D830 Owner's Lounge

What happened to your Thinkpad, Clare? I'm sorry to hear that.

So far my D830's been fine - there have been a few instances in the last few months where I've had to reformat due to it taking waaaaaaaaayyyy too long to boot up, hibernate, resume from hibernation and shut down (in extreme cases, FIVE MINUTES!) I've also been concerned that most of the time, my processor seems to be pushing 95-100% on both cores, even with minimal active programs and processes. Hm.

Why don't you look into the m1530? Now that the new screen resolutions are out (WSXGA+! I only wish they had WUXGA as an option) I'm wishing I could trade mine in for it.

The screen is really something you grow to live with. Honestly, in the last few months I've grown to ignore everything but the brightness (mostly because my office is right next to a large window with no blinds).

I have, however, developed an annoying little scuff mark in what seems to be a layer between the top glass panel and the CCFL/TFT itself. It looks like a speck of dirt when viewed straight on, but when I angle my view six inches to the side or three or so inches above or below, it disappears. Any ideas?

I don't really want to deal with the local Dell Support, as I've mentioned in other posts. Not only do I pay a service fee of 50USD, they take forever to act on anything.

...


As an aside, I requested a replacement LCD and asked for a quote on the largest, fastest replacement HDD they had available (at the time, that was a 160GB 7200rpm). That was in... September. I have not heard back from them at all, and my follow up calls have done nothing.

Michael

 

Hi Michael,

Too bad about the ThinkPad is right. DVDs wouldn't play and the monitor self-test produced unacceptable results. I didn't bother to load any software. It took 3 days and countless calls for Lenovo to agree to take it back. I will spare you the details. Then you have to reorder, lose your discounts if they are better than the ongoing rate, and get at the back of the line.

I will say that the customer support reps in India were FAR better (actually looked up my file, spoke more clearly, followed up) than the technical support staff in Atlanta. Those Atlanta guys are the 79% reason I'm considering to give up on the ThinkPad. Based on my experience I just wish I could have got some technical support out of India!

It seems to me you have saintly patience. If I had to reformat more than once I would be d.o.n.e.done. I just checked on the m1530 and the screens are glossy. I know my viewing conditions (BAD, a lot of travel, etc.) and I'm stuck on matte. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Good luck with your screen-speck! I hope someone can help you. xxp.

 

DVDs wouldn't play? That's horrible! But did the optical drive at least work? And what monitor tests did you run?

I'm surprised with the quality of service you got with Lenovo. My experience with them has usually been pretty good. But then again, I'm ordering from the local office or direct from China. I can't say anything for the tech support, though it's surprising to hear that India's support is better than Atlanta's (usually the complaints are against Indian support...)

One reason I've HAD to have patience is because I purchased my notebook from New York and had my cousin hand-carry it. So my warranty options here in the Philippines are EXTREMELY limited. When I ran into my first roadblocks hardware and software-wise, I discovered that not only did I have to pay a service fee, the local office doesn't honor full warranty coverage. So refunds and full replacements are out of the question.

In other words, I'd have to wait till I get to the states before I can avail of my utterly expensive Gold warranty.

Thanks, and I do hope something can be done about that speck as well.

 

Hi guys!
I am fighting with Dell about the WSXGA+ of my D830 since I received it.
I live in Italy, they say they can't change it for a different resolution nor for a LG display which is not available in this system. I told them that if they want to limit availabilities of displays in some systems, it is fine, but hey must be sure to be providing a good display if it is the only one.
They didn nothing. Escalation did nothing. They say it is not a faulty display. It is all ok.
What can I do now?
How many of you are satisfied of their WSXGA+ SEC3350?
I find it has got very terrible light leakage, porr viewing angles, and the antireflective coating has got a sandy dirty textured aspact which besides lowing donw noticeably the image quality, also it makes my eyes tire very soon.
Someone there has got an e-mail of some escalation in USA or in EUROPE who helped him in something and possibily in my same or similar problem?
I was so so excited for the new notebook, and I needed so much a ggod display to work many hours a day... I had no money to buy another notebook for 4 years... I can't live with this....

 

Ok, news: I have been offered the WUXGA on the D830. I saw that some people are happy of it, some not, but anyway it is better than the SEC3350.
Otherwise I could choose a different notebook, the XPS 1530 or the Precision M4300, if they have a better wsxga+ or wuxga matte screen available. I personally would prefer the wsxga+. And I am understanding that maybe the best of all the screens available in XPS 1530, Precison M4300 and Latitude D830 is the WSXGA+ glossy on the M4300, LG...
Any suggestion? I would like to be prepared to answer when Escalation will phone me back.

 

Sir Joe, are you still within the return period? If so, I'd just say you're unhappy with the screen quality and you'd like a replacement... and if they won't do it, return it and get a Thinkpad or HP Compaq instead. (What's wrong with your SEC screen, anyway?)

 

Well, in Italy only privates have got return policy (and of just 10 days).
I bought as business. I have not return policy.
But the Escalation offered me any possibility. Different res D830 (said no, as WUXGA is too much for me, especially in XP, and anyway is another Samsung and for a while I wish to avoid Samsung), or money back (I said no, as I prefer to stayy with Dell a bit more, I do not like to leave people and things in a bad way with bad memory, I hope Dell will conquer again my trust), or different notebook.
I choose this one. Apparently, I can choose between XPS 1530 or Precision M4300. I am fascinated by XPS design, but in Italy there are not LED LCD, and the max CCFl on 1530 is WXGA+. I do not think I would go for a WXGA+ over a WSXGA+ unless it is not the only good display.
But in M4300 the WSXGA* glossy is a good LG. I prefer matte, but I want to close all this.
Anyway, I will see tomorrow what he purpose me. I just wonder if for you is better the XPS or the Precision. I do not play games, nor I use CAD.

 

Hey everyone! I'd like to share a little story (since I don't know how else to explain it):

Over the last few months, I've been having severe performance issues with my D830. With minimal programs open and just a half dozen or so tray programs (including Avast, McAfee Security Suite and SpyBot) my RAM hovers at around 60% usage. That's okay for Vista, as we all know it's precaching abilities (Superfetch). No, what disturbed me was the processor activity. With the above status, my cores would be hovering at around 60-85% with no activity, and occasionally maxing out at seemingly random intervals. The cores would float at 60-75%, then peak at 98-100% for a few seconds, then drop back down to the previous readings. With absolutely nothing being done on the system (I'm not even holding the mouse!)

That in itself was already suspicious, but as I had a lot of work to do, I couldn't format and reinstall my system until my backlog was completely cleared. I run Adobe LightRoom for all my RAW file management and initial post-processing, then go into PhotoShop when needed. Whenever I simply OPEN LR (with no other programs open, same situation as above), my cores peak for about 15-30 seconds, while it loads. In this span of time, I can barely do anything else - clicking on the Start Orb opens the menu after 10 or so seconds. Usually it waits for the core activity to go down before it even opens. Fine. Working with photos is a complete chore, as my work goes on, the system gets more and more sluggish. And when I try to export my files to Jpegs... let's say I can cook lunch and eat it too, while watching a few episodes of 24 while waiting for it to finish. In that span of time, NOTHING can be done on the computer. It's effectively useless and completely unresponsive until it finishes the export process. Even with as light a load as 50 images, it can still take close to 15-20 minutes to finish.

There were other issues, such as the tendency for the TPM to recognize my fingerprint at alarmingly decreasing rates. Towards the end, I couldn't get it to recognize my print at all, and then it wouldn't accept my password. When I finally got through to the OS, I promptly disabled all security measures and deactivated the TPM - lest I be locked out of my system before I can backup again.

Another one was the optical drive. With MOST media (and I mean both CD and DVD) the drive spins up to unprecedented speeds, causing the system to vibrate rather violently. The noise is also unbearable - it woke up my 9 month old son, once. Burning data to either types of media would also be hit-or-miss.

Then there was the fan. At random intervals, the fan would spin up and get really really loud. I checked, and it did not correlate with processor activity.

Finally, there's the little black speck I mentioned earlier in this thread.

Basically, my system - despite being half a year old - was FUBAR.

Finally, I managed to finish all my work last week. I promptly backed up all my important files and formatted. I reinstalled Vista (Ultimate, for those who are asking) and all my previous software. I had hoped it would solve my problems.

It didn't take long after the first fresh boot to discover that I was too optimistic. On a fresh install, all the symptoms were still present.

I used Dell's Connect to speak to a Gold CSR (who kept dismissing all my other issues after I mentioned the first one. He didn't even want to listen to me until I'd run the system diagnostics off my support CD.) As I ran the diagnostics, three errors came up (I can't recall exactly what they were.) I called the local Dell ASP for the meanings of the error codes. He said to bring the system over for a checkup. This was last Friday.

Yesterday, I went to the ASP office and ran the error codes by the tech once more. I demonstrated the issues to him and he said he would be right back.

Ten minutes later, he tells me to fill out the service request form. I am to leave my system. They will be giving me a brand new replacement system in three days. That's tomorrow. Apparently, the error codes meant that:

1. My motherboard is defective.
2. My Optical Drive is defective.
3. My Processor is defective.
4. My fan controller is defective.
5. The LCD panel is defective.
6. My hard drive is defective.

So... exactly WHAT was working with my computer in the FIRST place, I have to wonder? The weirder thing is, he said that these were NOT uncommon problems and that they had received various systems under the same conditions. It sounds like there were some QC issues from the beginning, with symptoms appearing only recently. I first noticed the performance issues some time in November, but with Christmas being the busiest time of year in my industry I couldn't afford to go without a system for even one day. And the local ASP has no provisions for interim loaners nor direct on-the-spot replacement. Hence the three day wait.

I certainly hope the new system (even if it is refurbished, as will most likely be the case) will be under the exact same specs as my previous system, and that all the symptoms will be gone. I can only hope.

 

So far, my $400 Gold International warranty has cost me over $200 in diagnostic and servicing fees. Some warranty.

Caveat Emptor to all you international buyers of Dell computers. Call your local ASP and find out exactly what they will cover of the warranty you paid for, and if there will be any additional fees. My mistake, I know, but the CSR assured me that gold international warranty would cover everything - I guess I should have asked him to be a bit more explicit.

So after leaving my D830 for warranty parts replacement last Monday, I was assured that everything would be completed on Wednesday. So Wednesday came and went and they said the parts hadn't arrived yet. So I was told to pick it up on Thursday, before lunch. Okay. When I called them, they said parts had arrived late and they would need at least another day to install them since the engineer was busy. Fine.

So I arrive on Friday morning, 2 hours after the promised pickup schedule. When I get there, they had just finished installing the parts and started running diagnostics. This was getting to me as I needed that system for work badly, and I'd been out of commission for nearly a week because of this.

When they complete the diagnostics, no errors were reported. So they booted up the OS. Guess what? The performance problem was still there. As if nothing had changed. The engineer proceeded to try to pin the blame on me and software I had installed. He said my system tray programs were the reason for the bog, and that I shouldn't install so many things.

To be clear, this is what I had installed since the last format:

1. Logitech Setpoint (for my VX Revolution)
2. Yahoo Messenger
3. Windows Live Messenger
4. MS Office 2007
5. Adobe Master Suite CS3
6. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
7. Some random assortment of five or so sidebar gadgets.

Tell me, are these programs enough to cause my processor to peak and hang around 98% activity for half an hour? Even when no programs are running?

What gets to me is that it seems like a full format and OS installation is the only solution they have to any problem. Like I mentioned in earlier threads, I've taken my system to them three times, and they've charged me $35 for every incident - which, coincidentally, always ended up in a full system format and OS reinstallation. This time around, with the installation of replacement parts, my "diagnostic and service fees" are at $60. And they suggested the format just before I left my system with them (again). I wouldn't be surprised if they tacked on the extra $35 bucks for their kind consideration.

Times like these I wish I got a mac. Really. I'm almost sorry to say it.

 

Ignoring your other issues for the moment... here's what I do when my CPU usage is high and I'm not sure why:

Run taskmgr (ctrl-shift-esc is a shortcut)
Select Processes tab.
Make sure it's showing all processes... in Vista for some configs you may have to click a button that says "Show processes from all users". In XP you have to be an admin user (which is the default).
Click on the CPU column to sort by processor usage. You may have to click again to get it to sort with the high-cpu processes first.
Look at which processes are eating all your cpu. If you don't know what it is, Google the process name.