***OFFICIAL*** M1730 news thread - Page 16

i'd recommend Slappa bags for 1730 over dell's bags...
http://www.slappa.com/velocity-spyde...2&category=133
or
http://www.slappa.com/velocity-spyde...2&category=133
or
http://www.slappa.com/velocity-matri...2&category=133

So I just installed Windows 7 64 bit on this beast. Runs quite smoothly, definitely what Vista "should have been."

However I really liked the old Winamp XPS LEDs plugin (NOT the Dell one, the one available from Winamp's website). It worked on my 1710 until the GPU kicked the bucket under warranty and Dell sent me a 1730, and I got it to work on the 1730 too by installing the Vista Quickset and then installing the XP Quickset over it. (And then disabling it so I didn't have to deal with crappy software starting up at Windows start.)

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for trying to get it working again on Windows 7. I tried installing the XP one over the Vista one again and I can't get it to work. Anyone know how to "force" an install, or how to extract the driver files from it somehow so I can just put them in the right place? Or any registry hacks or something?

Thanks in advance.

DC Power Jack Mod

Has anyone modded their MB and power supply?
I have an XPS m1730 the DC Jack on the MB is finished, I cannot find the power jacks that fit my Motherboard. After some research, I understand there are two different power jacks that fit the XPS m1730.
I want to know if the PJ09 DC power jack (as these are readily available) will work with my MB and if so which cord would I use to convert the PA19 AC adapter to fit the new, smaller jack (PJ09?)?
Thanks for any input.

Not even this one?

http://www.laptopjacks.com/parts/Del...rts-30022.html

I would not mod the DC jack myself, too many things can go wrong.

cheers ...

Try looking on ebay, I think you can find some there.

Yeah the DC Jacks are way cheaper on eBay, about $5-$10 per Jack as opposed to $35.00 per jack at the above site.
What the issue is, is that I had ordered these jacks but they are way smaller the DC jack that is in my motherboard. I am hoping that someone would know if the PJ09 Jack will fit the XPS m1730 motherboard (is the pin out the same)? I also need to know if the plug for laptop DC power jack (part Number: 7450H from “Laptop Jacks”) fits my PJ09 jack. Sent them a note.

OK, I got a note back from Laptop Jacks and the PJ09 DC jack is the same as the one listed on their website and it fits the Plug for Laptop DC Power Jack. I will order the (PL7450H) and mod my power supply and replace the original DC Jack with the PJ09 jack. I will make a little DIY with pictures after I get the cord.

Will be interesting ... Good luck.

cheers ...

I ordered everything I am just waiting for the parts. When I get them it should take a week or so and I will let you know how it goes....

Take pics, please, and share with us.

cheers ...

Dell XPS m1730 Screen Flashes Red, Green, Blue, White, and Black

Hello,

I own a Dell XPS m1730 notebook. The notebook is nearly 19 months old. Yesterday morning while browsing the web and uploading photos to Flickr, the notebook froze with the screen flickering a still image of the web page I was viewing. It was unresponsive, and I had no option but to shut it off. Now when I boot it up, the screen repeatedly flashes red, green, blue, white, and black about 1 second apart. I don't get any Dell booting display or any POST information, but the laptop does boot into Windows Vista because I can hear the Windows loading sounds and I can shut it off by hitting the appropriate keystrokes from memory.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Are my graphics cards fried (dual Geforce 8800 GTX in SLI)? Or could it be that some connecting cable between the display and the graphics cards is loose or broken? Maybe it's the LCD display itself?

I tried connecting the laptop to my TV to see if it's a problem with the LCD screen, but I either don't remember the correct keystrokes to switch to it, it's not fully set up in the Nvidia Control Panel, or this is also part of the problem because I can't get that to work.

I've seen detailed disassembly instructions for my laptop online, but I'm very reluctant to do anything of that caliber myself for fear of making things worse - especially since I don't know what the problem is.

I sincerely welcome any educated guesses as to the source of this issue. This laptop is my baby. My sole source for news, music, movies, games, and communication, not to mention a great productivity tool for my job. It's only been a day since the problem appeared and I'm already very anxious and really depressed. I don't have the money for another one. Please help.

there are several reasons why this could have happened

But the GPU could be the main one.

First i would try to re-seat the Video cable for the LCD display.

Also I beleive the key strokes for the external monitor is Fn + F7

here is a link for the Dell manuals for your laptop

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/xpsm1730/

I defitely suggest trying to test with an external monitor, if you get the same thing then the GPU is toast.

if not try swapping memory modules and trying one at a time as well.

Your not under warranty any more are you ?

Thank you for the suggestions.

I pried up the hinge cover and the keyboard yesterday, and the ribbon cables to the LCD looked to be firmly in place.

I also purchased a DVI to VGA adapter yesterday and tried hooking up the laptop to one of the monitors at my work. The external monitor gave what I assume was a "signal out of scan range" or "no signal" message (I work in Korea and don't have such a firm grasp of the language) when trying to switch displays once Vista booted on my notebook.

When I tried switching displays during the boot process, I got a garbled Windows Loading screen and then my laptop blue-screened (too quick for me to make out exactly what the error was) and reset itself. It failed to boot into Windows after that. I imagine it was getting the same blue screen and restarting itself but couldn't see it on either my LCD or the external monitor (my LCD kept flashing RGB, and the external monitor would give me the same error message in Korean).

The laptop did boot into Windows again when I got home. Just a wild guess here but maybe that's because the laptop heated up and that caused whatever was broken (cracked GPUs?) to throw up those blue screen errors. While at home it had a chance to cool and boot into Windows without errors.

As you guessed, I am no longer under warranty, but gave Dell XPS support here in Korea a go. Through one of my co-workers, I was able to get across my specific problem. They think its the graphics card, and say it's too expensive to fix.

Do you guys think it's worth investing over a thousand dollars (that's the impression I'm getting) to fix a laptop which is over its warranty? What if whatever gets fixed fails again in a few months?

I'm heading up to Seoul to visit their repair center there in person tomorrow, and a part of me was thinking (the part that is really beginning to hate Dell products) of dumping the notebook on the counter and asking if they'd give me any money for it.

Thanks again for your kind input.

Hello everyone,

Wasn't sure whether to put this in the XPS forum or the video card/gaming section. Hopefully this will suffice.

I have an XPS 1730, and recently I've had some video card issues while playing WOW, which to me, shouldn't be happening as I don't believe it to be very taxing on a video card. Worked fine when the system first arrived.

After doing some reading online, I've learned that nVidia has had some GPU issues affecting some Dell laptops and Pcs shipped with nVidia cards. The 1730 is not on the list of Laptops affected.

My system came with the NVIDIA®SLI™Dual GeForce®8700MGT.

My question is, can anyone recommend an upgrade to this in both nVidia's product line and an ATI alternative, that would satisfy the demands of playing WOW ?

Thanks for any feedback.

Not sure about swapping with an ATI card, but what about downgrading to a 7600 or 79xx card? They should more than fine for WoW

cheers ...

Thank you qhn, perhaps I will give that a shot, as I read more after posting here, it seems WOW doesn't support the SLI technology in the nVidia cards. Kind of funny that it does not, since Dell and Wow partnered to make a Dell m1730 Wow Edition with the same video card in my m1730.

Whilst WoW does not support SLI, I hope that they will change in the future. Saying that, there is just no need for WoW to use dual GPUs to perform well

cheers ...

i hear you, just running with the hardware that was shipped with my laptop, will try disabling the GPU while running WOW as other have mentioned on some other forums. Here i was thinking it was a video card crapping out.

thank you again!

Good luck with the card replacement. Or you might just want to take the look at our "baking" posts

cheers ...

i was looking through the post for that -) i read through it quickly as work, i took that as a method to help strengthen solder joints through the card, am i missing the point of "baking" the cards?