D630 Owners Thread

I was curious if the palmrests stay cool on the d630? Does anyone notice the left side being warm from the hard drive at all?

Thanks.

 

I have the 7200 hard drive and do not notice much warmth. The battery area does warm a bit when taking a charge from empty.... IE run the battery down then plug in and continue to use (9cell)

 

Nope, doesn't get warm at all. Then again I have a PCMCIA card reader plugged in all the time so maybe it's catching/shielding some of the heat from the drive?

 

ive got the 160gb 7200hd, palm rest is always cool

 

Good to know. Thanks!

 

Ditto to what the others said--palm rest stays cool. The bottom of my D630 does get a little warm though. Not too bad though--I can still use it on my lap without being uncomfortable.

dordale

 

I just wanted to share my upgrade experience with you all. I upgraded my D630 to 4GB of RAM (up from 2GB), the Hitachi 200GB 7K200 7200RPM HDD (up from the 80GB stock 7200) and added the modular bay battery. I also added the Intel Turbo Memory 1GB module that I got from Amazon for like 25 bucks.

• The upgrading of RAM, while fairly easy for me (since I like tinkering), was a pain in the neck because DIMM A lies under the keyboard, as does the slot that takes the WWAN or Intel Turbo Memory module (you can only have one or the other). I would advise everyone to flip through the Dell D630 Service Manual or User Guide at least once before you do this particular upgrade since there are fine points about the antenna wires that need to be kept in mind.

• The upgrade for the Turbo Memory module was easy. It just snapped right in, and no screws were required (like they are on the T61). Instead it is held in place the same way as a RAM module is. I would highly recommend that if you are bumping the RAM to 4GB and you don't have a stock 2GB DIMM that you install both the ITM and the RAM module at the same time since they both require the removal of the keyboard.

• The upgrade for the HDD was incredibly painless, kudos to Dell for making it so simple. You just unscrew two screws at the bottom and slide out the SATA drive. You then move the drive cover from one drive to another (one screw) and then slide the drive right back in. Excellent. I reinstalled Vista a couple of times while playing with the settings and had all the latest drivers on a USB stick. Note, I only *upgraded* the Audio driver, installed the Turbo Memory and X3100 graphics drivers, and that of the Bluetooth and the Fingerprint scanner module. Everything else, Vista found.

• The 9Cell battery that sticks out in the front plus the modular bay battery gives me something ridiculous like 8-10 hours of battery life with WiFi on and continuous access. Wow! It beats the hell out of the 45 minutes I get with my Inspiron 9300! I do miss the UXGA screen from my Inspiron though. This WXGA+ screen is too tiny in terms of the amount of text that I can see. I keep scrolling to see more. Always a compromise though.

• This laptop is pretty damn heavy especially with the modular battery. It's not as heavy as my Inspiron but for a 14" 'thin and light' it's no featherweight!

• The Hitachi drive is very quite and very fast but I can't really tell the difference between the two drives in terms of performance. They are both snappy and I feel the Intel Turbo Memory really starts helping after you use the laptop for a few hours. That just might be my imagination though however I do find that programs (like Firefox) launch much faster with the ITM installed. Oh, and no issus either with the palm rest getting warm with this 200GB monstrosity.

That's it for now, if anyone has any specific questions, please let me know. I just wanted to share my experince since it seems no one has mentioned what needs to be done to install the Intel Turbo Memory in particular. I really love this machine and get a big smile on my face every time I swipe my finger to whiz right through the BIOS and Windows logon passwords. Ain't technology grand?

Edit: I also wanted to add that these upgrades have not significantly affected the Vista Base score. I think I added .1 to the HDD transfer rate but no changes to the Memory or anything else. In fact, I know my base score for the video is .1 lower than before my Vista re-install but that may just be an issue with the drivers. I believe it was 3.5 before and now it's 3.4 which is basically my overall score since that is the lowest number on the list.

 

Have you noticed any improvement from the Intel Turbo Memory? As others have said it seems like findings are mixed, but I'm just curious about your anecdotal experience.

 

I would have to say yes. I thought the whole concept was FUDD frankly initially. However, after using it for a couple of days, my D630 *feels* a bit faster. For sure, certain apps (like I mentioned in the above post--Firefox) launch faster.

I think it was just a matter of the ITM drivers maturing. They appear to be at a point when they are stable and actually helping the OS. I would recommend the upgrade since the price is so nominal. Can't really hurt, right?

 

hi, i'm a first time owner of a laptop, and i've got this d630 which is freak'in awsome, other than the light leakage from the bottom.

i was wondering if the battery wear tips in the FAQ still apply to this, the tips are from 2005. for example if im going to be using the laptop with AC power, should i take out the battery to stop it from cycling [topping off the batteries power].

thanks in advance.