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Got my 9300, disappointed!

post #1 of 17
3/17/05 at 2:47am
Thread Starter 
1. I got the LG WUXGA screen, its not bad, better than my 8600 Samsung in terms of color rendition but whites are sparkly and when it covers the whole screen it doesnt look very pure!
2. The fan is constantly on and I find that annoying even if it is not very loud.
3. The bottom heats up after a couple of minutes of light activity such as surfing, email etc despite the always on fans.
4. Battery life really sux. I know its the 6 cell I got and I shouldnt expect much but frankly with the new 915 chipset and pentium M, thought I would get better results than with my older 8600.

On the positive side:
1. The build is excellent, much better than my creaky 8600.
2. The keyboard is truly awesome, closest I found to the legendary thinkpads!
3. Love the 6 usb ports and the dvi out

Overall, I am not too happy but I wont be returning this machine because there is nothing defective with it and that, for me, is a big plus! I just cannot go through the process sending it back, waiting and then getting a new machine that might have a better screen but something wrong elsewhere!

Just my 2 cents
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post #2 of 17
3/17/05 at 2:53am
1. No comment about the display because how something looks is subjective.
2. You can download I8Kfangui and turn the fans off under a certain temperature. I think the sweet points for the i9300 is fans on at 37 degrees celcius and off at 34.
3. That is weird because mine has been on all afternoon and the bottom is bearly warm. Yes, even the memory cover is not warm.
4. Haven't had time to test the battery yet.

Good to know that you will be keeping it.
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post #3 of 17
3/17/05 at 2:53am
so what battery life did you get? are you running speedswitch or something like that?
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post #4 of 17
3/17/05 at 2:55am
The fan should be controlable with i8fangui, and it'll also tell you temperatures for various components in your system. This is the first I've heard of the 9300 getting uncomforably warm. If you install i8fangui, let us know what temps you're seeing.
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post #5 of 17
3/17/05 at 3:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by prism
4. Battery life really sux. I know its the 6 cell I got and I shouldnt expect much but frankly with the new 915 chipset and pentium M, thought I would get better results than with my older 8600.
Battery life on the 9300 was never going to match the 8600. It has the larger screen to power, the sonoma systems have been widely reported to be more power hungry and you've got a big, hot NVidia graphics card compared to the comparatively frugal 9600Pro. Grab a spare 9 cell and you should be able to squeeze 3 hours out, but unfortunately Dell can only work within the limitations of existing technology and there was no way they could produce a laptop with this sort of performance without sacrificing battery life a little

I agree about the fan, i8kfangui is a great program and will at least get rid of the noise for you. With regards to the bottom heating up, perhaps try a laptop cooler or some sort of platform to rest it on when its on your lap.

Overall, it sounds like the system is pretty good and you should be able to iron out those few niggles you have with it so congrats!

Cheers
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post #6 of 17
3/17/05 at 3:11am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dellbert
The fan should be controlable with i8fangui, and it'll also tell you temperatures for various components in your system. This is the first I've heard of the 9300 getting uncomforably warm. If you install i8fangui, let us know what temps you're seeing.
Not uncomfortably, but warm non the less!
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post #7 of 17
3/17/05 at 3:15am
That's good. I hate being uncomfortable
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post #8 of 17
3/17/05 at 5:13am
hi:
I have an i9200 w/128 ATI. I have sorted some complains about my machine somewhere in the forum and I wanna add that I am also not happy with heat, not the bottom of laptop but front-bottom-center of the screen where DELL logo stands gets extremely hot, but nowhere else does.
To have the fan shut up, I will try that program i8*** somethin' my fan works constantly, especially as soon as I start HL2 or Doom3, it works like crazy..

------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.6 Centrino M,512ram, 128ATI, bla bla bla...
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post #9 of 17
3/17/05 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricjumpsme
hi:
I have an i9200 w/128 ATI. I have sorted some complains about my machine somewhere in the forum and I wanna add that I am also not happy with heat, not the bottom of laptop but front-bottom-center of the screen where DELL logo stands gets extremely hot, but nowhere else does.
To have the fan shut up, I will try that program i8*** somethin' my fan works constantly, especially as soon as I start HL2 or Doom3, it works like crazy..
Funny how you had the "opinion" that the 9300 would suck when you own a 9200... Can you say bitter 9200 owner who WISHES they had gotten in on a 9300 instead...
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post #10 of 17
3/17/05 at 12:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by electricjumpsme
hi:
I have an i9200 w/128 ATI. I have sorted some complains about my machine somewhere in the forum and I wanna add that I am also not happy with heat, not the bottom of laptop but front-bottom-center of the screen where DELL logo stands gets extremely hot, but nowhere else does.
To have the fan shut up, I will try that program i8*** somethin' my fan works constantly, especially as soon as I start HL2 or Doom3, it works like crazy..

------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.6 Centrino M,512ram, 128ATI, bla bla bla...
Try i8kfangui and you will get some interesting info. You will find that your video card probably hits 100 deg C when 3d rendering for any period of time which is why it gets all hot and bothered when gaming. Once again, there is no way around this and it is simply something that those of us who want to play games on our laptops have to realilse. Just thank your lucky stars that you don't have a 9860 or any of its clones. Do a search for the threads about the people who were burned working on their laptops

I whink we have to be a little more realistic with what we are expecting from these machines. I mean the XPS2 can keep up with all but the highest spec desktops, in a package that maintains acceptable battery life and operates within heat restrictions. I know the 9300/9200 are not XPSs, but they are still high performing laptops that really work remarkably well within the envelope of conditions that are applied to them.

Cheers
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post #11 of 17
3/17/05 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dellbert
The fan should be controlable with i8fangui, and it'll also tell you temperatures for various components in your system. This is the first I've heard of the 9300 getting uncomforably warm. If you install i8fangui, let us know what temps you're seeing.
Dellbert, what settings are you using for fangui?
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post #12 of 17
3/17/05 at 1:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Noids
hits 100 deg C when 3d rendering for any period of time
Cheers
100 degrees C, 212 degress ferenheit! Do you realize how hot that would be! You could boil water on your laptop! Get serious man.. the temperature might approach somewhere around 60-70 degrees c but if you get that hot the plastic would become brittle and your laptop would not last very long. If you know anything about strength of materials and thermal expansion, whereby a material expands when undergoing a temperature change then the fatigue failure of the machine from constant heat loading and unloading would destroy the machine from the inside. I'm assuming that they know this thing will be on your lap, and the last thing they want to do is to boil the H20 in the blood of their customers lap!
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post #13 of 17
3/17/05 at 2:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Col.Wild
Dellbert, what settings are you using for fangui?
On my 9200, I have temp control on, and modified the "meeting" profile to shut fans off at 30C, slow at 35C, and fast at 45C.
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post #14 of 17
4/25/05 at 1:42pm
Delbert i did try the same settings as u in fangui on my 9300...id says i have to have at least one of the fans at slow.....
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post #15 of 17
4/25/05 at 1:50pm
To save you battery life, use less power, and drop your temps dramatically, undervolt your CPU. There's a great thread about it under General Discussion:

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=70943

Dropped my CPU temps by 30F, reduced power consumption by 11 Watts and the CPU fan can literally be turned off when surfing the web, editing documents, etc (temp reaches 109 with no fan surfing the web / documents). I've never had the CPU fan on high (well, to test things I have but not in actual use).
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post #16 of 17
4/25/05 at 3:37pm
Am I the only one that thinks it's a bad idea to reduce fan usage? I mean if it was designed to turn on, but it doesn't because we tweaked it to not turn on all the time, doesn't that reduce the life expectancy of your laptop as well as void the warranty?
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post #17 of 17
4/25/05 at 5:09pm
Do these things really generate that much heat?

I have an eMachines M6811 (Athlon 64 3400+, Radeon 9600) that I'm pondering selling for a 9300. While the A64 is a more power-hungry chip than the Pentium-M, the fan only turns on in my machine while gaming/in 100F weather, and it's not that loud. The machine runs cool; it's never gotten uncomfortably hot.

This thing is pretty thick (maybe 1.25") and wide (15.4" widescreen display), so the airflow inside should be pretty good; I hear that the Dells are thinner than this. Is the thermal design on them really bad enough that the Pentium-M needs that much cooling, or does the 6800 suck up that much power even when web browsing?
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