D630 Owners Thread

Pros: It's reliable, well-built, and should last you through college.
Cons: The new E6400 is better and the D630's speakers suck.

 

I own a D630.

Pros:
- Solid and durable
- Clean, simple design/looks
- Decent keyboard
- Good battery life and battery options (such as media bay battery)
- 4 USB ports
- Docking station with DVI port available
- Minimal bloatware
- Dell includes the Windows disc in the box so you can easily reinstall the OS if you like.
- A three year warranty is standard and included in the price.
- XP support - While I prefer Vista, Dell does support installing XP on this machine if you need it.

Cons:
- Screen has poor viewing angles on mine, which tends to make the screen appear unevenly lit. Too bad because it's a nice screen otherwise. Screen quality is the luck of the draw to some extent with all laptops.
- The fan on mine is a little noisy. I've heard other people say theirs isn't noisy... so it may vary.
- No SD card slot or Expresscard slot. (There is a PC Card slot though.)
- No built-in DVI port (you need to buy the docking station). (There is a built-in VGA port though of course.)
- Built-in speaker isn't great... it's ok for system sounds and youtube, etc., but for music you'll want external speakers or earphones.
- No built-in webcam
- This model will soon be replaced by Dell's upcoming E series. Not a practical problem... but it may be more of a psychological downside.

May be pro or con:
- Matte screen. (Some prefer matte, others prefer glossy.)

 

Did you buy it with X3100 or Nvidia GFX card?

Mine has the X3100 and the fan is almost never on during normal operation/computer use

 

Ahh, I have the Nvidia GFX card...so is that the source of fan issues??

 

It could be especially if you are running Vista, my fans were on a lot more with Vista, with XP they are very rarely on.

 

Hey, my fans just turned off. Or lowered their speed, rather...

I'm already thinking about a XP downgrade. Vista is a bigger mess than I thought it would be. Is there anyway to maybe downgrade the fancy graphics on Vista to possibly lower fan usage??

 

I've been using a D630 for several months now and have had no problems. It's a solid notebook. I have no issues w/ the screen. It is matte which will produce less reflections and while not as sharp and glossy looking as say a Sony notebook screen, it does the job just fine. The speaker is fine too for my needs. I use headphones anyway. You can always plug in external speakers. I'm running Vista with no issues.

I returned a Thinkpad T61 for this D630 and think the D630 feels more solid. For example, there is no flex in the palmrest. Hinges are tight and the notebook just feels very well built. The pointing stick works fine. It's exactly the product I was looking for. I didn't think Dell could build something this well, but they have. The warranty and customer support is very good in my experience as well. Lenovo was a nightmare.

My concern with the new e series is: Will they be built as solid as the d series?

Look what Dell did with the Vostro. The new models are lighter, but not as solid as the previous version. I think Dell will move the e series in a similar direction. Of course, it's a trade off between using heavier materials and getting a light notebook. Not to say the e series will not be solidly built and of course all the new updates will be nice. I'm just saying the d series have a lot of good attributes and I think they are underrated.

 

I'm running Vista with the Nvidia card and have no fan issues. Go figure. There apparently has been a problem with some (older?) Nvidia cards causing over heating and failing. I don't know if what some people are experiencing is related. There is a new bios update for the issue.

 

Where could I find the bios update?

I download l8kfangui and have that going, and it says I have a peak of 46 degrees, but this thing is really hot.

*When I plug it in, the temp shoots up to 56-60. Is this normal??

 

And um...what's up with Firefox with 2 tabs taking up 50% CPU usage??