7oby

It's time to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04.1!

Linux, Operating Systems submitted by zmjjmz Jul 9 **IMPLEMENTED**

Now that Hardy Heron has received the .1 update (signifying stability), it's about time you upgrade the Dellbuntus to it!


Please see jesse_l's comment
18 Comments »

Every Nvidia Graphics Card With G84 or G86 Chipset Is Ready to Die!!! Please confirm the status of this problem!

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Service and Support submitted by aikiwolfie Jul 10

Every Nvidia Graphics Card With G84 or G86 Chipset Is Ready to Die

These chips are in XPS M1330 and XPS M1330n laptops and probably a few other models too. If my graphics card dies will Dell replace it? What is Dell doing about this? Is Dell offering an alternative? 18 Comments »

Eliminate M1330 heat related failures

XPS products submitted by hkt Jun 18

I'd like to bring to your attention to a design problem with the Dell XPS M1330 with the nVidia 8400 GS option.

1) PROBLEM: The heatpipe exhaust vent blocks up with dust that caused the overheating to repeatedly burnout the GPU thus having the motherboard replaced.

SUGGESTION: Dell support engineers should be made aware to blow clean the heatpipe vents when doing a motherboard replacement to avoid repeated burnouts.

2) PROBLEM: Using a thermal pad to transfer heat from the nVidia GPU to the heatpipe is not efficient enough.

SUGGESTION: I have replaced thermal pad with a copper shim to better transfer the heat. This brought down the GPU core temp. from an idle 65C down to 56C and peak temp of 91C to 71C. Observing this, it is a fairly simple revision to the heatpipe assembly to better mate the GPU to it without the thermal pad. Possibly extending the GPU heatsink further down by 1.5mm and mating it with thermal paste. The spring loaded mechanism can still acommodate for thermal expansion.

I've observed that the M1530 eliminated the issue by not using the thermal pads and directly mating the copper pipe to the GPU.

Thread with contributions from others and myself indicating how to rectify the problem.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=250129&page=9

Reported problems
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=204772 3 Comments »

XPS M1330: give techs the possibility to upgrade/enhance cooling (by exchanging the thermal pads for officially tailored copper sheets)

XPS products, Laptops, Laptop Power submitted by professa Jul 8

Dear Dell team,

I'm a (largely positive) owner of an XPS M1330 but I have to put it straight:

the cooling concept of the chipset and the GPU (geforce 8400M GS, in my case) is junk. Under load the GPU easily reaches 85 to 90 degrees celsius. I had a tech here lately to replace the motherboard of my M1330 (due to a fried / defective GPU!) who could have easily replaced the ineffective thermal pads with two copper sheets (which, in such a case, would have been provided by Dell and be specifically tailored to fit that notebook). The effectiveness of copper has already been proved by some people out there who have modded their M1330s with copper sheets by themselves (unfortunately loosing their warranty, so that's no option for me).

Is that possible, Dell providing such copper sheets to techs, for *OFFICIAL* replacement for the thermal pads, under warranty? These copper sheets can't be THAT expensive, compared to the significant number of fried GPUs out there.

Thanks for reading and considering my thoughts! :-)

Cheers, Michael 9 Comments »

Give XPS Notebooks Gigabit Ethernet

XPS products submitted by croftki Feb 17

I understand that Dell market research says home users in general are not interested in gigabit ethernet for home networks. Those who pay for the premium design in the XPS line, however, are more likely to want gigabit ethernet. I would rather buy something more exciting than a business class notebook, but I want to build on my home technology with each purchase I make. XPS Notebooks unfortunately do not help me do this. It seems my only option is to buy a Latitude. 28 Comments »