007. The guy just flipped over the notebook and removed battery first. He didnt use any protection like cloth or paper to avoid scratches, so i had to offer him paper towel saying I dont need any scratches.

He removed all the stuff i.e keyboard, lcd stuff etc and opened the box containing the new screen. Guess what, Dell sent a wrong LCD/screen. Mine is Wuxga and he had new xga with him. So he had fix all the stuff on my notebook again and finally he managed to lose a screw from my keyboard also. There are 3 small screws holding the keyboard and one is missing now. He promised that the new screen and the screw will come tomorrow. So basically I have to wait another day. I am glad I was sitting next to him while he was removing and fixing stuff. I wouldnt have known abt missing screw or his handling of new notebook.

I thought I would share this with you guys.

Thanks

This is a NORMAL port. It is intended for an external DBay device. This allows you to have a second Optical drive connected to your notebook without having to plug the external drive into its own power brick. They're USB + Power and have started popping up mainly in computers being used as cash registers. They allow you to have a single cable provide power and data connections for peripherals. Most often they are used with the 24V version of this port to run Epson Receipt printers, there are also 12V and 5V (High amperage) ports.

Slim Optical drives draw up to 1.5A of current. This is three times the maximum load of a standard USB port (500mA) the bottom portion is a standard USB port and can be used as such so long as you're careful when inserting devices. The top portion provides an additional 5V @ 1000mA power source for an external Optical drive. That's how I have my DVD-burner connected to my Laptop. My DDock has one of these ports on it so I can have up to 3 DBay devices hooked up at once (one in the dock, one in the laptop, and one in the External bay).

Just curious about the GPU, is the laptop any good for gaming? how much mem does it have and where does it fit in the 6/7 series for power ie better than 6800go or worse

thanks

Nvs120m is a G72 core,same as quadro 350m,geforce 73/7400,nvs110m

They have variances in GPU i.d. clock speeds and memory type/amount but all have 4 pixel,3 vertex,64bit membus.
Fastest configuration is the XPS1210 7400go with 64mb of GDDR3 memory,all the others have more [whats the point?] onboard memory but is DDR2 type meaning limited memory clockspeeds.
Your 6800go is twice as powerful @12 pixel,8 vertex,256bit membus,
73/7400 is bottom end of 7 series,6800 was second to top of 6 series after 6800ultra.
You won't be able to have anywhere the resolution or quality of your 6800go gaming wise,but you will have twice the battery life...if thats a factor.
I game on mine all the time,there's 4 games I have found barely playable [oblivion,GRAW,double agent and the worst,R6vegas]but the rest of the newer games play pretty well at lowered resolution and good quality,even STALKER after the patch and finally finding a driver to fix the trippy sky artifacting [97.73] and of course static lighting instead of dynamic [or dx8]
Still looks good though.

I saw your problem and decided to take a look at the nvidia website. The only two graphics "cards" sold by Dell for the Latitude 820 are the nvidia Quadro 110 and 120. Neither of these cards support the native 1920 x 1200 resolution of the WUXGA screen. You can find this information on their website at http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadronvs_notebook.html
The specs are in a pdf found on the left side of the page under product overview. Perhaps this is the source of your problem. I ordered one earlier today before seeing this posting.

That's not the problem with the Screen ROOC the Quadro NVS 120M supports 1920x1200 despite what that marketing brochure from nvidia says. I've hooked my D820 up to a 2407FPW before. Ran the native resolution just fine.

The reason that marketing brochure only says 1600x1200 is a mistake on the part of the marketing department.

can you bios mod the quadro to a gaming nvidia card? their must be a bios that would work... whats it comparable to a 7400? is it compatible with anything dell makes? even if it isnt a bios might still be applicable to it... or maybe someone could mod the existing bios for better gaming?

dell has crap graphics cards for 15.4 inch notebooks, (not to mention their 14 notebooks, their XPS 14 uses built in Intel graphics!!) im going Asus they have a 7700 in a 14inch! expensive... but worth it. anyways if a mod would be possible that would definetly grab my attention.

Read my post above to see what the NVS120M is,I seriously doubt there would be a point to bios flashing GPU i.d. to a 7400 even if you could.

Your right,Dell does have crap graphics cards for gaming in those sizes,especially compared to Asus,where the Dell scores big time over Asus though is build quality,I've been looking at quite a few 14 and 15.4" asus's lately,namely the A8js,G1,V1JP,I really like the size and power of the A8JS,but it is really really flimsy,the V1JP which is supposedly made with a lot of carbon fibre and magnesium [I seriously doubt that it has a good quality CF construction due to the cost of such and the fact that all CF is nothing like created equal] but its lid and hinges still feel 10 times as flimsy as my year old M65,the base is reasonably solid though,the G1 is sort of between the two but certainly nothing great,the 15.4 asus screens are nice and bright and they do have GF7700 and X1700 so I guess if thats more important,you've made your choice.
For me,I can't bring myself to accept such flimsy hinge and screens,no matter how much I want a 7700 in a 14",so I will wait and see what appears over the next couple of months.

gerry, Dell may consider offering more mid range cards in their laptops with their recent dethroning by HP. HP doesn't offer as high end as Dell, but they do have the GeForce 7600. So Dell may reconsider offering only low end and high end cards. I wouldn't hold my breath for that in the Business Laptop department, unless Dell decides to beef up their 15" Latitude/Precision to compete with the T60p.

Ya,think your probably right about the precision and latitude's,looking at nvidia's next gen chip I.D.'s http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s...0&#entry192225
Probably nvs135/140m for latitudes and FX360M for precision.