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well, this is my first post, so i thought i would start out not with a nag for recomendations, or help with some freak hardware issue, but giving back a small review for a place that helped me (and my mom) choose what is now our new and first laptop.

the brand and model should be pretty obvious by now, so ill skip to the specs
pm 2.13 ghz processor, 1 gig of memory, 80 gig 5.4k rmp hard drive, ati x300 128mb, wsxga screen, 8x dvdrw, intel 2200 w/bluetooth, and xp professional.
we bought a kensington wireless mouse to go with it, cause everyone whos anyone knows that touchpads are really hard to deal with also, used fatwallet.com coupon code to get 750 off, discover card takes 5%, and fatwallet cashback at 3%, with free ground shipping, makes the total under 1300

well after sorting through everything and getting the system out of the box, we hooked up the power supply only to find it a bit short. we had been using my dads vaio laptop (never get a sony) since our own vaio desktop had been...well...ill just repeat to never get a sony. but to go back to the point, the vaios power cord was a bit longer, and this dell one bearly made it past the plug in behind the couch to our coffee table (set up that way for convenience)

after going through all the normal stuff, and unistalling most of the yunk, it was time to test out the wifi connection. were running straight off a qwest modem with its own wireless gateway, and the connection is pretty good. i havent tested range, but our house isnt a 10,000 sq ft palace, so thats not a huge issue.

i trasfered all of my photos and music over, and am really sad that dell doest ship adobe photoshop elements like they did on my dads dell desktop and our vaio desktop . also, i had special ordered musicmatch jukebox plus so i could have full access to all the features in it, espicaly the mp3 cd burner. unforunatly, musicmatch seems to experience a runtime error and wont burn to an mp3 cd, but will burn a normal audio cd. ive emailed dell about it, and well they are sending out a cd with musicmatch on it, so there shouldnt be any worries.

i dont play any games that are as graphic intense as the games most of you play, and this x300 card is a huge step from the 4 year old nvidia geforce2 mx with 32 mb of vram i did install the omega ati drivers though. the most graphic intense game i play would be sims 2 university, and i currently dont have the cd to install that with me, but i have installed command & conquer renegade, which has a few random glitches that really bug me. i cant run it with ati tray tools open and the card overclocked, and when i have it running the sound and picture usally jerk around, usally ending up with me getting shot. not so much of a problem in multiplayer, but there seems to be some new problem with that now, and im not sure if its just software, or if westwood servers are having problems. whatever it is it makes me

i did benchmark the card, both with and without the omega drivers, and both quality and performance drivers too
standard drivers
3dmark05 = 928
forget what 3dmark03 was, but about 1300
omega quality drivers
3dmark05 = 608
overclocked = 708
yet again, forget what 3dmark03 was (not even sure if i ran that with those haha)
omega performance drivers
3dmark05 = 1394
overclocked = 1500?
maybe i should just delete the 3dmark03 scores now, and none of you will ever know of how forgetful i am with numbers in the 10k range...

xp professional is a huge step up from stupid me and pcstats.com really helped me clean up some things.

for battery life, i was playing renegade online for about an 1:30 before i alt tabed to the desktop to see that i hate 10 minutes of battery life yet, which is when i rushed it over to a power supply also, the speakers on this notebook are pretty nice, considering how bad the ones on my dads laptop were there is the occasion when you end up covering them with your arms, but most of the time i have my arms pretty up above them, and i usally have my philips headphones in (which i switch around to my mp3 cdplayer)

overall, this is a good computer. if your looking for something that can play a few games, good for multimedia, or just the ultimate productivity machine, then here it is.


side note (way off topic)
my half brother is a huge pc freak, and has several laptops and plays some pretty nice games. i heard he wanted an alienware laptop, and he said his dream one cost him enough to send his son off to collage for 4 years so i looked at the ultimate alienware alturnative: sager. i think i might be able to convince him to only spend about 2.3k for the 5720 instead of w/e it was for the alienware

Congrats!!

My ONLY gripe with the i6000 is that the LCD lid wobbles a bit when closed.. i.e. it isn't flush

Other than that, I LOVE this lappy!.. thinking about getting a leather quicksnap cover for this...

Also, I'm curious.. what's the difference between Omega Quality Drivers and the Performance Version ? Can you only see a difference between these two after OC'ing ?

My 3Dmark05 score with Dell's Drivers were 1345 [straight out of the box ] and with OMEGA drivers was 1395.... not a huge gain..

Thanks!!

yeah i have noticed the lid doesnt really close properly, but oh well

i strongly suggest a quicksnap cover, cause the paint on the back scratches really easily
just knocking the end of the power cord will put a scratch it will never forget on it

1345 out of box? wow thats the best ive heard. most only hit below 1000
the quality drivers are meant espicaly for games, and will give you lower than standard benchmarks, even with overclocking.
the performance ones are made (obviously) for more performance, so you can get a higher benchmark score, or if you have a slow system that needs a boost for your games.
i just took of the omega drivers, and im gonna go back an install the dell ones to see if that clears up any problems with renegade.

oh, i had the nvidia omega drivers installed on the desktop, took em off cause my mom will be pretty much the only one using it, and reinstalled the latest nvidia ones, and i found some new thing called direct access...totaly screwed up everything on my monitor. the contrast and brightness was really messed up for a while, but i fixed it. hmm...stupid bulky 16 inch crt

If you are overclocked that could be causing your problems. You may be overclocked too far.

i tried overclocking but i couldnt run the game with the ati tray tools from the omega drivers running, overclocked or not.
if i wanted to start the game i had to have the ati tray tools off.
and the game still has a few glitches with or without the omega drivers.
we asked dell to make us a replacement though,
and that should be here soon.

i do have a small band though, and i tried doing some pratice recording,
idk if its a microphone problem or a hardware problem, but when i was recording anything, if i wanted to hear it i had to play full blast.
could bearly hear it.
i checked the volume of everything, and it was at max, including on the line in port.
the mic was also about 2 inches away from the amp, not full blast cause i have to be respectful, but there should have been no problem.
any idea about that?

quick update on the benchmarks
turns out 3dmark03 hits a nice 2774 instead of about 1300
hahaha
also ran pcmark04
hit about 4100 or 4200
not to shabby

here are some benchmarks i took today

Dell Orginal ATI drivers:
3DMark03 - 2780
3DMark05 - 1349 (odd since i got about 900 before)
PCMark04 - 4149

ATI Omega drives:
3DMark03 - 2676 (less than the originals?)
3DMark05 - 1393 (but this gets the performance boost?)
PCMark04 -4158

Omegas + OC via ATI Tray Tools:
3DMark03 - 3644
3DMark05 - 1777
PCMark04 - 4229

So I have a low end video card that breaks 1500 on 3DMark05 when overclocked.
Not bad, except none of my games run right with ATI Tray Tools on
Any ideas as to why thats happening?

what core/mem speeds is your video card? i get around 1670 in 3dmark05

297 core and 216 mem for non overclocked
389 core and 288 mem for overclocked

the ati tray tool doesnt seem to be compatable with my games, so the whole point of overclocking is rather defeated in this purpose
also cant use rivatuner cause the ati mobility drivers as well as the omega drivers arent compatable at all

I think you should be able to get higher then this.... your specs are higer than mine and i can get 1870 in 3d mark05 with Core: 415, Mem 320. No artifacts.

I use Notebook Hardware Control to control the overclock, after i found the max using ATI tray tool.

aquazi, where do you pick up that program?

well, we just got the replacement computer dell sent us,
im alreadying having to try and chat with dell cause the upgrade key for musicmatch jukebox DOESN'T work agian, and now i feel ripped off because the monitor is not close to the quality of the old one.

The pixels seem to be really random in color, and also the display looks very stringy, like there was more space between the pixels.
Its the same SXGA size monitor, but I think that it is a different brand.
Any help?

This is the second system we asked for. Works beautiful. It's fast, sleek, quite, cool, and pretty much awesome. Only complaint at first was the monitor, because of those stupid lines. But after 2 e-mails to Dell, recived a new WUXGA, a free upgrade from the WSXGA+ that we bought with it, and DAMN this thing is great!

Overclock hits 375 and 315 for normal usage.
Maximum "safe" overclock is 396/324.
Core seems to be a bit limit, but the memory OC nicely. Plus, with the games im running (Renegade, Sims 2, Black&White) it works just fine!
3DMark05 hit between 1800 and 1900, 1777 with 375/315.
PCMark04 makes about 4000.

Undervolted to about 1.116, and battery life is great. Temps run pretty cool, and it blazes past our old Vaio desktop, and can problay leave my dads Dell desktop eating its dust, or maybe leftover partical data, or whatever computers leave as a trail.

Overall, this system is great for anyone who just needs a laptop for a good price. Gaming is posible, but if your spending 50 bucks for every new game, then you should have plenty of money for your 17 inch monster DTR.

Final words: Get the SXGA+. complain, and get a UXGA for free!
Second time it's happened too

Btw, I love smilies

Warning about Dell Inspiron 6000: on my machine the wireless networking seriously sucks! It often disconnects when two applications are trying to access the web at the same time, and after using the machine for 5-6 hours it disconnects permanently and the only way to get it to reconnect is by restarting the computer.

Other problems: loud fan noise, bluetooth often doesn't work after standby, wireless often doens't work after standby, screen sometimes goes blank after closing and reopening (with standby disabled), the only way to get it to work again is to reboot.

Since this computer is not sold anymore I suppose there's no need to recommend against it, but I wouldn't risk buying a 6400 either after my experience with this one...

did you update your drivers/flash your bios?

No, I didn’t. I’m sure that would solve some of my issues. The thing is, I like notebooks that come out of the box working correctly – before the Dell I had a low end Toshiba that worked perfectly – it’s only flaw was short battery life. Ironically, that’s the one strong point of this Dell – with the 9 cell battery I get up to 5 hours battery life, and the 9 cell battery doesn’t protrude at all like extended life batteries do with some other brands.
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At work we have about 14 Dell Latitudes of various model numbers and they all have problems with wireless networking, some more frequently than others, but I’m pretty sure this is one of Dells biggest weak spots.