Dell XPS M1530 ..the horror...the horror?

BlueLepreachaun

I ordered one of these a few days ago, one of my mates said a girl we know had nothing but nightmare problems with hers.

I had checked the reviews online and they were all raving, but it turns out these were all online magazine and tech site reviews that only had the laptop for a few days. When you check cnet and real people reviews, people said it was fine for about 2 months before the nightmares began. There were nearly 100 stories with every problem you could imagine, even the good reviews (many of which looked planted as if someone from a marketing department wrote them, they sounded like ads not reviews...ordinary people don't talk like that...) said that the laptop overheats because some idiot designed the fan to blow air downwards under the laptop not out the side and the fan isn't good enough to compensate for the heat.
Consistant in all stories was Dell knowing, acknowledging the laptop has fundamental design flaws, but point blank refusing to fix them, reckon it would cost them too much to do repairs on so many laptops.

I'm 95% sure I'm sending it back when its' delivered, as per the 7 day rule, and getting a refund.

I've three questions:

• Has anyone bought this model and actually found it good?
• I'm considering buying an acer isntead does anyone know about their tech support? (Dells is the best thats why I went with them)
• Can anyone suggest where to buy one besides Dixons/PC world (never ever ever ever ever buy a laptop there....) or Apple (My wallets not big enough to be that cool, apparently).

Thanks.

Barrypr

I've got one save yourself the hassle and send it back words cant express how much I hate mine, I'm not going to list out the issues I'll end up giving myself a headache.

Brother has an acer for a few years now, has had no problems with it so don't know about support.

Did you have a look on pixmania/komplett or sites like that!

razorblunt

I have mine for about 18 months now, the fan blowing underneath is a bit crazy alright thats about the only gripe, although the internal microphone is now not working.

Apart from that the only issue was me cracking the screen but thats fixed now, I also managed to drop this from a window sill and it stll works, with only loose casing.

Not a bad laptop, I'll upgrade to something different after Xmas I think.

syklops

Im surprised to hear that. I have an M1330 and I love it. Cant fault it at all.

Now obviously it is a different model.

What sort of problems are people reporting?

BTW mine is second hand and I have had it 7 months.

dwsl280

I have had the M1530 for over a year now and not had many issues with it other than vista being a pain. I upgraded the memory to 4 gigs when I ordered it but Vista 32 bit will only use 3gigs. I find it a bit slow for the spec.

Voodu Child

I have one almost two years now, it is still working perfectly, no issues apart from one I caused myself (:o).

It has a high product rating on most review sites (Example, 4.4 out of 5 in 1300 reviews). Remember that Dell are one of the biggest laptop sellers, and this machine was a good seller for them. So the nature of statistics is that you'll find plenty of bad reviews and complaints. Especially if you are looking for them.

That said, I wouldn't recommend buying one, for the simple reason that its a two-year old model. It was launched in late 2007.

said that the laptop overheats because some idiot designed the fan to blow air downwards under the laptop not out the side

Wrong. The fan intakes air through the bottom vent and blows it out the back of the laptop.

Overheal

do a search in this forum for threads containing the titlewords Dell and XPS and see for yourself.

I wouldnt buy one. Its not so much that it fails horrifically for one in a dozen people, its that Dells Customer Support is not all that great about providing solid remedies.

Voodu Child

Overheal wrote: »

do a search in this forum for threads containing the titlewords Dell and XPS and see for yourself.

Think about that again.

Most threads created in the Computers & Tech section are from people looking for advice, or people with technical problems.

So of course a forum search for any brand of laptop will turn up people having issues. That stands to reason. And then take a guess as to who sells the most laptops in Ireland, and what affect that would have on the results statistically?

Overheal

Voodu Child wrote: »

Think about that again.

Most threads created in the Computers & Tech section are from people looking for advice, or people with technical problems.

So of course a forum search for any brand of laptop will turn up people having issues. That stands to reason. And then take a guess as to who sells the most laptops in Ireland, and what affect that would have on the results statistically?

its not as though the 1330 and the 1530 are the only two laptops they sell. And you may as well look and see what the biggest problems are, which stem down to overheating issues and related failures, and of course, Dells Customer Support.

Speaking of Failure rates I question whether Dell's are only averaged out by the volume of other units they sell, which are far less problematic than the XPS line. If anyone can find a by-model breakdown of that id love to read it.

Youre basically blaming the cook for criticising the food when someone asks him his opinion about a restaurant. Then ask an Interior designer the same question and theyll talk about the atmosphere. My Musician stepfather cant stand Cracker Barrel because its too noisey. /Anecdote.

The OP asked in a Technical forum about Techs of a 1530 and Im telling him. that these problems arent Oddball, theyre fairly regular in What the problems are with the XPS line, and it boils down to a poor design which generates too much heat and dissipates too little. Oh, and the Charger Port I hear is not the most reliable of things, but of course that could always be wear and tear if not just a poor design choice.

But yeah if you want my opinion about it when its not having a problem they look cool and they run great!!1!One! :rolleyes:

You can get a Studio or an Inspiron with at least comparable specs, cant you?

The Recliner

I have had two seperate Dell laptops in the last couple of years, the current one is the XPS M1530 and a previous top of the range XPS model

Both are heaps of sh!1te in my opinion, both had hard drive failures within 12 months along with various other issues

I wont be buying Dell again

BlueLepreachaun

syklops wrote: »

Im surprised to hear that. I have an M1330 and I love it. Cant fault it at all.

Now obviously it is a different model.

What sort of problems are people reporting?

BTW mine is second hand and I have had it 7 months.

Overheating, biometric thing malfunctioning, graphics card not working, dozens and dozens of problems.

dwsl280 wrote: »

I have had the M1530 for over a year now and not had many issues with it other than vista being a pain. I upgraded the memory to 4 gigs when I ordered it but Vista 32 bit will only use 3gigs. I find it a bit slow for the spec.

One poster on CNET suggested that the issues people are reporting are more to do with how vista interacts with that laptop than the laptop itself, but Windows7 isn't available with it and as for putting anything like Ubuntu on it apparently its a bitch to find drivers for this laptop when you do that.

It has a high product rating on most review sites (Example, 4.4 out of 5 in 1300 reviews). Remember that Dell are one of the biggest laptop sellers, and this machine was a good seller for them. So the nature of statistics is that you'll find plenty of bad reviews and complaints. Especially if you are looking for them.

That said, I wouldn't recommend buying one, for the simple reason that its a two-year old model. It was launched in late 2007.


Wrong. The fan intakes air through the bottom vent and blows it out the back of the laptop.

I stuck with dell because of tech support, but since I've bought my last laptop with them things have chagned.
They've started price gouging, the big thing with them was sending a tech to your house to fix it there and then, now you have to pay nearly €200 extra for this. EVERYONE reported the overheating, even the good reviews, no matter what surface they had it on or what prorammes they had running.
You will of course always find loads of bad reviews but nearly all of them were bad, I've never seen that before, the nets littterd with dire warnings to people not to buy this laptop, but I'd only looked at officail reviews before buying, which as i said, they only had it for a short time and it seems to take a month or two to see problems.

Voodu Child wrote: »

Think about that again.

Most threads created in the Computers & Tech section are from people looking for advice, or people with technical problems.

So of course a forum search for any brand of laptop will turn up people having issues. That stands to reason. And then take a guess as to who sells the most laptops in Ireland, and what affect that would have on the results statistically?

These werne't tech support forums, they were customer review sites, the verdict was overwhelmingly negative, to get a base reading on that I checked out my current Dell laptop models reviews and tehy were far more mixed, nothing so dire as the xps.

Farcear

razorblunt wrote: »

I have mine for about 18 months now ... the internal microphone is now not working.

This might not be a hardware problem. Have you tired uninstalling/reinstalling the mic's drivers?

I used to have a similar problem with my old Dell laptop and reinstalling did the trick.

Dartz

I've had one for 18 months. Used it daily. Carried in a backpack to and from college, and generally not been treated with kid gloves. The battery's worn down (which can be expected given that it was discharged/charged 2-3 times daily), the charger sometimes doesn't charge the battery, one of the speakers has failed(happened to my last laptop), and the webcam has gotten in a snit.

And of all those things, the most annoying is the webcam, because it goes through bouts of mounting and unmounting itself, thanks to a cable that's chaffed inside its insulation.

It's still under warranty though, and I probably could get those problems fixed easily, I just sort of haven't bothered.

The overheating problem was a problem for the 1330 variant, not the 1530.

I'm running Windows7 on it now happily. 64-bit. Drivers were no problem.

I run Xubuntu Linux too on it. Drivers were no problem. (Glitch on shutdown is an easy fix)

Mine is in sub-mint condition (I tend to be very hard on hardware), but it's still chugging along. It's dented and scratched, and some of the paint has worn and chipped off in the last few months. It definitely hasn't had an easy life, but it's held together better than the Toshiba L10 I had before it, which blew a speaker after 3 months, the other after six, has CD-ROM reading errors and occasionally can't find it's harddisk on boot.

But OP... why the hell did you buy a 2 year old model? It's well out of date, and you'll certainly find better stuff cheaper on Dell's site.

Anyway, here's what I said about it last year:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055339809

BlueLepreachaun

I've decided to try it for the 30 day period and see how it goes.
I'm going to put Windows 7 on it (people with 7 instead of Vista don't seem to have this extreme list of problems) and Ubuntu, partitioning the drive.

If there are any problems at all within this period its going back, a laptop, if treated right, shoudl just work.

kippy

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

I've decided to try it for the 30 day period and see how it goes.
I'm going to put Windows 7 on it (people with 7 instead of Vista don't seem to have this extreme list of problems) and Ubuntu, partitioning the drive.

If there are any problems at all within this period its going back, a laptop, if treated right, shoudl just work.

Are you buying it new? How much?
It is a few years old model, you would probably get a better speced macine with W7 on it as standard.....

BlueLepreachaun

€699, seven hundred was my absoloute budget and I didn't want another clunky Insprion, and many of the other models were out of my price range (espechally that new Alienware range..nearly two grand some of them...)

• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T4200 (2.0GHz, 800MHz, 1MB cache)
• 15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
• 3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
• 320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%206)"]NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8400M GS with 128MB dedicated graphic memory[/URL]
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%2016)"]Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20112)"]Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20174)"]Biometric Fingerprint Reader with BLACK accent[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20380)"]2.0 mega pixel Camera & Tuxedo Black for CCFL Display[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(2,%2019)"]Dell™ Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-Card[/URL]

It doens't come with W7 as an option, was all Vista, but other people all over the net with this model have put W7 on it and it's working well for them.

Overheal

you realize most satisfaction policies expire after 30 days...

kippy

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

€699, seven hundred was my absoloute budget and I didn't want another clunky Insprion, and many of the other models were out of my price range (espechally that new Alienware range..nearly two grand some of them...)

• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T4200 (2.0GHz, 800MHz, 1MB cache)
• 15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
• 3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
• 320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%206)"]NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8400M GS with 128MB dedicated graphic memory[/URL]
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%2016)"]Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20112)"]Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20174)"]Biometric Fingerprint Reader with BLACK accent[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(1,%20380)"]2.0 mega pixel Camera & Tuxedo Black for CCFL Display[/URL]
  
• [URL="javascript:to_page_mod(2,%2019)"]Dell™ Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-Card[/URL]

It doens't come with W7 as an option, was all Vista, but other people all over the net with this model have put W7 on it and it's working well for them.

Which of those specs is key for you?

Theres plenty machines out there to chose from with somewhat similiar specs depending on what are key for what you want, most cheaper than what you are getting and with the added advantage of w7 preinstalled:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575012
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=518738
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=518741

BlueLepreachaun

kippy wrote: »

Which of those specs is key for you?

Theres plenty machines out there to chose from with somewhat similiar specs depending on what are key for what you want, most cheaper than what you are getting and with the added advantage of w7 preinstalled:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=575012
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=518738
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=518741

They only look cheaper, I've seen this trickery before, Dell do it to, by the time you add in delivery VAT etc and the basic hardware support (usually not included in those headline prices) the prices pretty much the same.

Acer don't have the same level of tech support Dell do, though by all accounts they make good machines, and I've been warned off HPs (and any company dumb enough to employ Carly Fiorina then reward her with millions for ballsing up the company and costing it 40000 jobs shoud be steered well clear of...)

Basically the same **** is in every laptop, give or take some ram here or the type of processor, you can get nearly all these internal parts with any company or brand, the only diffrence being the plastic shell around them.

I don't particularly want w7, after Vista my image of microsoft was tainted forever, I'll probably stick with the Ubuntu side of the partition for most things, but I'm told W7 isn't the disaster vista was and it runs better with this machine than Vista.

The key component for me is RAM, my Inspiron 1501 cam with Vista and only 1gb of ram, and if you so much as open another firefox tab the laptop sounds like rocks in a cement mixer and the entire programme turns grey and says "not responding" for quite a while before actually opening the tab.
Current laptop also came with an AMD processor which may also be a cause of its snail like speed, combined with Vista and its low RAM.

Overheal wrote: »

you realize most satisfaction policies expire after 30 days...

Yes...I kinda said that above..:rolleyes:

kippy

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

They only look cheaper, I've seen this trickery before, Dell do it to, by the time you add in delivery VAT etc and the basic hardware support (usually not included in those headline prices) the prices pretty much the same.

Acer don't have the same level of tech support Dell do, though by all accounts they make good machines, and I've been warned off HPs

Basically the same **** is in every laptop, give or take some ram here or the type of processor, you can get nearly all these internal parts with any company or brand, the only diffrence being the plastic shell around them.

I don't particularly want w7, after Vista my image of microsoft was tainted forever, I'll probably stick with the Ubuntu side of the partition for most things, but I'm told W7 isn't the disaster vista was and it runs better with this machine than Vista.

The key component for me is RAM, my Inspiron 1501 cam with Vista and only 1gb of ram, and if you so much as open another firefox tab the laptop sounds like rocks in a cement mixer and the entire programme turns grey and says "not responding" for quite a while before actually opening the tab.
Current laptop also came with an AMD processor which may also be a cause of its snail like speed, combined with Vista and its low RAM.



Yes...I kinda said that above..:rolleyes:

As fas as I am aware ALL those laptops come with one year warranty as standard, delivery is about 15 euro and VAT is included........
Does you laptop come with three year support?
You've been warned off HP's? By whom? You've been warned off this particular Dell on this thread but still seem to want to give it a go......

W7 runs better on ANY machine than Vista, not just this laptop.
AMD processors are no worse than Intel. You may have had one of their budget range, the Semperon, which is akin to the intel Celeron, both poor but cheap.
The Athlons are grand in general.

Your laptop probably had a semperon, 1 gig ram and Vista, almost a recipe for frustration.

EDIT - Just read your edited post..........You've been put on HP for that reason and go off and buy a Dell. If that is your reasoning, are you aware of how many Irish people rely on HP jobs?

BlueLepreachaun

As fas as I am aware ALL those laptops come with one year warranty as standard, delivery is about 15 euro and VAT is included........

I bought a laptop from Dixons before my Insprion, it was my first laptop (before that I had Dell and Gateway Desktops), their idea of "support" was collect and return to the UK, with 6 weeks each time (and I had to do this several times) before it got back to me.

It eventually died, and I replaced the hard drive, but the laptop never worked again, I've posted on dozens of websites and tried so many people to fix it, to this day it lies there, nobody has ever been able to tell me whats wrong with it.
So I'm wary about buying from companies with poor tech support.

Does you laptop come with three year support?
You've been warned off HP's? By whom? You've been warned off this particular Dell on this thread but still seem to want to give it a go......

By people who have them.
Yes I have but there is no harm in testing it within the evaluation period with an OS other than the one that seems to be linked to all the nightmarish problems people have. If its overheating like mental with minor programmes or freezing up or having graphics problems, even litle ones, its gone, simple as, and that will be the end of me as a Dell customer.

kippy

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

I bought a laptop from Dixons before my Insprion, it was my first laptop (before that I had Dell and Gateway Desktops), their idea of "support" was collect and return to the UK, with 6 weeks each time (and I had to do this several times) before it got back to me.

It eventually died, and I replaced the hard drive, but the laptop never worked again, I've posted on dozens of websites and tried so many people to fix it, to this day it lies there, nobody has ever been able to tell me whats wrong with it.
So I'm wary about buying from companies with poor tech support.


By people who have them.
Yes I have but there is no harm in testing it within the evaluation period with an OS other than the one that seems to be linked to all the nightmarish problems people have. If its overheating like mental with minor programmes or freezing up or having graphics problems, even litle ones, its gone, simple as, and that will be the end of me as a Dell customer.

So what model was your first laptop, which poor tech support was it?
Most of the standard dell tech support is collect and return also, as standard unless you buy the dearer packages.

I've given you the best advice I can, I dont think you should get this machine, I believe it is overpriced for the spec and you really can get better. I think the XPS range are overpriced in general.

"Evaluation Period" whats that?

I have a HP by the way. Pavillion, DV9702ea, No hardware issues in two years.
You see, you do want to be careful who you are taking recommendations from. your friends could have bought budget laptops with under speced components, the laptop itself may be fine, just run slow.

BlueLepreachaun

I've already bough it, the period I refered to is the period I have before I can return it, call it what you want.

I don't recall the in home tech support from dell being an extra 200euro the last time though.



The first laptop was an Avdent 7113 bought from Dixons.

The first problem with it was that no Windows Vista DVD came with it, only Vista preinstalled, and then you could burn a backup cd with which you could reinstall windows, from an icon on the desktop, the problem is it would only let you make one of these cd's and the first one i burned was corrupted, and didn't work.
They woudn't allow me to burn a new one, and insisted i instead buy such a CD from them, I hadn't got that kind of money, so I upgraded to XP, which I did have a copy of, but they didn't have the drivers for XP, because it was invonceivable to them soemone would abandon the almighty Vista, but I peiced XP drivers from similar advents together and made it work.

Their phone support was the same as any other. When the hardware began to fail, usually the hard drive itself then an endless string of nightmare breakdowns began. They booked the laptop in for collection, no curiour ever showed up and when I rang them they had no idea why, then suggeted i have it picked up from the Dixons shop itself.
This hapened 3 times, 6 weeks each time without a laptop, each time some problem re-emerged. The 4th time I was in the middle of exams and coudn't wait 6 weeeks with no laptop so I bought a new harddrive myself instead of waiting for them to give me one free 6 weeks later having sent it (completly uneessiarily) to the UK.

At which point, the following happened, I quote from the same post I put on dozens and dozens of tech support forums.

I bought a new hard drive for my laptop to replace a damaged one.
..this is what used to happen:

1. I put the windows CD in and start the laptop up
2. The typical windows installation screen did not appear, and instead a screen appeared, but "WINDOWS IS LOADING FILES", as if windows was already on the hard drive and I was simply booting from the CD instead of the hard drive.
3. The installation finishes, the laptop reboots, and begins the installation process all over again.
4. When I take the CD out and try to go into windows, it informs me there is no operating system installed.
   It continued in this loop again and again.

This went on for a long time, and I gave up trying to fix it, I gave it to soemone to fix and he could not fix it, says it was the first time he got a laptop he could not fix. I tried looking online before, nothing helped.





When I turn it on now the following happens:

• An otherwise blank screen says “press any kep to boot from CD or DVD”, then within a few seconds “a disk read error occurred, press cntrl + alt + delete to restart”.
• When I do so, it restarts and brings upthe same screen with the same disk read error, loops seem to be this laptops theme.

It came pre-installed with Vista, I was only allowed burn one backup copy to a dvd, which became corrupted and worthless. Someone suggested to me I can only install the type of installation CD coded for this exact type of computer, but I'm not buying that CD (yes buying, ****ers want me to buy it) only for it to turn out that's not the problem.

Tried to install a new copy of Vista on the machine, it went into the loop.
Tried installing XP on it, it went into the loop

Tried installing UBUNTU on the machine, it went into the loop.


Would replacing the hard drive have any effect?
The motherboard? Memory? Seriously what is the ****ing problem with this laptop, it seems to be cursed.

Overheal

what about the redesigned, totally new (and untested, nerd non-approved...) Dell Studio-XPS line?

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop-studio-xps-16/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-studio-xps-16&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~laptop_studio_xps16_anav_1~~

I mean, lets assume Dell is intelligent (and come on, it is) and its learned from Years and thousands of headaches that the old XPS line was a disaster, and has engineered the new s-XPS line with a bunch of way awesome new improvements?

In particular, I had a quiet lol when I noticed theyve ditched the nvidia chipset thats an upgrade!

x in the city

ATI Mobility RADEON® HD 3670 - 512MB...

what a pile of poo

my M1710 with the 7950gtx would wipe the floor of this thing.

The XPS has loads of problems, mainly to do with the Nvidia chipsets.

I have had a whole motherboard and screen/gpu changed in mine its about a year old now, and zero problems*. Since the 7950gtx is not made anymore, I have put on some artic 5 onto mine.. 'in case' (cough cough) something happens. ( dell were incredible stupid and mean with the way they put thermal compound onto the die of the cpu and gpu of these beasts)

As far as laptops go, this is as sweet as a nut, with the display giving the highest resolution possible.


* once I removed vista

Overheal

x in the city wrote: »

ATI Mobility RADEON® HD 3670 - 512MB...

what a pile of poo

my M1710 with the 7950gtx would wipe the floor of this thing.

The XPS has loads of problems, mainly to do with the Nvidia chipsets.

I have had a whole motherboard and screen/gpu changed in mine its about a year old now, and zero problems*. Since the 7950gtx is not made anymore, I have put on some artic 5 onto mine.. 'in case' (cough cough) something happens. ( dell were incredible stupid and mean with the way they put thermal compound onto the die of the cpu and gpu of these beasts)

As far as laptops go, this is as sweet as a nut, with the display giving the highest resolution possible.


* once I removed vista

Unfortunately it was probably an issue of having chips that put out too much wattage to be used in the chassis. say what you want about ATI but unless youre going for their card-killers they tend to run quiet and cool. But youre correct, even low output cards like the 8400m gs (I can low res Crysis at least!!) suffered from these problems. A problem ATIs havent had too much of; and I guess it doesnt hurt for dell to play it safe by not trying to smush the bleeding edge card into an untried laptop model.

majiktripp

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

I've already bough it, the period I refered to is the period I have before I can return it, call it what you want.

I don't recall the in home tech support from dell being an extra 200euro the last time though.



The first laptop was an Avdent 7113 bought from Dixons.

The first problem with it was that no Windows Vista DVD came with it, only Vista preinstalled, and then you could burn a backup cd with which you could reinstall windows, from an icon on the desktop, the problem is it would only let you make one of these cd's and the first one i burned was corrupted, and didn't work.
They woudn't allow me to burn a new one, and insisted i instead buy such a CD from them, I hadn't got that kind of money, so I upgraded to XP, which I did have a copy of, but they didn't have the drivers for XP, because it was invonceivable to them soemone would abandon the almighty Vista, but I peiced XP drivers from similar advents together and made it work.

Their phone support was the same as any other. When the hardware began to fail, usually the hard drive itself then an endless string of nightmare breakdowns began. They booked the laptop in for collection, no curiour ever showed up and when I rang them they had no idea why, then suggeted i have it picked up from the Dixons shop itself.
This hapened 3 times, 6 weeks each time without a laptop, each time some problem re-emerged. The 4th time I was in the middle of exams and coudn't wait 6 weeeks with no laptop so I bought a new harddrive myself instead of waiting for them to give me one free 6 weeks later having sent it (completly uneessiarily) to the UK.

At which point, the following happened, I quote from the same post I put on dozens and dozens of tech support forums.

We had a very similar case with a friends a while ago, is the laptop hard drive SATA? The drivers for the SATA controller on the Vista install DVD are RUBBISH and do not work at the best of times. We had to download them directly from Intel's website and put them on a floppy disc and press F6 during the Windows install to specify them as the default SATA driver. We had problems very similar to yours,and doing this rectified the situation finally. Just an idea for you to try...
In the Vista install I believe when your pick the HDD to install to it gives you a "Load" option to load additional drivers, the is the same as F6 in the XP install.
I think this is the driver file for your laptops chipset So try sticking it on a USB drive and see what happens.

BostonB

The issue with the Nvidia chipset affect all brands Apple, HP, Dell.

Al most all posts I see about the XPS 1530/1330 are those with the Nvidia chipset. The ones with the Intel chipset graphics don't seem to have the problems. We have a Intel XPS 1330, for 2 or 3 yrs and have no problems wth it. Came with Vista, but Windows 7 works much better on it. It was cheap as we bought it off the outlet.

BlueLepreachaun

Overheal wrote: »

what about the redesigned, totally new (and untested, nerd non-approved...) Dell Studio-XPS line?

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/notebooks/laptop-studio-xps-16/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-studio-xps-16&s=dhs&cs=19&~oid=us~en~29~laptop_studio_xps16_anav_1~~

I mean, lets assume Dell is intelligent (and come on, it is) and its learned from Years and thousands of headaches that the old XPS line was a disaster, and has engineered the new s-XPS line with a bunch of way awesome new improvements?

In particular, I had a quiet lol when I noticed theyve ditched the nvidia chipset thats an upgrade!

If the XPS line came out in Dec 2007 would they not have changed the components back then and saved themselves asll this damage to their reputaton?

It's not as if they dont have the size and power to order these companies to comply with their wishes and sort their problems out.

tman

Ugh... No end of problems with mine as well!

First of all the left speaker stopped working (loose connection), then it started overheating if I tried to play any kind of game for more than a minute, then it started seriously overheating (70-80 degrees when idling with ~0% cpu usage)

Funnily enough, disabling speedstep in the bios resolved the last issue

Support's advice was to check if anything was obstructing the air intake/outlet and upgrade the bios...:rolleyes:

M1530 = shoite

syklops

One poster on CNET suggested that the issues people are reporting are more to do with how vista interacts with that laptop than the laptop itself, but Windows7 isn't available with it and as for putting anything like Ubuntu on it apparently its a bitch to find drivers for this laptop when you do that.

Not my experience. I run ubuntu almost exclusively, and had no problems with any drivers. Even Nvidia drivers installed in about 4 lines of Konsole commands and a couple of clicks.

I did have some difficulty getting the wireless card to support packet injection, but few people would want that, and all I needed to do was compile a custom kernel using a patch I found somewhere.

There may be something in the theory that a lot of the issues caused are actually Vista related. I don't run Vista. I do have XP on another partition but I only use that occasionally, but have not had any problems with that either.

Dartz

tman wrote: »

Ugh... No end of problems with mine as well!

First of all the left speaker stopped working (loose connection),

Same here...

then it started overheating if I tried to play any kind of game for more than a minute, then it started seriously overheating (70-80 degrees when idling with ~0% cpu usage)

Funnily enough, disabling speedstep in the bios resolved the last issue

Support's advice was to check if anything was obstructing the air intake/outlet and upgrade the bios...:rolleyes:

Which was pretty fair advice.... keep your heatsinks clear of dust. Both dropped my temps

Overheal

Well the thing is all brands dont seem to have a high enough standard of assembly. Basically the nvidia chips required more TLC than they were provided - because nvidia did piss poor Quality Testing on them, but thats spilled milk by now.

If you RMA'd one though, when they went to replace the board they (well HP anyway) gave the heatsink and paste due attention. I had to RMA mine 16 months ago after owning it for a little over 10, so for my part it safe to say that fixed the problem. the DIY solution was to take it apart yourself and make the appropriate tweaks to the heatsink, using some decent paste and as some people would reccomend, a custom copper contact.

tman

Dartz wrote: »

Which was pretty fair advice.... keep your heatsinks clear of dust. Both dropped my temps

Yep, but unfortunately they were both extremely obvious things to check, and something I had done long before I contacted the helpdesk...

BlueLepreachaun

Ok the overheating problem seems to be the one universally agreed problem on this laptop no matter who has it or weither they love or hate the laptop overall.

I assume it overheats no matter what? My insprion used to overhead because i had it on the bed a lot and it was sucking up fibres, since i put a book or something under it I've never had the problem again.

Overheal

its sucking up fibres and particles all the time anyway but the biggest bet problem is its just piss poor air flow when you get a big chunk of blanket smothering the vent.

But if you can get the same price and performance, I would try out the Studio XPS instead, as its bound to have a few significant design improvements.

BostonB

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

If the XPS line came out in Dec 2007 would they not have changed the components back then and saved themselves asll this damage to their reputaton?

It's not as if they dont have the size and power to order these companies to comply with their wishes and sort their problems out.

Its cheaper to let them fail and sort them out afterwards. Rather than fix every laptop out there.

BostonB

Overheal wrote: »

its sucking up fibres and particles all the time anyway but the biggest bet problem is its just piss poor air flow when you get a big chunk of blanket smothering the vent.

But if you can get the same price and performance, I would try out the Studio XPS instead, as its bound to have a few significant design improvements.

No the problem is the chipset.

All laptops will suck in dust and should be cleaned from time to time.

BlueLepreachaun

BostonB wrote: »

Its cheaper to let them fail and sort them out afterwards. Rather than fix every laptop out there.

No I meant lthat say these problems were being reported to them in early 2008, which they were. Would they not have gone to the manufactuerers of the components and try to sort the problems. Then have decent components in future xps models of tha kind (from mid 08 on say)

BostonB

No idea. Nvidia tried to claim there was no problem, indeed theres not been much fuss about considering there must be vast amouts of laptops with these chips in them. I assume it took Dell a while to design a new laptop, in the meanwhile they decide to keep selling the old one.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1028703/nvidia-g84-g86-bad

The aircraft industry has done something similar in the past, worked out it was cheaper to pay the claims than fix something.

dyl10

BlueLepreachaun, stop sponging off the government you waster!

BlueLepreachaun

dyl10 wrote: »

BlueLepreachaun, stop sponging off the government you waster!

**** your mother...no disrespect....

No idea. Nvidia tried to claim there was no problem, indeed theres not been much fuss about considering there must be vast amouts of laptops with these chips in them. I assume it took Dell a while to design a new laptop, in the meanwhile they decide to keep selling the old one.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...ia-g84-g86-bad

The aircraft industry has done something similar in the past, worked out it was cheaper to pay the claims than fix something.

The laptops been shipped, so Im kinda back to 50/50 again on keeping it.

AlmightyCushion

dyl10 wrote: »

BlueLepreachaun, stop sponging off the government you waster!

BlueLepreachaun wrote: »

**** your mother...no disrespect....

No abuse guys. If I see ye at it again I'll ban ye.

razorblunt

Hard Drive has just given up the ghost for me, anyone know if its easy to change on the M1530?

BostonB

Dell usually have a manual online telling you how to do it.

Voodu Child

razorblunt wrote: »

Hard Drive has just given up the ghost for me, anyone know if its easy to change on the M1530?

Its as easy as any modern (decent) laptop. Take off a few screws on the base and it slides out.

razorblunt

Voodu Child wrote: »

Its as easy as any modern (decent) laptop. Take off a few screws on the base and it slides out.

Great thanks for that, I'll give that a bash tonight!

whatdoicare

Don't buy anything from Dell- just got done arguing with a stupid person with terrible English trying to convince me that my laptop is totally fine even though the charger isn't connecting properly and it started smoking- they replaced the charger (after first posting it to Galway - I'm in Limerick!) and I'm still trying to tell them it's the laptop and new charger has made no difference!! They don't want to replace anything or even look at laptop- guarantee or no guarantee! Totally rubbish service.

BostonB

Theres no problem with Dell if you know how to deal with them.

No point arguing. You should have done it via email, (no problem with accents) then you can quote them there mistakes back to them when they trip over their own script. I'd give them two chance to fix it, then I'd go straight to the small claims court.

Incidentally I assume this isn't a new laptop within the return period. if it was, I'd just return it saying you've changed your mind. Distance selling etc. They can't argue with that. If you say its faulty they are entitled to fix it. So don't go there.

whatdoicare

BostonB wrote: »

Theres no problem with Dell if you know how to deal with them.

No point arguing. You should have done it via email, (no problem with accents) then you can quote them there mistakes back to them when they trip over their own script. I'd give them two chance to fix it, then I'd go straight to the small claims court.

Incidentally I assume this isn't a new laptop within the return period. if it was, I'd just return it saying you've changed your mind. Distance selling etc. They can't argue with that. If you say its faulty they are entitled to fix it. So don't go there.

The laptop is a year old the end of this month so still under guarantee (which I extended yesterday to three years) I'm assuming thats way beyond returning period.
Just recently moved onto e-mail now that I have a case number- still no joy so far.
I was supposed to email them when I received the charger so I emailed everything that is still wrong with the laptop along with it - just to have it on record somewhere.

Probably end up on small claims tbh Dell really want nothing to do with fixing my laptop if they can avoid it. Never buying Dell again.

BostonB

Why don't you record a video of it smoking, stick it on youtube then send them a link?